Grow the Eff Up Artsy people

[Boges]

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/05/17/nude-painting-of-harper-raises-eyebrows

KINGSTON, Ont. -- He's relaxed on a chaise lounge chair, leaning back but staring out at the viewer with a slight smirk as people surround him, a woman offers him a Tim Hortons coffee and a dog rests comfortably beside his leg.

In contrast to the suits that surround him though, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is completely naked.

The oil on canvas painting, entitled Emperor Haute Couture by artist Margaret Sutherland, is raising eyebrows at the Kingston, Ont., library where it is currently on display in a room.

"It's a political satire of a contemporary political figure," Sutherland told QMI Agency. "A classic pose using a contemporary figure."

Sutherland added it's a modern take on Edouard Manet's 1863 painting, Olympia.

The five-foot-long painting was unveiled earlier this month during the Kingston Arts Council annual juried art show. The piece is selling for $5,000.

Not knowing what was headed their way before the painting arrived, the library had a difficult decision on what to do with the Emperor, chief librarian Patricia Enright said.

Can't artists find something more constructive to do with their generous government grants? This is trash! It's not even original.

Edited May 18, 2012 by Boges

[Shakeyhands]

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/05/17/nude-painting-of-harper-raises-eyebrows

Can't artists find something more constructive to do with their generous government grants? This is trash! It's not even original.

Where do you see that she receives any grant money?

and for the record, I would have added moobs to him, and a tiny package, solely for the laughs.

[Michael Hardner]

It sounds prett original to me. Could you have done better?

[Wild Bill]

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/05/17/nude-painting-of-harper-raises-eyebrows

Can't artists find something more constructive to do with their generous government grants? This is trash! It's not even original.

Most popular art is brainless. This attempt at satire is like gangsta rap - no real depth, just profanity and shocking images. Instead of true wit we see locker room humour. Supporters bray like teenagers because they will bray at anything that attacks someone on their "evil" list, like Harper.

Folks might like to google up "spendthrift heirs". Once again, we are witnessing a social race to the bottom...

[Michael Hardner]

I don't think it's so bad. Conservative PMs willingly posed nude a generation or so ago, so it's following a tradition of sorts.

[Guest Manny]

Most popular art is brainless. This attempt at satire is like gangsta rap - no real depth, just profanity and shocking images.

Yes and in each era, art imitates life.

[BubberMiley]

I feel sorry for people who have to go through life without any sense of humour whatsoever. The world must be terribly confusing to them sometimes.

[jacee]

A dog?

What happened to the kittens?

I can't imagine wanting to put that in your livingroom!

But it'd be funny to see.

[g_bambino]

This is trash!

Your opinion.

It's not even original.

Where's the original?

[g_bambino]

But it'd be funny to see.

It's here.

[Topaz]

We know that's not his body unless the artist has seen him nude but here's a link to a picture without the black dot., nothing to look at, I'll stop there. http://www.bourque.org/

[TheNewTeddy]

It was done to purposely offend and bother people. AKA it is "edgy".

[BubberMiley]

It was done to purposely amuse and humour people. AKA (ergo?) it is "funny".

Edited May 18, 2012 by BubberMiley

[g_bambino]

It was done to purposely offend and bother people.

Visual art doesn't have a sole purpose to provide banal wall decoration, just like music's main raison d'etre isn't background noise.

[GostHacked]

The Emperor has no clothes.

[guyser]

The Emperor has no clothes.

And no treadmill....apparently.

[Shakeyhands]

It's here.

Whoops... my bad, the artist did paint him a tiny package.... Yowsers!

[Moonlight Graham]

If someone gave that to me, I'd put it up in my home. It's funny IMO.

[BubberMiley]

I just hope to god no one makes a similar Rob Ford one.

[kimmy]

I think it's funny. I see it as being about on a par with parodies of The Last Supper that replace Jesus and the apostles with familiar faces from pop culture. Or parodies of Michelangelo's God and Adam painting that have God lighting Adam's cigarette or so on. Putting a silly contemporary spin on classic artwork is fun, and to me it seems like this painting is in a similar vein.

-k

{reminds me a bit of the episode of The Simpsons where Mr Burns hired Marge to do a painting of him.}

[Argus]

Where do you see that she receives any grant money?

and for the record, I would have added moobs to him, and a tiny package, solely for the laughs.

Cuz you're so much more 'clever' than the artist, right?

[Argus]

It sounds prett original to me. Could you have done better?

Don't get out much, do you? You think this was original? I mean, really?

It was juvenile, insulting mockery, which is about all we've come to expect from the Left.

They all think themselves so clever and sophisticated even though they don't have a single original idea, and what ideas they do have are replete with venom and jealousy.

I wonder how many of you would be sniggering happily if someone who didn't like you painted an unflattering naked picture of you and put it on the internet. Hey wait, don't juveniles do that all the time with photoshop anyway?

Yes, so clever. And a delight to the 'intellectuals' of the Left.

[Argus]

I don't think it's so bad. Conservative PMs willingly posed nude a generation or so ago, so it's following a tradition of sorts.

Perhaps you'd like to show us the examples of conservative PMs who posed nude.

BTW, spare us the one of Kim Campbell. She was entirely covered up in the picture.

But I'm sure you have many more...

[Argus]

I feel sorry for people who have to go through life without any sense of humour whatsoever. The world must be terribly confusing to them sometimes.

And I feel sorry for people whose sense of humor is at a level of fart jokes.

[bleeding heart]

Don't get out much, do you? You think this was original? I mean, really?

It was juvenile, insulting mockery, which is about all we've come to expect from the Left.

They all think themselves so clever and sophisticated even though they don't have a single original idea, and what ideas they do have are replete with venom and jealousy.

And yet the world of art and entertainment is disproportionately--vastly disproportionately--brimming with liberals/lefties, of course. And while there's plenty of dreck, the dreck is a direct result of market forces, of capitalism, not of lack of "originality" which you bizarrely believe to be inherent to lefties.

You're simply wrong.

Because all these liberal and lefty artists are producing massive reams of brilliant stuff, in music, visual arts, movies and literature.

And I think you know this.

On the other hand, go watch the new version of Atlas Shrugged, if you want to see the state of pop conservatism today. I hear it's quite impossible to love.

Edited May 20, 2012 by bleeding heart