15 Comments
Feb 12Liked by Dr Victoria Powell

I guess that what kind of art makes one laugh depends on what makes you laugh generally. I laugh at situations that appear to me absurd delivered in a deadpan way. So lots of the work of Harrison and Wood does that for me, but only for one or two viewings. Once I know what’s going to happen, it’s not funny any more, which is disappointing. Yet my preference for that kind of humour remains; I continue to be primed to laugh at another instance, which is good.

Lastly, I think that an artwork must have that shadow of something serious you mention in order for it not to be merely a joke.

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Agree with all you say here Martin!

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Feb 10Liked by Dr Victoria Powell

I do like art that makes me chuckle! Saw a video piece at an exhibition yesterday that I thought was very funny. I don’t know if I misunderstood it but I enjoyed it nonetheless

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What was the piece?

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Feb 11Liked by Dr Victoria Powell

Hi Victoria, sorry for the long reply! It was a video “Dream Catcher” by Fuyuhiko Takata. I didn’t read the didactic as there was a big school group and couldn’t hang around to read it. I completely mis-read the video and assumed it was a female artist. The video showed a teenage Rapunzel in her messy teenage bedroom reciting a bit about the prince coming to rescue her so she starts twirling, twisting her hair around her body, winding it up from the ground, until she becomes something like a huge ball of twine. The lengths she would go to to avoid a rescue. The hair had been buried over time and the town had been built up over it and as she pulled it from the ground the township was destroyed. No way would she want a prince to rescue her. Toward the end she was staggering with that drunk dizziness you get from twirling around. I love a bit of slap stick. I thought the township was destroyed as a metaphor for destruction of expectations. My friend thought the same but after I posted to you we had a discussion and checked each other and realised we were wrong. Here is a link to the blurb. Instead of a rejection of rescue, it seems it was a metaphor for desire? I’ve included a link to the curatorial statement. In the face of very little info, I think I prefer my reading of the work 😂 https://www.artweektokyo.com/en/video-en/

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I prefer your reading of the work too! More feminist.

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Feb 8Liked by Dr Victoria Powell

Laughter can be a means of dealing with acute discomfort. We (people) often laugh at jokes we don't understand. Duchamp's readymades were challenging. (Even today, apparently.) Context is everything, the date, painted on the side in black paint, gives the urinal its only significance. Imagine how one would understand it if it had been produced in 1912, the year of Kandinsky's piece; or (here's a tricky one) produced in 1929 (the year Graves published "Good-bye to All That"), but dated 1917. The urinal is an anti-war piece. Duchamp aspired to condemn the culture that produced or allowed the war, even all war. Not a laughing matter.

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Definitely not a laughing matter, but most 21st century viewers new to this piece would never connect it with his condemnation of the meaningless slaughter of WWI. Context, as you say, is everything.

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Feb 5Liked by Dr Victoria Powell

I'm 95% sure it was an MFA student at the university, so I doubt it. I just texted one of my classmates from grad school and she said she often thinks about it too! We are going to sleuth this out!

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Feb 5Liked by Dr Victoria Powell

I also don't see much art that makes me actually laugh, although I can see the humour in lots of it. I think probably like your students I am looking for the deeper meaning, and maybe a bit anxious that I haven't seen it. Love the Martin Creed video. That did make me laugh!

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Check out his instagram account, Helen. It's got loads of these little videos on it. I just love his work. It's sort of a bit bonkers.

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Feb 4Liked by Dr Victoria Powell

The funniest artwork I have ever seen was at a student exhibition at James Madison University in Virginia. It was a single sheet of paper that had lines of graphite scribbled all over it and then erased. Across the top of the paper was a little holder with a standard #2 yellow pencil that had a comically long pink eraser. The pencil was horizontal and the eraser was hanging down flacidly, the length representing how much eraser was used to remove the graphite on the paper below. It struck me as hilarious and I couldn’t stop giggling. I still think about that work from time to time, and it’s been probably 15 years. I also find a lot of the supporting characters/subjects in renaissance and classical paintings to be pretty funny, almost like the artists were just fatigued or disinterested by the time they had to work on those faces.

I absolutely love art that makes me laugh when I come across it.

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I love it when art stays in your memory like that. Do you remember who made the artwork with the pencil?

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Feb 5Liked by Dr Victoria Powell

Unfortunately I don’t. I will see if I can figure it and report back. I’d love to ask them if they intended for it to be funny, or if I just brought my own ridiculousness to the party.

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Ha! Yes, that's a good question! It wasn't John Baldessari was it?

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