Ear Candy

 

Overheard in Museums

Listen carefully and you’ll hear the funniest, darned things at art museums.

 

Take Michelangelo’s David. I still remember the two Swedish blonds that stood beside me when I visited the colossal nude for the first time. “I wonder if David was Michelangelo’s lover,” one said. The second time I visited the David, an American couple viewed the statue in wonderment. The husband, in an almost-undecipherable southern accent, proudly announced to his wife (and myself) his favorite Michelangelo fact: “Did y’all know, Michelangelo (pronounced, Mike-jello, by the pudgy fellow) was an actu’l genius.” His wife turned to face him, her hands high on her waist, with a puzzled look on her face. “I’ve never seen concrete carved like that.”

The Murals

I still remember the first mural I saw in Belfast.

Painted on the side of the Sinn Fein offices, in a Catholic-dominated neighborhood, is Bobby Sands oversized face. He was a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), and a hero after his publicized death in 1981. Covering the entire side of the office building the mural stretches two stories high; below his smiling face a sparrow breaks free of a chain; and above his head an eagle breaks freee. A famous quote said by Bobby borders the portrait: “Anyone republican or otherwise has their own particular role to play… our revenge will be the laughter of our children.”

Bobby’s mural is one of many. It can stand as an incredible visual image, but it’s also an integral part of a larger body of political, social, and historical murals in the city. The murals of Belfast, as a collective, are incredible for their ability to turn art into tools of awareness—an achievement that’s as impressive as it is lasting.

Beauty in the Eye of the Toilet Bowl?

Remember Marcel Duchamp’s infamous 1917, “Fountain”—the French artist took a man’s urinal, turned on its side, and miraculously it was sculpture. But the conservative art show to which Duchamp submitted his piss pot wasn’t impressed. The “Fountain” was never displayed and the original was lost. Today we only have Duchamp’s commissioned replicas to enjoy.

Don't you want to just take a whiff?

And then there’s Piero Manzoni—a 1960s conceptual artist, who canned his own waste. He also included every undesired detail: the net weight (30 grams) and the date it hit the tin. Today amateurs repeat his stunt at www.poopreport.com

Napoleon’s Egypt

Think Egypt and you might think of Elizabeth Taylor’s classic film “Cleopatra”, or The Bangles 1986 hit, “Walk Like an Egyptian”, or try Brendan Fraser’s ridiculous adventures in “The Mummy”—the movie’s tagline speaks straight to Hollywood’s outlandish versions of ancient Egyptian culture: “The sands will rise. The heavens will part. The power will be unleashed.” Yea right.