The Free-Lunch Museum

You're Fired is the preeminent institution devoted to increasing public awareness of right-brained compulsiveness in left-brained environments.

[hieronymusjosh]

Haunted Forest.  2016. Watercolor on blotter-paper scrap, 9.5 x 6" Pictures division. Disjunctional chromaesthetic vibrations and a dark hum of late 19th-century Romanticism (underscored by inverted cruciformality) recalls spectral  manifestations within ecological densities.  A Whistlerian fog of exterior atmpospherics demonstrates the artist's respect for unity and flatness too spacious to be categorized as simple mimesis.  The joyful denial of gravity is metonymically nested in the self-referential fecundity of its own distribution, exacerbating the dissolution of genre distinctions.  This dreamy refutation of direct figuration, born out of the infinite pluralisms of artistic incontinence, undercates subliminal infestations of ethereal intimisticalism.

[hieronymusjosh]

Charing Cross Bridge, London.  1901.  By Claude Monet. Oil on canas, 27 x 40" Paintings division. Recent excavations in a facilities locker at our office building in Midtown have led to the recovery of this lost Impressionist masterpiece.  Presumed destroyed after its theft from the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam in 2012, curators at the Free-Lunch Museum rejoiced at the discovery that this painting has, in fact, been safely stored in a broom closet the whole time.  Citing an old adage, Board members have voted unanimously to keep it as part of the Museum’s permanent collection.

[hieronymusjosh]

Asemic letter.  ca. 2015. Pink highlighter and black markers on yellow legal paper, 11 x 8.5" Manuscripts and archives division. Originally considered brilliant and important by Beat scholars, this controversial document was later dismissed as stupid and irrelevant by high-level French Lettristes at the Center of Creativity in Paris.  Top People at The International Consortium of Important Linguists subsequently revealed that this document is touching and sad, prompting members of The School of Famous Literary Critics to insist that it is rather more anguished and frightened.  Further studies at The Caucus of Famous Psychiatrists have confirmed that it, in fact, plangent and sorrowful.  Most recently, members of the Department of Sanitation have concluded definitively that this holograph is, if nothing else, unrumpled and precise.  Our own Curator of Manuscripts and Archives has given it a Stendahl rating of 7.

[hieronymusjosh]

Le Fruit (copy of original by Alphonse Mucha). ca. 2015. Yellow, orange, green, blue, red and purple highlighter markers, black permanent marker, 11 x 8.5” Art Forgery division. This drawing created a fervor in the art world when it surfaced early in the year 2015.  Art dealers concurred that this is an early sketch for Alphonse Mucha's famous work "Le Fruit" and gleefully anticipated it's arrival on the auction block.  However, forensic analysts at Interpol provided key evidence that this work is a fake, citing the fact that it is composed of materials - highlighter and permanent markers - that did not exist in Mucha's lifetime.  Furthermore, the paper, originally thought to have yellowed over time, proved to be from a legal pad of paper that was, in fact, yellow to begin with. The culprit is still at large.

[hieronymusjosh]

Ye OIde Copier. 2015. Yellow, orange, green, blue and purple highlighter markers, black and blue permanent markers, 11 x 8.5” Museum headquarters. Ye Old Copier stands unplugged in the office. Occasionally, people from housekeeping come to ask if it has been "picked up" yet.  It has not. They always ask to see it.  I show them.  It is there.  As if contemplating the end of an era, they watch it. Yep, then think. Unless my eyes deceive me it really is still there and not yet "picked up."  I wonder if this phrase is used out of delicacy for Ye Olde Copier's feelings. They turn to go and then pause, turn, take another look, just a glance maybe - just to make sure it wasn’t a trick or a mirage. But it really is still there. No doubt about it. Sure as hats. This has been going on for some time. Seasons have changed. They will be back, a few times a month. Again, a buzz at the door will herald further inquiries into the presence of Ye Olde Copier.  And still, no one will have come to pick it up. The old work horse - having reproduced in facsimile some of the most official forms and most delicate holographs since the Napoleonic Wars - endures the curious bafflement of housekeeping with dignity ; it’s molded plastic compartments bulge like the sails of obsolete square rigs catching breeze at anchor, destined for the scrap heap.

[hieronymusjosh]

Two mushrooms on acid.  2014. Watercolor on blotter-paper scrap, 6 x 9.5" Pictures division. If mushrooms had hands, these would be holding each other's.  If they had mouths one would recite to the other the words of Charlotte Bronte: "In a land of enchantment, a garden most gorgeous, a forest with sparks of purple and ruby and golden fire gemming from the foliage ..." If her companion had ears and tear ducts, he would surely become very emotional, as mushrooms in love are wont to do.

