[Sick of Art History!]
By LL

From Buzzcuts




It's been quite awhile since a new movement hit the post-modern art world. But now, get out your protective plastic covers- projectile vomiting has arrived. As practiced in two recent stunts by Canadian art student, Jubal Brown the results were startling though short lived. Brown chose to vomit on classic paintings he found "stale, obedient, lifeless crusts" as an attempt to "liberate individuals...from...banal oppressive representation".

After ingesting blue gelatin and cake icing on Nov. 2nd, Brown hit on his target, Piet Mondrian's "Composition in Red, White, & Blue" at NYC's MOMA. Witnessed by a few "lucky" museum patrons, Brown said the event wasn't stale like the rest of the art in the gallery. It lasted for only a few minutes "before they brought out the Kleenex and took it away". Buzzcuts does concur that Mondrian's geometric abstractions are a tad stifling; though for some HTML buffs on the web, the artist has provided creative fodder for such sites as Mondrian Machine and Mondrimat.

An earlier target of Brown's was Raoul Dufy's "Harbour at le Harve" which was treated to his special spew of red at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Fullfilling his goal of using all the primary colors he had plans to gush yellow on an unspecified painting. And it looks as though the way may be clear for him as the Toronto Globe recently reported that his school, the Ontario College of Art refrained from formally censuring him, much to the consternation of gallery owners. Glenn Lowry director of MOMA in NY said that the decision not to punish Brown "profoundly colors any future we have with the Ontario College..."

Another artist working with vomit as an art medium is Los Angeles' Keith Boadwee, though his pieces defile only delicate sensibilities rather than anyone's preexisting images. Boadwee prepared special ingestions that would create dramatic streams of projectile puke. The finished work was both the photographic documentation of the event and the colorful vomit abstractions.

Last year Boadwee offered 50 pieces at Ace Contemporary Exhibitions in L.A. that he created over a seven-month period by giving himself egg tempura paint enemas and then capturing the expulsions on canvas. In an article by Tom Christie titled "Painting the Town", Boadwee explained his impetus: "I wanted to prove that I can make just as good a painting as (the 'abstract expressionists') can with my butthole." Christie describes the video portion of the exhibition: "One tape features Boadwee creating the paintings, the other is made up of shot after shot of the artist squatting over the camera (covered by a piece of glass) and, er, painting."

["It's After The End Of The World So Why Not Dream Of Life.
The stuff of life is the fluid exchange of energy or information between living creatures. Without this constant orgiastic exchange life is crushed into an undead state of non-existence. This is the function of late-capitalism and its lap-dog, culture.

Life is Art, Art Is Life.
Our "Art" practices take two distinct forms, first is the treatment of as everyday life as art work, that is aesthetically composed for a more fulfilling experience. Secoundly is the sarcastic parody of contemporary popular art practice, for a bit of fun, and to add more dead weight to the carcass of art history in hope that it will eventually sink entirely from the eye of the public."-excerpt of Art Manifesto By Jubal Brown]

Buzzcuts respects the search for viable non-toxic art materials as we sit in the glow of our irradiated screen. And remember the next time the regurgitation urge hits, you don't have to just go running for the toliet. The world (as long as it's a safe distance from me) is your canvas.

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