Perfect Penis
He has the perfect penis -
The perfect penetrating penis.
Passive when passive – polite.
Placid when flaccid,
In peace e’en in passion.
Perfect in placement,
Intuitive judgment;
Not pushy, yet,
Passioned when pleasing
His partner, himself,
Each pleasured b’yond measure.
Paradox? No.
Who could want more?
A coupling of partnership
Plain unsurpassed.
Bless the unplanned!
Intensive and pensive
Spontaneous, sensitive practices,
Personal privacies wholly unpreened
That come from a pure
and
perfect penis.
The School of Postmodernism -- Vittorio Pelosi
Vittorio Pelosi on "The School of Postmodernism": It is influenced by "The School of Athens" by Raphael in the Vatican. It is a commentary on the subjectivity of postmodernism that can deny objective Truth. Whereas Raphael’s work showcases the great Greek thinkers of the past, my work represents the most notable postmodernists of our age. Whereas Raphael’s learned philosophers are encircled, discussing and recording their ideas, mine are gathered around a life model. (As much as possible, the postures of my subjects are similar to Raphael’s subjects.) I have chosen the setting of a life drawing session since life drawing has traditionally been seen as the discipline most concerned with objectivity. The central postmodern irony is that a careful look at each postmodernist’s attempt to depict the human figure is futilely seen through the lens of each postmodernist’s particular theories, making the class unworkable. The life model is clothed and the postmodernists, conversely, are naked. Apart from being postmodern in this reversal, this also has inferences of The Emperor’s New Clothes about their self-aggrandizement. The postmodernists are lit from electronic faux candles and the model is in the shadows. The faux candles hint towards Baudrillard's ideas of simulacra and hyper-reality. The lit up figures illustrate the irony that although Roland Barthes, Foucault et al have spoken of the "death of the author," through their writings they have become household names. The setting of Raphael’s work is purely inventive with a succession of central arches. The architecture did not exist and structurally cannot be built. The arches are so painted that they fake a greater depth and perspective in the work. My work mirrors that by taking place in the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery, designed by postmodern architect Robert Venturi, a site famed for its arches. The aligned arches perform the same visual trick, as greater depth is achieved by the building of each arch slightly smaller than the preceding one. In Raphael’s original are two iconic sculptures of Greek gods, Apollo and Athena. I have replaced these with arguably the "gods" of postmodern popular culture: David Beckham and Madonna.
ReplyDelete[She then explains each figure.] This is a depiction of 20th century French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. Deleuze wrote very influentially on philosophy, literature, and fine art. This figure replaces the artist Apelles in the same pose from Raphael's work. Here is French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator Jean Baudrillard. Baudrillard is a central figure in postmodernism and post-structuralism. Therefore, he is at the very center of the work and replaces Aristotle in the painting. Raphael paints Aristotle pointing down, as one of his greatest influences was in the field of empirical research. Baudrillard, on the other hand, is measuring the model with the same out-stretched hand. He is wearing a beret. This is because this hat is an excellent example of Baudrillard's simulacra as it has become more than clothing and represents a nation and the artist. Standing in the center is professor, French feminist writer, poet, playwright, philosopher, literary critic, and rhetorician Helene Cixous. Cixous was particularly critical of Freud and his analysis of gender roles through the Oedipus complex. Cixous was also interested in phallocentrism and how women can be defined by what they lack. In the painting, the feminist Cixous is shown as a mother-to-be and the ambiguity of sexual roles is illustrated in the fact that she is wearing male underwear. Intentiist palimpsestism (the layering of the art to reveal the creative and editing process) is clearly manifest in this image.
