Brain Farts: April 2005 Archives

Art theft. Because if some millionaire bastard can't have it, then no one can.

Rumor has it that Munch's "The Scream," stolen in August of 2004, might have been burned by the thieves in a panic to destroy evidence with the cops closing in. Lovely.

I was never a huge fan of "The Scream" in particular, and I still think the quoted estimate of what it could get at a legal auction ($75 million) is goddamn absurd. But I really can't think of a more degenerate use of obscene wealth than paying a mob of idiots to run off with a painting.

Which, of course, was probably painted by some poor sap who died in pauperdom.

Another request for movie recommendations.

Yeah, I know. I watch a lot.

Is there anything out there at all... a documentary, a biopic, anything... that might help me regard the Abstract Expressionist/Pop Art movements with anything other than remarkably violent loathing?

Because really, after enduring How to Draw A Bunny, I Shot Andy Warhol, the merest suggestion of anything Rothko, and an especially unpleasant year in art school, I'm beginning to wonder if there's something I'm just completely missing that's obvious to everyone else.

I have no idea what that something could be, but I'm assuming it prevents all of this uninspired crap from coming off as a raging torrent of self-congratulatory, circle-jerking horseshit pieced together by congentially incapable morons who made better party guests than artists.

So yeah. A little help, please.

EDIT: A review for the film How to Draw A Bunny from Netflix, by a guy calling himself queequeg. Far more elegant with its derison than I could ever hope to be, and quoted in its entirety.

I had some difficulty dredging up the purpose behind this piece of filmic treacle. Ray Johnson, the apparent subject at hand, is often an afterthought. My fury grew as the long-winded interviewees with the big names harped on and on about their own trivial mythologies. With my fist in the wall it all became clear. This movie is nothing more than a mawkish attempt to glamorize the most reprehensible movement in American history: the rise of the elite New York artist. It turns out (drum taps) that they're a delightfully incestuous society of waste and privelege, spending their days referencing each other's works and basking in the sinister knowledge that they've effectively duped an entire generation of wealthy jack-and-apes who blindly purchase "culture" and are handed crap. It's an ugly cycle deserving no pity. Save your Bile. Stay far away from this rank work.

<3.