The Artists Actually Making Funny Art
http://www.sleek-mag.com/2016/10/04/artists-humour/
Want to hear something funny? Here goes: How long does it take Marina Abramovic to change a light bulb? The SLEEK team has no idea, but we bet she wouldn’t ask Jay-Z for help. Okay, so not all gags are successful. Some other stinkers include: Paul McCarthy’s butt-plug-cum-Christmas-tree in Paris, which was unsurprisingly swiftly defaced, and Cindy Sherman’s clowns, which are so evil they make children cry. But when executed with wit, attempts at humour can challenge taboos, something art has an acute awareness of, having used it as a way of distorting, concealing and criticising aspects of society for centuries.
From the painters of Florence to the YBAs, painters, sculptors and conceptualists of all stripes have been integrating comedy into their work to elicit a laugh from the word go. Today, many artists are playing with the sensibilities of our LOL culture to make stuff that’s so funny you’ll crack your rib laughing while confronting the harsh realities of our age. In a world becoming ever darker and threatening, laughter is proving to be the best remedy.
One of the chief influences on this satirical bent in contemporary practice is of course Dada, the subversive art movement that believed it could change the world with their seditious yet hilarious artworks. And since it’s celebrating its centenary this year, we’ve profiled five contemporary figures whose output is making us giggle while shaking up the status quo with a sly wink.
“One of the first things I learned with Michael was to not be so fucking submissive to authority,” says Ingar Dragset about his partner in crime, Michael Dragset. Together they form Elmgreen and Dragset, one of the world’s most popular artist duos. Having met in Copenhagen in 1995 with no formal art education, they were inspired to abolish all formal restrictions and norms by their desire to destabilise the art world – something they achieved using their subversive humour.
Indeed, their wit oozes deadpan delivery with a queer, socio-political edge. In their 2010 installation “Gay Marriage” they linked up the pipes attached to two neighbouring urinals. A nod to Duchamp’s “Fountain”, it also satirised how Western societies still treat homosexuality as something dirty, secretive and illicit despite the introduction of gay marriage in many countries.
Using this iconoclastic approach they’ve turned the mainstream on its head, resulting in works such as 2006’s “The Welfare State”, a performance that appropriated the aesthetics of a glitzy chat show to comment on the sensationalist demonisation of the working class. Yet they don’t see themselves as moral crusaders. In 2005, they made a piece of land art in the form of a Prada shop filled with items donated by Miuccia herself in the middle of the Texan desert. While “Prada Marfa” is seemingly intended as comment on consumerism, the duo’s role in the capitalist system they question remains ambiguous. “We never really believed in this almost Protestant or Puritan belief of being true to yourself in art,” Michael says. “I find that unbearably old-school and moralistic.”
Despite making hundreds of similarly humorous interventions, their funniest piece, in SLEEK’s opinion, remains “The Collectors”. Shown at the 53rd Venice Biennale, the installation resembled the home of a gay art collector and all his luxurious belongings, examining the fine line between art appreciation and decadence. Filled with amusing gestures, the final exhibit, the collector’s lifeless body floating in a swimming pool, was a flawless punchline. Gallows humour at its most glamorous.
Watching 28-year-old L.A.-based artist Casey Jane Ellison’s web series, “Touching the Art”, is both confusing and entertaining. Placed somewhere between an art discussion show and a performance, it’s difficult to tell where reality begins and ends. “I’m Casey Jane Ellison,” she beams in one episode, “and this is where we discuss the art world’s least favourite subject – art!” Joining her are art world dignitaries including Catherine Opie and Leilah Weinraub, whom she harasses with questions such as, “Can the art world save the planet before it’s underwater?” and “Why do some people think art is dumb?” It’s funny stuff, but Ellison isn’t just playing for laughs.
As comfortable in a stand up club as she is in a gallery, in order to play the fool she has to know what she’s doing. Later in this episode her Valley-girl TV presenter role slips when she turns to Opie and asks: “Why does art alienate the general public?” The awkwardness soon passes as Ellison resumes her sassy persona. But her true intent shines through. “It’s very weird,” she says from LA via FaceTime. “I don’t know if people really want honesty though. It’s all about the context and the balance. And it’s just really fun to make fun of each other even when things get dark.” By dark she means hard truths like the fact that women are still undervalued in the art world and that her goal weight is seven pounds. “I actually get truly scared because the art world doesn’t have a slot for roast and I feel like I’m carving that out.”
There seem to be no limits to Casey’s scope and practice. In addition to ‘Touching the Art,’ she is the host of VFILES’ “What the F*SHION?”, a web series in which she dissects the style trends you never thought you’d be into. Recently, clothing label B.B. Dakota hired her to create “The Right and Left Brains of Casey Jane’s”, a six-part drama series about herself. When not working for brands, she makes bonkers videos about her own cult of personality, trying to sell T-shirts with her face on them. Caseyworld is taking over – and you’ve been warned.
“Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?” asked the Guerrilla Girls in their iconic 1985 poster. Their impetus was a show that year at the MoMA, “An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture”. Only 13 of the 169 artists at the exhibition were female – and none of them from non-white backgrounds. The Guerrilla Girls’ protest made headlines, but failed to change the museum’s attitude, so they took their dissent on the road – and a movement was born.
