If Only She Could Get Over Her Vagina
Annette Messager’s show À mon seul désir has a relaxed, unfussed immediacy that screams veracity.
Yes, we’re visiting the art world, the pages of Hyperallergic – “a forum for serious, playful, and radical thinking about art in the world today.”
The white walls of the space are copiously hung, salon style, with a mélange of disquieting drawings and small, black, figurative sculptures.
Oh dear. Never go full mélange.
[T]he artist really delivered the feminist mayhem she is known for, presenting a series of fresh and topical works that may just as well have come from the mind and hand of an artist half her (73) years.
Or even, as we’ll see, some fraction smaller than that. Readers curious as to what form this “feminist mayhem” takes will be thrilled to hear that Ms Messager has “created an eccentric menagerie of mythologies suggestive of the complexity of the female body, therein exploring concepts of the feminine.” Specifically,
Messager takes as subject free-flowing breasts, uteruses, and menstruation, pushing her ongoing artistic probe of the female body from outside and within… Perhaps the strongest works here are the loosely-drawn, menstruation-based pieces. “Mon Ketchup” (“My Ketchup”) focuses on the red menstrual flow of a seated woman with her panties around her ankles.
Behold, ye mortals, and tremble.
This, then, is the high point of the exhibition. Or put another way, it’s all downhill from here. And so we arrive at an artistic feat titled “Mon utérus à mon désir” (“My Uterus to My Desire”) and which, we’re told, “depicts an anthropomorphised, left-handed uterus, flipping the bird.”
The reviewer, an artist and author named Joseph Nechvatal, is rendered breathless by this endeavour. For him, it “sums up the intensity of the show… female flesh enacting insolence.” Well, the disdain is hard to miss. Though, given the hackneyed themes and general incompetence, which we’re expected to find both sufficient and compelling, perhaps while rubbing our chins, I can’t help wondering at whom said disdain is actually being aimed.
Incompetence. Look closely at the bird being flipped and see if you can make any sense of it. For a start it seems to be flipping off back to front.
Also, desir should have an acute over the e.
It’s not clear what kind of “intensity” we’re supposed to be experiencing, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t an aesthetic one.
Ok, I’ve read your entire post but I’m not sure I should click on any of the links. I feel I may not like what I see.
All these years I thought I was hopeless at drawing, but now I realize I have a “raw drawing style”.
Crap art + vagina! = ‘fresh and topical’.
The so-called artist is 73? How much longer is it going to take her to (a) grow up, and (b) acquire a modicum of artistic ability? She should call it a day and find another, less taxing, pastime.
I imagine these clowns must get terrible muscle strain from patting themselves on the back so hard. The whole exhibition seems entirely predictable, political ‘art’ whose targets are only those who won’t respond with anything more that a weary shake of the head.
Re: Femen, I know it’s wrong, but this always gives me a chuckle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivT-I-yxtdY
Well, I for one am grateful the reviewer translated “Mon Ketchup.” We proles here in the hinterlands need that sort of intercultural assistance.
Well that settles it, if my time in Paris is limited, the Louvre and Orsay are off the list and the Marian Goodman on.
The artist, however, has some serious competition as Super Uterus takes on Trump:
Meanwhile, defective uteri are recalled.
Keep uterus away from children…heh.
Crap art + vagina! = ‘fresh and topical’.
By the way, if anyone had generously assumed that Ms Massager was just having an off day, and is otherwise heaving with talent and profundity, think again. Despite her limited abilities and their uninteresting results, and despite an apparent indifference to aesthetic standards of any kind, Ms Massager has received several prestigious awards, including the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale and the Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award.
Wasn’t there a song called “the ketchup song” done by las ketchup?
If I recall it was in gobbeldygook but had a nice tune.
Almost like the subject at hand, (very) light entertainment but ultimately does not make sense.
Ah, found it on our favourite site https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AMT698ArSfQ
I wish that I could afford to purchase “Mon Ketchup”. I’d post it in the women’s bathroom of my restaurant just above the sign that says “Employees must wash hands before returning to work.”
On a more dignified note, does she make a good living selling her art or is she independently wealthy? She does have some fame after all. I always find the question of who are the art patrons that find her art worthwhile an interesting one.
I always find the question of who are the art patrons that find her art worthwhile an interesting one.
Yes, and it’s quite surreal to watch critics, curators and interviewers fawning over the most unremarkable toss. A search of YouTube reveals people claiming to have been “moved” and “inspired” by the tat on offer. (The first 40 seconds or so of this interview are inadvertently comical.) I can’t decide whether these people are delusional or just indulging in role-play and pretending to have feelings that they think they ought to have in order to maintain their imagined status above the likes of thee and me.
The first 40 seconds or so of this interview are inadvertently comical.
Wow. Someone should loop that.
Wow. Someone should loop that.
And it would be indistinguishable from satire.
Will someone explain to me the rarefied distinctions between “insolence” and “refusing to act like an adult”? As a patriarchal shitlord, I really can’t see the point of infantilizing lefty women when they’re doing such a fine job already – also, it should be a crime to reach age 73 and the time of second childhood without ever having left the first.
I assume some of these “paintings” are in excess of one foot square? They’re eligible for the giant vaginas tag, you know.
For a start it seems to be flipping off back to front.
The uterus is inadvertently flipping itself off, because it can’t resist presenting itself with the analog of a penis, which it secretly desires.
I assume some of these “paintings” are in excess of one foot square? They’re eligible for the giant vaginas tag, you know.
The one above, the one giving the finger, looks like it’s a little larger than life size, but does that qualify as giant…? I mean, compared to the others tagged as such, it’s almost petite.
