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Honest to God Art
Skuntry Museum Acquires "EXIT" by David Jefferson
"The piece is made out of red plastic," museum curator Chris King described the new acquisition. "It's about the shape and size of an exit sign you might see in a movie theatre. What I'm calling the front of the piece has been covered with a white material. Then the artist has made cuts into that white material in the shape of the word EXIT, which thus stands forth in the red of the underlying plastic. What I'm calling the back of the piece is signed by the artist, who has also marked it with the slogan LONG LIVE SKUNTRY!"
Prodded for an interpretation of the piece, King at first resisted, insisting that Jefferson's work spoke for itself. Then he said, "Much Modern art is angry, off-putting art that distances the viewer. What better way to distance the viewer than by telling him to leave? It could also be seen as the consummate self-referential artifact, art as exit when there is no place to go but into art itself. It's an exit sign to and from nowhere." The piece still needs to be formally installed by Cambridge skunk Perro, Museum Trustee in Charge of Landscaping and Bloody Marys, and his exquisite gal pal Esme.
Jefferson donated the piece along with a selection of BooRays and Enormous Richard flyers, which now form part of the museum's Lost Rock Band collecton. Included in the package was a personal note that said, "It's about time someone started a Skuntry Museum." The donation was in response to an acquisitions letter that King also sent out to several other Skuntry artists. It joins the museum's formal collection of art, which includes an oil portrait of deposed Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev by Matt Fuller, a print of Rosco Gordon by George Davidson III, several art and portrait photographs by Rick Hawkins and Andrea Day, and "Rock And Roll Party All Night," a large cartoon executed by a trio of Skuntry groupies from Louisville, Echo, Rhonda and Jude (last names lost to the mists of memory). "You don't have to have art to be a museum," King points out. "But it don't hurt. But let's say the acquisition letters don't drum up any more actual, quote-unquote art. As it is, we've got an autographed pair of Rosco Gordon gig shoes, a baseball autographed by the poet laureate of Australia and a fishing hat that Pops Farrar personalized with a Route 66 sticker. If that ain't a museum collection, then skunks don't stink." ***
Remember this guy? Remember when Russia was the only thing we had to be scared of? When Stink (aka Sting) was hoping that the Russians loved their children, too? At that time, in that bygone era, when The War was Cold and no one really thought they were going to get blown up while they were in America, Matt Fuller (aka The Invisible Hand), in his all-seeing but little-saying manner, painted this portrait of Gorby As Everyman, as lonely guy at the bowling alley, as humble man in flannel, as sad guy about to get bypassed by a world bend on its own destruction, human race as suicide bomber. The Invisible Hand saw it all, he saw it all with his paint brush and wry smile. And was it only the Hand who noticed the birthmark on Gorby's head is in the shape of Minnesota?
Skuntry Museum Acquires First Work of Sans Souci Artist Brendan Dulaney
"You have to jump on a piece like 'The Old Barn Tree,'" museum curator Chris King said. "The painting speaks for itself, and the poem has imagistic intensity equal to a William Carlos Williams. But there's that damn squirrel in there, running up the old barn tree." The squirrel is, of course, the enemy of skuntry, and remains locked in a cold war with the aesthetic and its museum.
King also noted that these pieces were the museum's first genuine purchases. "We asked the artist to name his price. He said five dollars. So we sent him $10, five bucks each for the two pieces. Last we heard he was stomping around his house, saying he was rich."
Inquiries about the artist and his portfolio should be directed to his agent and mother, Big Sue: bigsue@skuntry.com.
Skuntry Museum purchases "UFO Activity" by Joseph
"A small man sat quietly on the floor beside it and a few other pieces, sketching new work. New Yorkers are notorious for ignoring the most amazing things simply because they are being offered virtually for free in a subway tunnel - I know people have hurried past genius on the subway to catch mediocrity on the concert stage - and my first instinct, I confess, was to ignore this little image and its author, but something brought me back, and urged me to price it - $10, though when I didn't take it, but continued to admire the work, the artist came down to $8 . Finally, I did buy it, for the original price, mostly because I would feel like a heel to accept two singles in change from an apparently homeless man from the South Bronx named Joseph, not an outsider artist, for he works infdoors, but certainly an underground artist, for he works underground, in the subway, between 6th and 7th avenues."
 Last Modified: May 28, 2003 at 6:22PM (EST) |
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Gorby by Matt Fuller
The Skuntry Museum has acquired two pieces by Brendan Dulaney, who is at age five-and-a-half the youngest artist in the Sans Souci clan -- "The Old Barn Tree" (his first completed painting, with accompanying poem) and "My Grandma's Friend Had a Skunk Named Pepe Le Pew," a mixed-media piece that the museum commissioned in response to "The Old Barn Tree" which, though a masterpiece, does incorporate a squirrel.
King continued, "So I put it to the artist, via his grandmother, who happens to be my mom, Toots. I said: Give me something with a skunk. I believe a trip to the library was involved. And out came this mixed-media meditation (which included a pencil sketch and short story that we are not making available to the public via this digital medium at this time). Another masterpiece."