[hieronymusjosh]

Rubberized stereophony.  2012. Rubber, bar-b-q sticks, wax, nugatory headphones, approx. 15 x 15 x 7". Contemporary sculpture division. A verticulation of post-modern Romanesque futurism forged in a monolithic conglomeration of molded silicone, the warm verdency permeating the domed box of Rubberized stereophony emanates a profound and nauseating warmth that instantly enshrouds the viewer into a comforting yet slightly bilious state of doomed anticipation which perfectly encapsulates the lofty yet taciturn paradox of empty semiformailty characterizing fluid progression of spurious technological upgradations inherent in the flimsy trappings of consumerismic frenzitude, consequently engendering the mnemonic craving for functional entertainment machineries from within systemic genres, thus consummating the entwinement inherent in the artistic experience of sublime deprivation.

[hieronymusjosh]

Blue Meaning.  2014. Blue markers on perforated paper, 8.5 x 11”. Contemporary art division. Boldly executed on a blue sheet of 8.5 x 11” perforated writing paper, Blue Meaning represents one of the earliest climaxes of the Spacialist investigation perpetrated by the pseudonymous artist Fame Whore.  A symphony of simultaneous penetration and spotification, it is the regurgitation of a wholly exhausted dialectic that secures the historic insignificance of the present work.  Illuminated by a few dozen dots of varying dimensions and blue-ish tonalities, the unsophisticated sequencing makes for an entirely unmesmerizing display, devoid of any potency or allure.  The blue dots, ranging from treacle-blue to dark midnight blue to an utterly disgusting shade of slate, stand in sharp contradistinction to the not-blue voids left by punctured holes in the pictorial field, thus placing the present work wholly in the idiomatic void-aspiring-to-substance of contemporary art.  Deliberately positioning itself astride two ostensible antipoles, highbrow art on one hand and paper waste on the other, this complex anti-composition, spontaneous yet still boring, emphasizes the similarities between the two.

[hieronymusjosh]

Exhibition catalog. 2014

[hieronymusjosh]

Brussels sprouts trending. 2014. Original holograph bistro bill (1 leaf), manuscript on printed ledger paper, 16 x 9 cm. Culinary arts division. Recent studies have shown that the brussels sprout, once the most reviled vegetable known, is currently outranking even the artichoke in popularity.  Besides their inherent deliciousness, the traditional popularity of artichokes has often been attributed to their entertainment value - derived from the need to use bare fingers rather than cutlery to eat them, and further augmented by the frequent employment of dipping sauce.  In this way the artichoke has always distinguished itself from corn on the cob, its closest relative in this genus of methodological gastronomiae, upon which the sauce is slathered rather than kept to the side.  Furthermore, unlike its hand-held vegetable cousin, the artichoke's foliate nature lends itself more easily to tricking the most obdurate critics of vegetables into opening their hangers to facilitate airplane ingress.  However (look out artichoke) the dark horse in this vegetal race has unexpectedly bolted into the lead - the brussels sprout!  Who could have known?  Well, say brussels sprout fans, much like the artichoke, the brussels sprout is fun.  It is like a toy cabbage, and therefore contains as much potential to trick vegetable-evaders into cleaning their plates as the already well-established artichoke.  Despite its past classification in the ewweww category, the brussels sprout is not, in fact, born nasty.  For years, however, the brussels sprout has suffered unjust criticism.  It is now widely acknowledged that this was the result of poor preparation rather than anything in the nature of the brussels sprout per se.  Misunderstood, marginalized and degraded, the brussels sprout has finally earned a place on the menus of the trendiest bistros.  The brussels sprout owes its new-found place in the potty-mouths of masticating hipsters to the insouciance of defiant, food-snooty chefs, who, out of sheer spite for orthodoxy, managed to coax the maligned micro-cabbage out of gooey, malodorous viscosity into bona fide toothsomeness through alternative cooking methods such as roasting.  And here's a scoop for all the punters out there looking for the handicaps, we at The F-LM are keeping our ocular sprouts on the eggplant.  So poke that eggplant around in your cabbage before supper, and be prepared to rake in the lettuce.

[hieronymusjosh]

Extractor supellectensis.  Around 1982 ce. Natural history division. Research excavations in my office desk at Midtown have uncovered this highly primitive skeleton (which team osteologists have now termed a "pelvic skull") of an unknown quadricuspid species (see figs. 1-4, showing 3/4, anterior, posterior and lateral views). The four enormous processes at the distal ends of the two major bones suggest multiple muscular attachments around what is presumed to be the facial area ; further attachments must have occurred along the lateral crests found along the inner transverse planes and around a transverse joint attaching the two bones and terminating in articular cavities on each side.  In short, this animal had no thorax, and may have had arms or legs but could not have had both.  The lack of any orbital casing suggests the eyes were tied between the four transverse outcroppings - in which case the animal would have had to blink and chew at the same time, or they were suspended, or, most likely, hovered above the body in a floppy, boneless mound.  The posterior end of the " skull" must have doubled as a pelvis.  Experts continue to speculate about a counterweight system that must have been needed to balance the relative weight of its face (see fig. 6a-b).  The very distinctive "teeth" are actually pointed crests on the saggital plane and located on each medial corner of the distal ends of upper and lower bones.  Examination of these bony eminences reveals wear on the inner ridges and a smoothed surface on the outer ridges, suggesting the animal must have scooped for or extracted it's food and causing team paleozoologists to name him Extractor. 

