How Dare You!

Jared Dreyer did this.

W. C. Fields once said, "There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation."

On the events page this week for "The (F)art Show," our new art exhibit curated by Golden Brown and opening tonight at Thunder-Sky, Inc., someone commented on another person's acceptance of the invitation to the show with complete and total outrage.  The thread has been taken down, but still it remains in my head, something along the lines of, "How can you go to this show?  It sickens me!  This is what is wrong with the art world today!  Instead of learning the craft, just doing these kinds of stunts.  It really is despicable."

Again I'm paraphrasing. 

But I think what the dude wrote was even worse, stilted and outraged and hilarious, concerning an art show that considers farting, instead of, I guess, the human form.  Or why women are mistreated in the workplace.  Or fame. Or any number of prosaic and lovely themes used for group shows all across the art-world universe.  (And what the hell is the "art world"?  Where is it?  Point it out to me on a map when you get a chance.)

What I'm getting at is that any subject an art exhibit tackles is completely arbitrary and doesn't necessarily mean anything.  The meaning comes from the work done, and how it's used in a show. Juxtaposed, installed, curated, the works in group shows spark off one another, and then you have a sort of compendium that addresses a subject without hopefully nailing it down, or even defining it at all.  "Farting" seemed like a really interesting and crude way to support this theory, and now that Kenton and David have installed, curated and juxtaposed the works they asked artists to make I feel pretty confident that you can make a really cool show out of anything, if you have the will, a sense of humor, and the balls to do it.

So back to the outraged dude on the Facebook events page.  Why did he feel the need to school the guy who had the unmitigated gall to accept the invitation to "(F)art"?  Beats me.  We're just small potatoes at Thunder-Sky, Inc.  Non-profit, not a lot of overhead, and absolutely no pretentiousness.  We scrape by and try to make shows that are funny, strange, thoughtful, and stubbornly what they are.  Because Raymond was all that and then some.  

Would Raymond like the show?  I bet he would.  Every toolbox we've archived is filled with joke-toys (like false-teeth with feet you wind up and they scuttle across the tabletop, etc.).  Plus he fashioned himself into a makeshift, slightly terrifying clown for Christ's sakes.  He had the unmitigated gall to go out in public in a clown costume and construction helmet, drawing buildings being torn down.  I'm sure that sickened a few people. 

Definitely not us.