ReplyDeleteReplacing a statue of a Greek God in Raphael's work is a modern day icon of Postmodernism - David Beckham. The Sainsbury Wing houses Pre-Renaissance work which mostly consists of altar piece painting representing religious iconography. A god of Postmodernism, Beckham, is framed by a film negative, since what we think of him is as much from the paparazzi as it is from his football. The negative number is 7, which was the number of his jersey as well as being the biblical number of perfection. His back clearly shows his well known crucifix tattoo and the background hue represents Lapis lazuli, the expensive color often used in Venetian work to symbolize important religious figures such as the Virgin Mary. Working on a portrait here is American film maker and visual artist David Lynch. The woman on the canvas is not, however, the model but the Italian actress and lead actress in Lynch's postmodern iconic film "Blue Velvet," Isabella Rossellini. Sitting down is French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Derrida replaces Heraclitus and Michelangelo from the Raphael work. Derrida curated an exhibition of drawings at The Louvre in 1990. The opening image was Joseph-Benoit Suvee's "Butades," or "The Origin of Drawing." In it a young woman Butades, in coming to terms with separation from her lover, traces his shadow on the wall. Derrida said this was also the case in drawing. The artist cannot see the model and the canvas at the same time. The artist, in a sense, is always blind. Therefore, in the painting, we have a blind Derrida next to a blind man's white stick. He is tracing a shadow on his drawing. His work is initially signed and then crossed out. This is something Derrida has done himself as a reflection of identity and presence. (The device of erasure that Derrida borrowed from Heidegger.) He is leaning on one of Warhol's Brillo boxes. This is an iconic work that Danto called "the end of art." Finally, Derrida spoke of the chora that conjures up Plato's ideas of a receptacle for the copies of ideal forms. The chora cannot be represented, as it is a spacing rather than a presence. Tschumi suggested it can be represented architecturally and finally persuaded Derrida to draw something. The resultant box is by Derrida's right foot and is being used to store his brushes.
ReplyDeleteProvocatively seated, legs apart, is French philosopher, sociologist, and historian Michel Foucault. One of Foucault's major works was "A History of Sexuality." Foucault was also on several occasions found in compromising situations. He is wearing a cravat in the shape of the HIV ribbon, echoing the fact that the cause of Foucault's death in 1984 was AIDS. He replaces an unknown figure writing and dressed in red in Raphael's painting. Standing in the background is photographer, model, and film director, Cindy Sherman. Her canvas is a painterly re-working of one her most famous photographic self-portraits, "Untitled #96." One central tenet of much postmodern thought is that even when trying to be objective we are still seeing things through our own horizon. Everything in essence is a self-portrait. This figure is obscure in Raphael's work. It may be the Fornarina as a personification of love.
ReplyDeleteThe artist with his back to us is German philosopher Martn Heidegger. This figure is also mysterious in Raphael's work. Heidegger's work is a copy of Van Gogh's "A Pair of Shoes." Heidegger uses this work to discuss the hermeneutical circle in his work, "The Origin of the Work of Art." The life-model in the center of the painting is wearing similar shoes. Furthermore, the shadow of the Heidegger's easel resembles the swastika, as Heidegger had sympathies with National Socialism. A close look at this image will also see text layered over the figures. The text is in German and comes from Heidegger's "Origin of the Work of Art." For several of the figures there is text from a seminal work in the original language. The figure painting on the floor is Jackson Pollock. This is a replacement of either Euclid or Archimedes in Raphael's work. Jackson Pollock is engaged in Abstract Expressionism. Pollock would work on the floor, dripping the paint. He spoke that the work having "a life of its own" outside the artist - a concept that echoes the post-structuralist "Death of the Author" theories. Again there is text to Pollock's right explaining his painting theories. Below, sitting down, is French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist Jacques Lacan. Lacan spoke of "penis envy" and famously about the "mirror stage" in life where the ego has a conflict between one's own perceived visual appearance and one's emotional appearance. Therefore, in Lacan's painting we see a penis in reflection. The penis is leaning on a stick. Lacan greatly influenced the Surrealists. Dali would often have this stick present in his work.