Well, I for one am grateful the reviewer translated “Mon Ketchup.”
I notice the reviewer didn’t translate “À mon seul désir” presumably because “mon ketchup” was at the limit of their abilities.
I mean, compared to the others tagged as such, it’s almost petite.
Probably true, but you don’t have an “excessively large vaginas” tag. I’d think anything of around life-size “Hottentot Venus” and up probably should register as giant, but I’m far from an expert.
I fear the ice of decency is cracking beneath our feet.
Might have to bin the decency and just be sufficiently polite for nobody to notice.
Wow. Someone should loop that.
Want to provide start/stop points? Do you want subtitles? Special effects?
Classic art-uh? sculpture? eh_canadiana? WTF? oh well provocatif- oh well Nonhttp://www.ajc.com/news/national/electoral-college-vote-live-updates-state-state-voting/sy5C2hooqtnMG8tEviTATN/
a crime to reach age 73 and the time of second childhood
Hey! Just be careful where you’re casting your ageist aspersions!
[ Fetches comfy chair and footstool for Lisboeta. ]
She should call it a day and find another, less taxing, pastime.
I don’t think she minds as long as she’s a tax consumer, which I presume to be the case.
I think the entire exhibition is a recruiting tool for the gay community…
On the other hand, I have seen worse: http://bit.ly/2cEVGnh
Just be careful where you’re casting your ageist aspersions!
Not to say that one *has* to enter a second childhood at 73, just that it’s in a word allowed. Mme. Messager, on the other hand, could do so completely unnoticed from her first, with no intervening adulthood. Seems unfair, somehow. Cheating.
Lisboeta@11.39 – another, less taxing, pastime; how about…. death
The uterus is inadvertently flipping itself off, because it can’t resist presenting itself with the analog of a penis, which it secretly desires.
It clearly shows the ingrained misogyny inherent in the female persona and the devastating influence of patriarchal ownership of the female form as it pertains to the colonialization of women as strictly a means to a procreative end. Clearly the uterus is flipping itself off because it hates itself and is unaware that it will never live up to the body image forced upon it by capitalism’s anti-fem framework.
And don’t even get me started on the racial connotations of having all those red, brown, and black art fixtures installed on pristine while walls. Why it’s almost as if the oppression of the entirety of wymynxhood is speaking through her, crying out for justice and equality.
The white walls of the space are copiously hung,
I’m copiously hung, too, but somehow I don’t think Ms. Messenger would consider that art.
Fetches comfy chair and footstool for Lisboeta
Nothing less than a credit note will assuage that unwarranted ageist slur!
“On a more dignified note, does she make a good living selling her art or is she independently wealthy?”
She is probably supported by the French taxpayers…who would buy that crap?
My patriarchal eye suggests that the uterus is lacking a cervix.
I’m shocked at how insensitive this is to transwomen. This association of femininity with genitalia is regressive. Don’t they know that not all feminine women have vaginas ?
Da white wallz be rasis!
The ‘art’ ‘world’ seems to be retrogressing both in technical abilities and in perspective. The Lascaux cave demonstrate a mastery of technique sadly lacking in today’s ‘art’ and ‘artists’, such as Messager, have an infantile fascination with their own excreta and orifices.
What is more appalling than Messager’s ‘art’ is the deliberate fraud being perpetrated by Nechvatal. No one not confined to Bedlam can honestly make the claims he does.
Any saggy tits?
For research purposes.
Hey, it just occurred to me that these credit notes may have value beyond their face value.
Anybody else remember Don Knuth’s promise to readers of the first 3 volumes of The Art Of Computer Programming? The first error reported would get a check for $ 0.01, the second $0.02, the third $0.04 etc.
Apparently, most of the checks were never cashed, as their value as collectors items greatly exceeded their face value. Even the last one, which was (IIRC) written for something on the order of $ 3000.00. (2E19 = $ 2621.44 )
I fear the ice of decency is cracking beneath our feet.
Here y’are.
Why why why is the uterus SO FRIGGIN’ IMPORTANT to these hackish hags? Oh, and Lena Dunham says she hasn’t had an abortion, but wishes she had had one. I hate her, because there are too many “hads” in that sentence. I hate all of these uterus-focused hags, really. It’s like, why not get all up in your spleen or your uvula?
The uterus is important because it is immutable that the “others” do not have one. This means the uterus owner can be superior despite accomplishing nothing, something they are good at.
What is more appalling than Messager’s ‘art’ is the deliberate fraud being perpetrated by Nechvatal.
The bad faith is hard to miss. It almost suggests a dismal co-dependent relationship, the unspoken basis of which is, “You pretend that I’m talented and I’ll pretend that you’re clever for seeing how talented I am.”
“…pushing her ongoing artistic probe of the female body from outside and within…”
*resists urge to yell ‘Ooooo, Matron..!*
“…pushing her ongoing artistic probe of the female body from outside and within.
=====
As they aould say on Archer…..
phrasing!
Q&J
James, while John had had “had”, had had “had had”; “had had” had had a better effect on the teacher.
Your welcome… 😉
wtp–ACK.
Picasso had periods too, but they were better than Messager’s.
“[T]he artist really delivered the feminist mayhem she is known for, presenting a series of fresh and topical works that may just as well have come from the mind and hand of an artist half her (73) years.”
That’s a vast understatement. I know that ‘this looks like something a kid did’ is the most dull and cliched thing you can say about a piece of abstract art, but her stuff really does look like it was done by a pretentious teenager trying to impress her feminist art teacher.