Author: herbeaton

There was a benighted age when art museums and other architecture claiming spiritual or civic value, would present themselves to the world with a guardian sculptural presence at the entrance.  Equestrian statuary was a favorite especially heroic-scale monuments to military conquests that benefited the local culture.

We who have planned this reunion of ancient and contemporary enfant terribles thought this idea was passé,  however numerous artistics from other eras demanded commissioned opportunities to supply the swirling manes, tails, feathered and braided hats, swords, guns, triumphant flags, and other sharply delineated military hardware.  There were sympathetic pleas (among the dead artists) about missed commissions; and agonizing testimonials of the breaking and remelting of their bravura bronze masterpieces, in order to cast cannon for the battles that saved their culture (or destroyed someone else’s).

We agreed that Illinois politico’s well-deserved reputation of saber-rattling  and daring calls for other people’s actions, should be immortalized in bronze.  The mock heroics and primal chants at political conventions which have occurred here often make strident calls for cannon fire.

Commissioning funds were limited, but we anticipate that imagination will be forthcoming and amply supply what is missing.  Thus we have chosen a quasi-historical heroic hobby-horse as the main guardian figure for the Temporary Museum of Enfant Terrible Culture.    “The Loose-Cannon”

To date the memorial plaque hasn’t been ordered but the docent’s script somewhat follows Yorick’s comment.  “Remember! All Hail  the Loose-Cannon! ‘Tis true! The odds have it!…even the loosest cannon will, now and then, be aimned in the right direction!”

True, but it is unlikely to be in balance…more on that next Saturday.

The Glorious Age of Myth, and barbarous times; sharing the same calendar pages and exhibit space at the Temporary Museum of Enfant Terrible Culture.

A complete overview of the anarchistic artistics and their emotion bombs should include a statue of heroic proportions commemorating  valuable moments from the Age of Myth and the Age of Anarchical History.  And so here it is.

It seems that the first sculpture to arrive for the opening of the Temporary  Museum of enfant terrible Culture is somewhat skimpy in terms of the flesh one normally expects from sculpture, especially bronze.  It is also a bit skimpy in terms of the attributes used for meaning, the iconography.

Yorick was asked to comment (because he is skeletal), after pointing out that everybody is skeletal “under the skin”, he denied any particularly useful comment.  Except to say,  that possibly this represents a couple of belligerents who arrived at Heaven’s Gate with the idea of renegotiating with the Divinity: and such is their reward.  Given the standard outcome, this might be the better Grace.

Also wandering about outside the tent were anarchists and hangers-on who offered interpretations that the sculpture was about “Honor”.   To whit, the sculpture is what remains after some dewy rural morning, or humid urban night, on the mythical (or is it barbarous), field of Honor.  The fatal stand-off with our fizzing bombs.

Or, we ask,  is the sculpture about what transparently foolish romantic absurdity accepts.  The irreducible fears and the frightened embodiment, one to another, of “until death do us part”.

More sculpture arrives…the guardian of our tent…next Saturday.

Tuesday morning, its’ already hot, muggy.

Zia maize, or more prosaic – corn.  Bounteous, bounteous, bounteous corn, swelling in the shucks, now feeding whitetail deer, raccoons, a few persistent insects and worms, awaiting the moment of dying, then drying, then to be taken away.

Tuesday midmorning; a wandering along, thickets and fields, where spring floods have returned to the banks, but the water still insists upon it’s dimensions, the air is damp.

Tuesday noon, lazy?  Heat and water, air and soil; the soupy food for bounteous, bounteous, bounteous green growth.  But He & She find it weakening.

Tuesday afternoon, some emotion? maybe.  But in the humid shade,  actions and nearness decrease.

Tuesday later, there is but a small slowing, genes delegate stalks and leaves, and (to our interest) kernels. Swelling to cattle-feed starch or crunched, smashed, and cooked into something to sell,  for our sustenance.

Tuesday dinnertime, picnic if you would like.  Bring what you want. Casual.

Tuesday evening, the heat is shaded, the humidity cools and clings; the mosquitos rise to feed bird and bat and dragon-fly.

Sacred Myth (and repast) and barbarous times (a full belly) share the same calendar page, the Past.  If Tuesday was sacred and Wednesday, Thursday, Friday – barbarous: we stand today and pray (or is it anticipate) a tomorrow.  Maybe some wisdom floats by.

Rejoin us Next Saturday at the tent, outside…

A poke of a finger brings some things to life.  Sometimes the brain just needs a poke to wobble into a new pattern, that’s what artistic anarchists claim to do.  Adjusting for a new reality the whole head should bobble, it’s a bit more noticeable.

