Ha Ha Ha!!! – An Artist Walks into A Bar…

Artists can be such a pensive bunch. Taking ourselves too seriously. I felt the need to unload and laugh a bit and so I searched for my contemporaries who illustrated a sense of humor.  I discovered the quirky, the understated, the irreverent, the ecclesiastical – the what? – the downright facetious, and the hideously grotesque.  Take a look and judge the lmao to wtf?

Appropriation:

In 2011, the British beauty company Soap & Glory hired German sculptor Oliver Voss to promote the art of bathing. He made a splash in more ways than one; “Die Badende (The Bather)” stood at 13 feet high in Inner Alster Lake in Hamburg, Germany. The model, revealing only her head and knee caps, lay in a state of repose. Conflicting reports stated the piece possessed a span of 98 feet in length while another reported 67 feet. One report claimed her construction was of ”wood”, while another of “styrofoam and steel”. Controversy aside, “Die Badende” attracted tourists and boaters far and wide but brought the ire of one; district mayor Markus Schreiber told a German newspaper that “Die Badende” was “sullying the beloved lake.”

It seems that British humor and aesthetics collided with German prudishness. The company used the services of a crane to remove the amazon beauty and practiced the wise forethought to bring a mammoth towel: “Good thing, too – we expect she’ll be a bit pruny after her 10-day soak!” Chinese artist Liu Xue creates disconcerting sculptures in his hybrid half man-half beast pieces for the series: ‘We are the World’. Not much is written on the intent or medium of the artist online (at least not in English) and reports of the work go back to as far as 2013. The viewer is both repelled and drawn in at the same time. The monstrous rotundity of the torso, the protruding stomach and generosity of flesh are at sharp odds with the delicate curly-cue tail and piglet feet. The work is grotesque and speaks of unrestrained carnality.