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.”

Again, feast thine eyes. 

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. 

Menfolk, avert your eyes:

“How long, on average, do you go without washing your bra?” 

I, for one, have learned something today.

In progressive academia, you must watch what you say, even in jest:

“I decided I’d try something a little different, but maybe it was a little too outside… I apologise if I offended anyone, that certainly wasn’t my intention,” [café operator Sandor] Dosman said. “I wouldn’t have done it if I knew this was going to happen. I have no job now.”

The details of Mr Dosman’s unforgivable transgression can be found here. 

Readers may wonder whether Mr Dosman’s sudden unemployment was the result of students actually being offended on account of their improbably delicate sensibilities. Or more to do with the thrill of exerting power over an easy target, and the kinds of personalities attracted to such things.

Via RTW.

Don’t let Santa eat your children. // Curveball. // Christmas yet to come. // Soho striptease clubs, 1958. // The random Burroughs. // Made of balloons. // Bug-eating utensils. For when you want to look stylish while chewing on that scorpion. // I guess Picasso didn’t age well. // Why parents rarely want their children to be artists, part 17. // His disco glitter ball is bigger than yours. // Government. (h/t, Peter) // Radio garden. Browse stations of the world. // Handwriting robot. // These guys mimic animatronics better than you do. // Finger pillory, for mischievous urchins and the generally obstreperous. // Tiny paper engine. // The appeal of leaves. // Be like Hank. (h/t, Ben) // Wrinkled rocks. // And finally, gustatorily, it turns out that it’s possible to taste garlic with your feet.

Newcomers and the nostalgic will be thrilled to hear that the greatest hits archive has (finally) been updated. Among the additions are Laurie Penny’s not-at-all-disastrous lifestyle advice, how not being fat makes you an oppressor, why your erotic preferences are in need of egalitarian correction, and the Guardian’s Sarah Marsh on the traumatising horror of being offered free cake.