Thursday, January 15, 2015
ESSAY: Serious Art: Towards a Unification of Haha and Hoohoo
A link to an essay published in the online journal 'Heathen Harvest'. This essay foolishly barges onto the blazing battleground between experimental art on one side and comedy on the other, and desperately waves the white flag.
It was published on the 15th of January, 2015, a good four months after it was submitted to the deeply apologetic Sage Weatherford for editing. Is it a meaningful piece of writing, or just kinda 'like duh'? You be the judge.
"If Serious Art is the good stuff, then clearly anything that is not Serious is the bad stuff. Anything that makes us laugh, that is deliberately playful, that is light of spirit, or that is silly, wacky, or a little bit dumb, is the direct opposite of Proper Art... you’re not an Artist anymore: you’re a Comedian."
Serious Art: Towards a Unification of Haha and Hoohoo
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Good stuff, homie. Two things come to mind: one defining moment for me as an artist was when my dad yelled at me once for playing around like a kid (I was making a collage) instead of doing something else which he thought was more grown-up. It was a moment of pure revelation: I WAS playing like a kid! And it was good! I get the feeling a lot of "artists" and/ or audience members forget that that's EXACTLY what artists are doing - playing, like kids in kidergarten. Singing songs. Drawing pikkies. Dancing in circles. Acting make-believes.
ReplyDelete2nd thing: an interview I saw or read with Cap'n Beefheart, where he said the difference between him and Zappa was that Frank worked on making all that music, whilst he (Beefheart) played. He saw himself as playing, like in a sandbox, lost to the world, caught up in the game.
Not endorsing arrested development here, but ... perhaps finding a way to "utilize it"... like a Zen master... the Tao of childsplay. Having FUN and therefore a giggle, and seeing just how silly it all is.
Serious art is all good as well, some things are not laugh-inducing (eg: "Me and a Gun" - Tori Amos - ain't no way that could induce giggles and it shouldn't), but like you say - some kinda platform of equality would be nice.
AND YET, I advise you to just embrace it. They shun you - fuck 'em, it's their loss. It's more fun to be the outlaw anyway!!!