This porno image that popped up accidentally on a BBC1 lunchtime news item on the Royal Academy certainly tickled the Guardian’s Media Monkey. But they didn’t say that it’s the work of the artist Mat Collishaw, a former lover of Tracey Emin who selected his work among others for the Summer Exhibition. Titled In “The Old Fashioned Way, 1992” it’s a Victorian-flavoured giant automated black and white image of a zebra having sex with a blonde woman. Mat is not a household name like Emin or his friend Damien Hirst but I suspect that’s about to change.
11 comments:
Is that Brian Sewell standing in line?
I am still in shock
This is what happens when David Attenborough turns his back.
Mat Collishaw is already an established artist and has no desire to become a household name, in my view. Why would he? The Guardian piece was puerile.
This reminds me of those wonderfully provocative movies by Walerian Borowczyk (particularly "The Beast"). Total mythological fantasy, of course. In real world a woman would be seriously injured by a zebra's or a horse's member.
It's connotative of Catherine The Great and her reputed equine activites in the stables (or imperial bedchamber): the stuff of febrile sexual fantasy. The great thing about mocdern art is that mere articulacy of interpretation and criticism is sufficient to add to dimensionality of view.
That's right
After viewing this extraordinary "picture" I did some research and discover that it is indeed automated. From one side all you see is innocuous wheels and pistons and whatnot moving about. But on the other side you see this zebra humping the woman. The whole thing stands about 7 feet tall. This is arty?
Well, I suspect wheels and pistons moving about aren't innocuous any more in the context... The bestiality scene might be some kind of a key to the exhibition.
Will madame arcati stop being such a tool in posting comments with big words for the sake of it rather than any actual need? Putting in "mere articulacy of interpretation and criticism is sufficient to add to dimensionality of view" does not make you sound clever, it makes you sound pretentious and i'm not entirely sure it even really makes sense. Talking and criticising what you see in the image adds further dimensions to said view? Hmm well maybe I am just a pleb with no artistic knowlege, but at least I understand that modern art is seldom deeply thought provoking and more often than not just shocking for the sake of being shocking while wearing the coat of being meaningful.
Miro had it right. Emmin, Hurst and the Zebra man do not.
I know that all artists have to draw their inspiration from somewhere, and I don't want to dilute Collishaw's reputation for being modern and shocking, but I wonder if anyone else has noticed the similarity of this to one of a series of works by the dusty old expressionist Walter Klemm (1883-1957)?
You can see what I mean here:- http://www.museumofbestialart.com/035.html
Post a Comment