[hieronymusjosh]

Christmas Tree.  1863.  Highlighter markers, black and red pen.  6 x 4". Pictures division. VERY FINELY EXECUTED drawing of a Christmas tree, attributed to William Holman Hunt, commissioned by The Religious Tract Society for their Christmas, 1863 issue of The Leisure Hour.  Hunt’s diary for this period suggest that he was dissatisfied with the woodblock transfer of his drawing by the Dalziel brothers, that so much of his design had been spoiled in the cutting that the end-result looked not like a spruce decorated with lights and sugar ornaments but more like a rib roast decorated with red-onion gravy.  Disputes between artists and engravers were common in the publishing industry, though in this case some confusion may have originated with the editorial panel, some of who claimed they had asked for a nativity scene while others insisted that the final decision was for a blazing Christmas pudding.  An argument ensued regarding the endurance of diabolical spirits in flame.  After some foot stamping and finger waving the Religious Tract Society voted unanimously to cancel Christmas and the plate was scrapped.

[hieronymusjosh]

Pigeons sunbathing on a roof.  2013. Black marker, white out, blue ballpoint pen, pencil and PH pen on browned, paper discard, approx. 16 x 8". Pictures Division. It is autumn.  The pigeons are sunning themselves on a roof.  The pigeon is thinking about flying.  He imagines he can fly without flapping his wings.  When he wakes up he will have forgotten where he is and he will be very surprised.

[hieronymusjosh]

Frowning-man.  2013. Yellow, orange, pink, purple, green and blue highlighter and black marker on grid paper, 11 x 8.5 ". Pictures Division. A  scherzo sustenuto of gleaming candy colors transgresses the post-pointelistic, tautological marriage of tone and subject as the gargantuan visage displays gloom contrapuntal to the chromatical harmoniousnessiveness yummily referenced aforementionedly within the present subjectively composed linguistically descriptive accompanimentalistical device that is now to be subjunctively extended and will be terminatingly concluded only when the full stop has been employmently utilized in such time as it presently now is.

[hieronymusjosh]

Laughing-man. 2013. Red, blue, black and green pen, black marker, on legal-ruled, yellow paper, 11 x 8.5". Pictures Division. An adagio sustenuto of dull tonality realized through the ball-pointillistically-rendered values of skin tone belonging to facial distention resulting from the expressive elongation caused by an upward lift from mirthful buoyancy arising out of bilious intoxication is underscorifically enhancified by a vibrationalistic rhythmicality of undulating black markerisms, which is ironical in view of the aforementioned merrimentaly expanded countenance that the tempo of dull tonality is repleasently representing, at present.

[hieronymusjosh]

Millard Fillmore.  1850. Yellow, pink, orange, green, blue and purple highlighter, black and blue marker, on grid paper, 11 x 8.5". Pictures Division. Speckled exuberance of prismatic fluorescence belies the bland, compromising politics of America's thirteenth president.

[hieronymusjosh]

Late-Victorian opera-length wire-trombone necklace.  Ca. 1870. 100 looped-wire trombones, continuously linked, 60". Fine Jewelry Division. This trace chain of wire-torsion clasps, originally the property of the Dowager Empress of the Qing Dynasty, was taken as booty by an unknown member of the British Legation after the evacuation of the Imperial Court from Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion.  Its whereabouts remained unknown until 1947, when it was delivered in an unmarked package to the First Earl Mountbatten of Burma at the Viceregal Lodge, Shimla.  The necklace went missing again during the violent clashes that followed the partitioning of India, and was recovered again four years later by Portuguese mercenaries in Pondichéry.  While serving in the Makhzen of Sultan Mohammed V, these mercenaries were subsequently captured by French forces in Fez, Morocco.  However, they managed to retain the necklace and traded it to the Pasha of Marrakech for their freedom.  Possession of the necklace then passed from El Glaoui to the French novelist Collette.  After her death, the necklace disappeared again.  It was discovered 70 years later around the neck of the white rabbit at the Statue of Alice in Central Park, New York, and was subsequently accessioned as part of the permanent collection of the Free-Lunch Museum.