Technical skill and audacity, wonderful thoughts, just what we here at the reunion of enfant terribles and Temporary Museum of Enfant Terrible Culture thought would make for terrific objects and events. As the tent is once again rebuilt we are taking time to plan in anticipation of active emotionalism.  And so we are thinking about the somewhat subtle, if not very clear, similarity between bobbleheads and nukes.

The original bobblehead is lost in obscurity, although there were proto-bobbleheads:  the Hawaiians, Asmats, various helmeted Greeks holding severed heads, and our own Yorick (to some way of thinking).  The bobbleheads of interest seem to be a commercial development based on the industrial sophistication of the  19th century that left someone flippantly in charge.

Should we consider bobbleheads sculpture or performance? Or possibly technological development?

Numerous have been those immortalized in these lively bits of novelty and repetition -true pop sculpture.  Fame gets one the gig for bobblehead notoriety.  So how is it one gets fame?   Upgrade the opportune moment for a flippant performance, emote nuclear!  Nukes have a scribbled history, the seem to be a more important outcome of the 19th century’s development – and they also respond to a poke. Surely some artistic emotive  enfant terrible will get hold of some plutonium nukes…for cultural purposes.

Some bobblehead just needs to poke the right place, to make the whole world wobble.

…rejoin us next Saturday.

Lifting one’s mind, that ephemeral contrivance so loaded, with what will we trust its’ bobble, wind? or an intimidators poke?

Yorick, our 16th century enfant terrible and skeletal bit of wisdom, has just walked out of the following pictured tent, enclosing the venerable white walls.

We who administer the tent, now budding into The Temporary Museum of enfant terrible Culture, have been meeting with the various factions.  First, issues of wires and hangers and frames and “desecration”of the white walls has been, well, whitewashed. Second, when we acquired the old circus tent an antiquated sign came with it, “E pluribus unum” it read, and we trusted it a suitable greeting for the variety we invited. Unfortunately the invited “pluribus” are of the opinion that anarchists, enfant terribles, and other intimidating artistics are to individual to become an “unum”.

There was an opinion for keeping the old sign as an encouragement for artistic interaction, camaraderie, and collaboration. The opposing side expressed an idea of having a trusted benevolence, unconnected to any group (save the most influential) to determine those activities; for individuals.  Yorick (the mentor and late jester of maybe the most individually intimidated enfant ever), was proposed as the benevolence. He is a category of one, a singularity among a lot of similarities. Yorick responded that he didn’t want the authority, and if he had the authority, he would dig the “e pluribus unum” sign out, and rehang it.

As the discussion (or rage), poking fingers, and emotion-bomb lighting continued, Yorick was beset by a plethora of anarchists calling for his ascendency. However few  were inclined to agree with him, or with we who have been trying to further this project.  And so he stepped out, as megalomania and fiery bombs reigned within.

And so he began making zephyrs, (doldrums are now on the prairie); and finding fruitful employment swirling soap bubble bombs.

Little enfants (his “unum”) enjoy this sensible specter of death; and for the pluribus (?), they rage in the tent poking at wafting bobbles of nonsense.

Bobbling baubles of anarchical history…more next Saturday.

And to what amazing wonder we look upon – White Walls!  The perfectly deliriously cosmopolitan – White Walls!  Come in, poke around!   These sepulchers (or sepulchres, euro spelling is more juicy) of painted plywood will enclose and support the semi-sacred or better.  These less-than-holy shrouds of the higher realms of art (at least the non-domestic realms of art) were trucked in to aid in the revival of  enfant terrible culture.

He and She are awaiting the opportunity to serve as docents, guiding you in the maze of white walls and historically significant anarchistic art.  Wow! real gallery type art spaces.  The wonders we have acquired for your edification and awe.

The scheduale is still not coherent, there are more disagreements among the invited and uninvited enfant terribles, but surely now that the white walls are up we can initiate the shows.

Although the rural/circus feel was what we were after, including lush grass to walk  on; there was initiated a mowing by some of the more gentrified participants to the consternation of He & She and the splattering of grass on the white walls.

Also, as is usual in art galleries requirements concerning appropriate mounting (framed, wires, etc.) should be obeyed.

Apparently one emotive bomb carrier decided a self-portrait is to important to be limited by frame, wire,etc..

There will be a meeting concerning inappropriate activities among attendees at the  Temporary Museum of enfant terrible Culture…Next Saturday.

Terra Incognito, a wonderful place spread over maps ancient and near modern. Terra incognito, the earth unknown (at least by map-makers), an open invitation for emotive searchers and wonderers; just the place for our enfant terribles. But maps now are full of what we know, or like to think we know, or are pressured to agree upon; boundaries, shore lines, and convenient passageways.

