I Still Don't "Get" Art

I gave art a hard time a while ago. And, according to lots of boring people on the internet, I couldn't have been more wrong. In the spirit of fairness, I decided to give art a second chance. After (scan) reading through all of those Reddit comments to see where I might be going wrong, I took my newly opened mind down to the Frieze Art Fair in London.

Walking in, this lady was the first thing I saw. On a normal day I would have seen her Primark clothes that she customized with cuddly vaginas and been forced to fight the urge to shake her to death while screaming "GROW THE FUCK UP!" But I guess she did put a lot of effort into making that thing, and what have I done with my time that's so special? Gotten stoned and watched Channel 4 On Demand? And, even if it's not my cup of tea, there must be some people out there who like it, right? And it's good that she's expressing herself? And it certainly does accentuate her back cleavage? I'm trying.

My first impression was that maybe this was creating a juxtaposition between corporate logos and freedom fighters (?) to make you think about capitalism 'n' stuff. But that's like something I would have done when I was 15 and this is a big international art fair so HOPEFULLY it isn't that. The L'Oreal canvas is bigger than the other two canvases. Maybe they're trying to say that clean hair is better than democracy and talking to people? Or that it's everyone's democractic right to have clean hair, now? That's what I love about art, it can mean so many different things.

This piece spoke to me a lot more clearly. It's dealing with themes of getting the fuck out of Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt and Iraq (cock face).

I just googled the artist, and she's almost 70 years old. So I guess maybe it's OK to do that kind of stuff in art? Or maybe that's part of the joke? Like, she obviously painted the image to look primitive and amateur, so maybe she's deliberately using Rock Against Bush-level politics to make her targets seem primitive and amateur, too? IDK.

It was a little more difficult to pin down the themes of this one, but I'm sure I'll be doing the dishes one day and then suddenly be like, "Oh yeah."

There were a lot of these neon lights hanging around. They were part of a larger series that were "critiques of the neon sign through the medium of the neon sign." I don't know why you'd want to criticize neon signs. What have they ever done to anyone? Still, I guess it's a nice change from artists taking lazy potshots at corporations and Amerikkka all the time.

Oh.

Hey, is this an art exhibition or a fashion shoot? I didn't stand in line for half an hour for "Hitler Graceland" just to see an androgynous European exchange student swanning around in a pair of ill-fitting TK Maxx jeans. Take your arm out of the way, you idiot! You're getting in the way of the message!

Artists are often accused of endlessly prevaricating, but to be fair, I feel like this is the easiest way to tell someone that it wasn't exactly The Brady Bunch for you growing up.

And what the fuck is this, now? I am OUTRAGED.

You probably saw this guy in the papers. He's trying to sell a couple of boats at the fair. One is a superyacht that costs 60 million euros if bought from a regular superyacht shop, but he's selling his for 75 million because it comes with a certificate that officially designates it "art."

Actually, you know what? Fuck this guy and fuck this gross idea. Not just because I'm mad I didn't think of it first, this is disgusting and wasteful. Can't some people come and #occupy this pile of shit instead? I'm sorry if it makes me a phillistine, I just can't look at this and not see anything other than a ridiculous waste of time and money.

Full disclosure: I didn't read the artist's statement because it was majorly TL;DR, but presumably it's making some kind of comment on women and body image and pain and blah blah blah. I guess it looks pretty enough, but it's not really presenting you with any new information in the way that a newspaper or a Wikipedia article would. You're just thinking about something that you already know about. So is the idea of these shoes with pins on just to make you stop and think about how shitty high heels are for a few seconds? Fine, high heels are shitty. What happens next?

This one was called "My Motherland Can Fuck Your Fatherland." Can't we just go back to using MySpace to air political views like this? It would be cheaper and, really, MySpace just looks nicer than this does.

I'll leave you with this piece. A performance by some people called Callum Hill and Adham Faramawy, the latter of whom, I am told, is VERY cool and important. I'm not gonna spend any time trying to figure out why, or what it might mean, because it doesn't mean a fucking thing. All you need to know is that these guys excercized shirtless…

While this poor, mislead girl got "FRIEZE 2011" and "FUCK IT" tattooed on her head. Now that's an artist statement I can get behind. Great job everyone!