When it comes to art I'm quite traditional. I admire classic
oil paintings of landscapes, representational portraits of people and statues of
famous kings and queens etc. That being said I'm not averse to some
non-naturalistic styles. Shamanic and psychedelic art fascinates me; painters
like Neil Hague http://neilhague.com/, Pablo
Ameringo http://www.ayahuascavisions.com/pablo-amaringo-paintings-1.html,
and Alex Grey http://alexgrey.com/. However
I draw the line at dirty beds, dead cows and crucifixes in urine. Those famous
"exhibits" are some of the milder horrors that lie within the deepest
darkest vaults of the Tate Modern. I'm afraid I consider such works tasteless
and meaningless. However occasionally a post-modern artwork comes along that makes
me take a second look. Patricia Piccinini is a sculptress from Australia
who not only has genuine talent, but produces creations that are remarkably
thought-provoking; if no less macabre than her second-rate contemporaries. Her
sculptures sometimes portray horrific surreal mutant figures; often human body
parts arranged in a grotesque way. Seedling
(2015) is a good example, see: http://www.patriciapiccinini.net/348/91.
Often she'll show strange animals that appear to be hybrids of two or more
species, very often including human, like The
Young Family (2002) http://www.patriciapiccinini.net/144/45.
The most disturbing of all Piccinini's images are ones which depict these aberrations
alongside natural human figures such as Doubting
Thomas (2008) http://www.patriciapiccinini.net/103/45,
and The Carrier (2012) http://www.patriciapiccinini.net/44/2.
In 2016 Patricia Piccinini was employed by the Transport
Accident Commission of Victoria as part of their "Towards Zero"
campaign; to reduce road traffic accidents to the lowest figure they could
achieve and make the roads as safe as possible. She had to imagine what the
human body would look like if evolutionary natural selection over many
generations favoured the ability to survive car crashes. The result was Graham (2016) http://www.patriciapiccinini.net/388/2.
This being is barely recognizable as human. It has an extremely robust frame,
no neck and probably has bigger, thicker bones than natural humans. Such anatomy
is necessary to withstand the forces of high-speed road collisions. It reminds
me of a TV anti-smoking advert I saw as a child that gave me nightmares; the "world's
first natural born smoker", see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evIrwW6cLCg.
I wonder where Patricia Piccinini gets her inspiration from. According to the
Art Gallery of South Australia: "Piccinini
vividly recalled a simultaneous revulsion and fascination at the time of her
first foray into pseudo-eugenics when she created a lump-like creature from raw
pigskin... While the impetus to experiment with the creation of synthetic life
forms remains... (she) has an ambivalent attitude towards technology and she
uses her artistic practice as a forum for discussion about how technology
impacts upon life. She is keenly interested in how contemporary ideas of
nature, the natural and the artificial are changing our society. Specific works
have addressed concerns about biotechnology, such as gene therapy and ongoing
research to map the human genome. She is also fascinated by the mechanisms of
consumer culture." Does she know that, according to many witnesses and
whistleblowers from secret government scientific facilities, entities similar
to the ones she depicts actually exist? For example at the alleged Dulce Base,
see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBpG3YuXLE8.
I know the existence of Dulce is highly questionable; however organizations
like Project for the New American Century talk quite openly and seriously about
the theoretical use of biotechnology for their purposes, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/project-for-new-american-century.html.
Whatever the government talks about theoretically it is probably doing in
secret. "Graham" would not only be the ideal organism to survive a
car crash, he'd also make an excellent solider because his body might also be durable
enough to survive bullets, explosions and the effects of other weapons. It is
possible that Piccinini has come across some kind of information, somehow,
about what is really going on in secret underground bases; perhaps at Pine Gap
in her own country. Maybe she's even been influenced psychically. Then again,
her artwork could simply be the product of her very fertile and clever, but
also rather ghoulish, imagination.
See here for more
information: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/real-ape-men.html.
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