ReplyDeleteThe image in the corner is from a Gilbert and George mural. "Death" is a commentary on Barthes' "Death of the Author" thesis. The other central image next to Baudrillard is the French philosopher and literary theorist Jean-Francois Lyotard. He replaces Plato from Raphael's painting. The book he is holding is his "The Postmodern Condition." Replacing one of Raphael's sculptures of Greek gods is one of the gods of postmodern popular culture: Madonna. Madonna is seen here as Munch's Madonna. This is because the Sainsbury Wing holds the Pre-Renaissance Christian iconography. Furthermore, Madonna has often been a controversial figure with the church. The frame of the painting is a television and the work is signed MTV, since her image is commonly seen through the glasses of her musical videos. On the far wall of the Sainsbury Wing is a painting called "The Incredulity of Saint Thomas" by Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano. Thomas is doubting the resurrection of Christ. In "The School of Athens" Raphael includes his own image on the far right. In "The School of Postmodernism," the far painting is a re-working of "The Incredulity of Saint Thomas" with Nietzsche and Vittorio Pelosi. Nietzsche has often been cited as a father of postmodernism. Pelosi, as Thomas, is doubting those aspects of postmodernism that utterly reject meaning of any attempt at objectivity. Architect Robert Venturi replaces Pythagoras in Raphael's work. His painting of the life model has a strong resemblance to Elvis Presley since one of Venturi's seminal texts was entitled "Learning from Las Vegas." Roland Barthes was a French philosopher, literary theorist, and semiotician. He is perhaps most famous for his text "The Death of the Author." Therefore, Barthes is wearing a black armband. His painting of the model is inspired by his extensive work on the signs encoded in wrestling. Salman Rushdie has often been cited as a postmodern writer. A fatwa was infamously placed on him for his controversial "Satanic Verses." Foucault once publicly supported the Islamic Revolution in Iran and so as a way of contrast, Rushdie is placed next to Foucault. The father of linguistics, Saussure, stands near the back. Saussure as a structuralist expressed that there is nothing intrinsic in the signifier to connect it to the signified. Instead meaning is found through absence in that we recognize a word because it is different from other words. Therefore, his painting by his feet shows the shape of the model by painting in the details only of her surroundings. Another infamous example of his thinking involved traffic lights in that they work by each color being clearly different from the others, instead of a color innately meaning "go" or "stop." Therefore, his paint pots by his feet are the colors of traffic lights. Andy Warhol, a postmodern pop artist icon, stands studying the model. Belgian feminist philosopher and linguist Luce Irigaray sits painting the model as the Virgin Mary, reflecting her interest in the female subject by adapting the most famous female figure. In a final postmodern twist the work is painted on a canvas that is in the dimensions of the golden ratio 1:1.61...(something that fascinated Greek thinker Pythagoras) but is painted on the underside of the stretched canvas, so that the stretchers are coated in gold leaf and become the frame. This ironic reversal of the settled order of modernism is a common postmodern theme.
ReplyDeleteIn Harlan Ellison's infamous science fiction anthology "Dangerous Visions," Carol Emshwiller had an amaing shoty story, "Sex and/or Mr. Morrison." Essentially it is about a female voyeur who comes to an amazing realization: "'Goodness knows,' I'll say, 'if I'm normal myself.' (How is one to know such things when everything is hidden?) 'Tell all of them that we accept. Tell them it's the naked suits that are ugly. Your dingles, your dangles, wrinkles, ruts, bumps and humps, we accept whatever there is. Your loops, strings, worms, buttons, figs, cherries, flower petals, your soft little toad-shapes, warty and greenish, your cat's tongues or rat's tails, your oysters, one-eyed between your legs, garter snakes, snails, we accept. We think the truth is lovable.'"
ReplyDeleteIs this your short comment? Well, thank you!
ReplyDelete"Short". Not the word you want to use when speaking of the male thing, Arlene. :))
Delete(blush)
ReplyDelete