Committed to challenging gender and racial inequality in the art world, their gorilla masks, sarcasm, and use of puns and fake fur have become inseparable from their brand, which has made it onto stickers, billboards and other public spaces. “What’s so particular about their humour is that they’re very straightforward,” says Nayia Yiakoumaki, co-curator of the show about the group at London’s Whitechapel Gallery opening in October. “Despite the fact that at times they’re criticising the same things as their white male counterparts, the Guerrilla Girls are less nuanced in their approach, which also shows their assertiveness.”
In another example of their continuing poster project, they list all the advantages of being a female artist. These include “working without the pressure of success”, “not having to undergo the embarrassment of being called a genius” and “having the opportunity to choose between motherhood and career”. Some of these facts are widely known for being true; however, it’s only when the Guerrilla Girls exploit their double-edged nature that we see their funny side. Their humour is direct yet not malicious or unwarranted, and they keep the targets of the their lampoons firmly in their crosshairs. “Humour is very powerful,” Yiakoumaki concludes. “You can communicate your message effectively and it reaches wider audiences while still being diplomatic.”
Influenced by reality TV and Manga, Julian Ceccaldi’s work is filled with catchy conversations and characters that parody the angst of modern life. Having started drawing comics in his teens, he decided to circumvent the problem of space by using the minimum amount of dialogue necessary to construct 3a joke.
“I can only make art that reflects who I am, and humour is important to me, so of course it’s going to be in my work,” says the Montreal-based artist prior to setting up his exhibition at the 9th Berlin Biennale. Drawn with a quick, intuitive hand and coloured in soothing tones, his comic figures engage in melodramatic interactions that ooze cinematographic performance and meme-like sass. A good example of this is his cover for Artforum’s 2014 summer issue, featuring two anonymous women having a drink. “I’m exactly where I planned to be!” says the first. “I see… Are you secretly hurting?” asks the second. “Impossible,” she replies, “I have a job!”
With their characteristic chiselled jaws, teary eyes and androgynous yet brawny bodies, Ceccaldi’s figures combine elements of Japanese cartoon styles with hyper-sexual queer references. As such it’s not surprising that Julien’s an avid viewer of RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Kroll Show. “The past few months I was very active on Reddit, leaving comments about Drag Race and making jokes about it,” Julien confesses. “I don’t think that’s seeped into my work yet, but we’ll see.”
Nevertheless, what’s so effective and hysterical about his characters, ranging from the single desperate friend to the pugnacious art dealer, is that they’re all so relatable. So much so that fans have started to speculate who they might be based on. “People have suggested that my beefy dogs were about a particular person in the art world,” he says. “But they weren’t. They could be anyone – there are so many people like that.” And that’s the point. Out on the pull, longing for love, faking it ‘til they make it, hunting for success, Ceccaldi’s creations are the post-2008-crash millennial condition in a nutshell. And what’s so fascinating about these parodies is that they’re both full of depth and wafer thin at the same time: they cover up their true feelings with platitudes and announce their deepest desire in the most superficial means.
Maurizio Cattelan is the art world’s ultimate joker and social commentator. In 2001 the Italian artist courted controversy with “Him”, a sculpture of Hitler kneeling down in prayer, satirising the sadly enduring legacy of far right attitudes in Europe’s religious institutions. Indeed, his chief talent is his ability to satirise the profane, religious and macabre, often by imaging (in)famous figures in compromising and unexpected situation.
Another good example of this is “The Ninth Hour”, an installation from 2000 that portrays Pope John Paul II being struck by a meteor. The work was first shown at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, and needless to say that when it arrived in Poland it was received with more than a couple of awkward chuckles. Irreverent though he may be, Cattelan isn’t presenting these warped images for perverse enjoyment. Instead he sees his them as a reflection of the world, the aim being to stimulate discussion in an art industry that he views as being largely indifferent to social issues. “Today the agenda is not in the artists’ hands,” he told La Repubblica. “No artist is saying or doing anything stronger than what is happening in the world.”
Nonetheless, he isn’t afraid to affront his audience, either. In 2011’s “L.O.V.E”, he positioned a white marble sculpture of a hand flipping the bird in front of the Milan Stock Exchange. And in his 1996 installation, “Bidibidobidiboo”, the artist staged the suicide of a stuffed squirrel in a miniature family kitchen, apparently modelled on his own. Yet this wasn’t a purely confrontational gesture: with the animal adopting human characteristics, there’s a tender aspect to the work that exposes our mortal insecurities and fears. With every punch and tickle, it seems, Cattelan is trying to make us think.
And when he’s not making art he’s putting on shows; from 2005 to 2010 he swapped his artist’s hat for a curator’s, and even organised the 4th Berlin Biennale. But in 2011, on the eve of his retrospective at the Guggenheim in New York, he announced his retirement from art only to return this year, presenting another contentious display at Manifesta 11. The piece consisted of sending Paralympian Edith Wolf-Hunkeler on a wheelchair floating across Lake Zurich. Few were impressed: “It felt more like exploitation,” one anonymous collector told ArtNet in a disparaging article. Cattelan is unrepentant: “The most interesting works I’ve done have been the result of great anxiety,” he concludes. “Anxiety, however, can be the vehicle, but not the petrol fuelling the production of something.” Maybe next time he needs some fuel he’ll fill up at a different pump, but his reputation for kicking against the pricks remains unquestionable.
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