Monday, January 17, 2005

THE ART BEFORE THE HORSE

I went to an art opening with a friend. My friend is an artist, so she don't have no money, and I guess she wanted to fill up on the free drinks and mixed nuts. She also thinks I need more cultural activities, fashion being shallow and art where you stand around looking at things you don't understand with people wearing intentionally bad haircuts being deep.

The gallery was called RAID and right inside the door was the first installation. It was a wall of pictures cut out of magazines of that girl from Sex in the City. Years worth ot fashion magazine and celebrity magazine pictures. Apparently this artist buys celebrity picture collections on Ebay and then instead of pasting them on the wall of her bedroom like the girl selling them prob'ly did, she put them on the wall of a gallery and made it art.

Next to it were several wall size portraits of beautiful women. Like a fashion magazine cover. Next to that was a series of men in drag, aiming for that look that comes naturally to a girl like I. I turned to my friend and pointed out her art was imitating me.

So we had a few dry roasted nuts on our way into an installation room painted all pink and gold and baby blue and saw the cutest unicorn except that it had Owen Wilson's face. Its intestines were filled with doll funiture and it was surrounded by cuddly-looking space aliens doing Munch's scream. My guess is the artist's mother never let her play with Barbie dolls, Barbie and her clothing being shallow. Still, being an artist is as good a way to deal with such childhood trauma as psychotherapy, and if you don't make money at it, at least it don't cost $250 an hour.

The unicorn, by the way, the one with Owen Wilson's face, it costs $5000, if you're interested. You probably can't take it home till the show's over, though.