I read New York Magazine regularly to give my brain a rest and to get new material. The magazine never fails. In every issue there is something worth poking fun at. This week’s cover was particularly offensive or hilarious depending on your point of view. The cover is a close up photo of a beautiful Asian model lovingly cradling a well manicured foot. Her mouth is dangerously close to the foot and looks as if she is about to give it some sort of happy ending. It’s basically a fetish shot. I was discussing the cover photo with some fellow comedians and one commented that the shot was simply playing on popular Asian stereotypes to sell a cheap rag.
“Fair enough.” I responded but they had gotten it all wrong. I wish my pedicurist was half that sexy. Most of the pedicurists I have had have looked as chewed up and haggard as I do when I bust in there (only from Mon. to Wed. to get the $20 mani/pedi deal). They then proceed to manhandle my hooves like pieces of meat until they mildly resemble feet again. Don’t get me wrong, I get what I pay for and there are other options if I don’t like. I am sure they would tell me both if I voiced that opinion in their shop.
The piece accompanying the cover is what you may expect- and attempt to lend a quasi sociopolitical scholarly angle to the fact that most women neither want to nor could maintain their own hands, feet, brows, bikini line etc to the standards that are set by the beauty industrial complex (aka Big Beauty). At the end of the day, dissertation findings aside, if you can pay someone do something for you which makes life easier you will do so. And yes, yes we know these women are exploited by other women who themselves are probably just narrowly escaping exploitation by exploiting others. Tell us something we don’t know.
The most interesting part of the article, relegated to a side bar, featured a woman who took her exploitative bosses to task and won. But if they had focused on her the article would have been transformative and empowering. Less time would have been wasted (I mean spent) discussing the women who receive the services and one fortunate and well paid soul who really enjoys providing them.
But back to the “tell us something we don’t know….”
Why is the article on page 90 about “You” at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise a review and not an expose? “You” by Urs Fischer is a gallery installation that consists of a hole in the ground. The “artist” spent $250,000 dollars to break through the floor of the gallery to create a 30 by 30 foot hole which reviewer Jerry Saltz upgrades by calling it a crater. I have never seen such an obvious use of a thesaurus in my life. It’s a hole in the ground! A hole that can’t even be sold to the ridiculously rich, money laundering, “I’ll by a carcass in formaldehyde if you say its art” crowd.
I hope someone falls in “You” and everyone gets sued. Or better yet I hope it rains and “You” becomes a puddle and then someone falls in it and everyone gets sued. In any case someone needs to get sued because there is some serious fraud going on. Mr. Saltz then has the gall to compare this work to actual art when he should be comparing it to, well, a hole in the ground, which it is. Apparently making holes is Fisher’s shtick. Nice work if you can get it. The real work of art here is the writer’s use of language to try to bring substance to “You” although really someone ought to sue him as well. Just because. This is what happens when people have no incentive to make money or contribute to society. I think the terrorists may have won.
0 comments:
Post a Comment