Monday 17 March 2014

One for the "Are you for REAL?" Department

...As the school kids asked Sun Ra in Space is the Place, as he crash landed into their school, bedecked in outer space Egyptian finery...

People who are Deadly Earnest (Das Blutige Ernst) must be exhausting to be around unless you are one of their kind. To wit:

(in the gallery journal where visitor comments are recorded at Tatey)

"Complaint from two female visitors about the heteronormative use of the word "male" on the wall - extended label from Barbara Kruger's "Who Owns What?". They felt that the word "male" should be removed as it was discriminating against (LGBT) and the words "adult viewer" would be more appropriate..."

The sentence in question talks about the established historical fact that for centuries, artists (almost overwhelmingly male) focused their attention on the female form, for the benefit of a largely male audience of patrons and gallery visitors. It then goes on to say that Barbara Kruger wanted to question this, as well as make a comment on the increased commodification of human beings. 

In this context, changing the wording would render the whole sentence nonsensical. 

Are they members of SCUM? Do they want to obliterate the male of the species, starting with grammatical/grimoire word magic?

Looking for prejudice where there simply isn't any trivialises it for all minorities, who experience very real expressions of hate daily (a holiday in sunny Uganda or Russia anyone?)

Also, while we're at it, I find this American-style (the Deadly Earnest part of American society anyway) proliferation of categories exhausting - so many signs, symbols and signifiers - you've no chance of getting out of the forest of verbiage in one piece. 




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