Our tent is now resurrected, after the incident with the flying object a couple posts ago, and stands again as the anomaly on the prairie where we are gathering our reunion of anarchists.

It’s hot and muggy.  The enfant terribles have been away for awhile, to some dismay by the local communities.  Anarchists seem to have lived up to their reputation, dismissing boundaries etc. We who have been trying to organize this reunion must take some of the blame; but we are trying to keep the outrageous activity here, not let it spill over.

Feeling good during a time of disaster and economic dislocation was pursued by the emotive artistics.  Lots of selfies were published and before and afters of personal adornment from the various local vanity businesses. Social media sources have images that have brought some scorn and consternation.  The above is from an evening in an otherwise quiet little town.  Apparently some of the locals responded with their own emotive bombs brought out to counteract the imported.

However, as is usual in the course of human events, some locals decided that yard and garage sales offering their old (but still sputtering) bombs would be profitable; even if unwise.

Meanwhile, before returning, the Unicorn confederation upgraded their surveillance technology and began patrolling the reunion area; assuming authority, advocating a plagiarized revolution from the good-old-days.

We are concerned they might poke into other artistic’s activities…next Saturday.

The Absolute?

Your intimate,  your teacher, your guide, your friend (have you ever been failed?) your grounding,  your roots till the end, your inextinguishable, your reward for inattention, your endless birthday gift (another shoulderful each year), your security from flightiness, your perpetual punishment, your dissipation,  your guide for spilled milk,

The Absolute?

……………………………GRAVITY.

The Absolute appears at times to retreat a bit. There are moments, times, A Time, maybe; when we attempt to fly from the Absolute: it can be quite beautiful. Dancing in the full sun, a lilting denial of gravity and the bomb’s debris.  If nothing more than a moment’s dance; anarchists (poetically opposed to any law – even gravity), are busy practicing what youth provides.  A momentary conviction of freedom from The Absolute.

Youth offended (more frightened) at the sight of the embodied Absolute.

Eventually the dance has a different rhythm.

A cast-off circus musician with a tune of melodious courage (and some skill), hopes to charm a dance out of the shackles-and-chains of fears and cares.

But – to that courage: that reaching out, that dancing to consummate tenderness and tension, nervous elegance, eloquence and discord while the music plays;  courage may be beyond the musician’s skill to summon.  Here at the reunion most are making a rumble and jingling, dragging ball-and-chain; ’tis the music of their own making, their own disabled apprehension.  Anarchistic decibels and distractions beyond melody and reality.

The clanging dance of ball-and-chain is so noisy, rattling the rhythm of pocket change, fears chained to cares.  That which is poised to hurt cannot warn.

A stack of boxes, no doubt shipped for the    gift shop, have been examined . Need or luxury, it is hard to know, but surely to be sampled.

But your docents He & She, in hopes of overcoming the chingling chains (so reminiscent of absent coinage), are to the melody and the dancing.

Dancing on perilous perches to the melody of courage, defying the absolute; an antique joy of youth.

Another dull force, another nullification, another idiot, another delay, another barely credible bizarre circumstance, another time when optimism in the face of reality seems a ludicrous extravagance.  This rocket boy, a fantastic performance oriented emotive type, is the anarchy.

Thanks to the fabulous rocket man, the wonderful tent is knocked flat.

“Pathos, pathos…bedazzling fool,blithering folly!”  Yorick is trying to find some sense, the hope in it all.  Finding techno-irascibles far more destructive than any medieval knight in armour.  Superior to the plodding citizenry, demonstrating a disdain of gravity and unprayed wireless wizardry.  The 20th century morphed into this recent one.  Endless destruction is now controlled by the singular pronoun and a plethora of screaming emotive projectiles.  So much invested in a quick dramatic solution; for fame.

The event, this destruction, was the outcome of a (living) avant-garde type who decided to demonstrate cutting-edge technology.  In this case a missile, guided by his superior intelligence through various digital/mental interfaces.  He correctly identified a missile as a bomb with a hole in the bottom.  So he unpacked his emotion bombs (similar to the norm here) and repacked them in a pointed tube, to which a fuse was attached; guidance wirelessly connected to his hat.  The take-off went well. The speedy encircling flights of a rocket man, while astonishing and wonderful, soon overwhelmed his artificial intelligence synapses.  Possibly he passed gas(?) possibly phone interference(?) disrupting what control he had. What followed was the destruction of the tent for many –  by the singular pronoun.

As you know from the beginning posts, the use of proper personal names is prohibited (the only rule here at the reunion of the enfant terribles) and so we are restrained from mentioning him for legal and art historical (fame) ramifications.  However if you see the idiot below…