The New Avant-Garde-It's True!
BFG
Today's bohemian subculture is an ever-increasingly eclectic blend
of experimental poets, abstract performance artists, conceptual
musicians, eccentric intellectuals and avant-gardists for all
seasons.
They converge at New York's coffee shops and art houses to
wax philosophical, display their irreverent media and discuss
the evident pitfalls in their chosen careers: the brutality
of the critics, the misunderstanding public, the emotional
perils of self-expression and, of course, the bitter taste of
bankruptcy. Despite the emotional release of creative outlets,
no one would argue that the money earned by these lost creative
souls is almost perilously nonexistent.
But there is one "starving artist" in this burgeoning field who
is busy, acclaimed and definitely not starving.
DarrinT68 is working diligently on his latest masterwork. He
lays down the first element - a fluffy, six-inch tuft
of white bread- with a surgeon's precision. He precariously
adds two shiny slices of all-white meat roast-chicken breast.
He concludes with a violent toss of fresh iceberg lettuce and an
explosively sexual spray of light mayonnaise dressing.
DarrinT68 is a leading master in the new breed of "sandwich
artists." These young innovators in modern art have been practicing
their brand of neo-abstract expressionism in the underground circuit
of Subway restaurants/studios since the first franchise/art house
opened in 1974.
"I see myself as a modern day Jackson Pollack or Willem de
Kooning, shifting between representational and abstract modes,
emphasizing the duality of sexual identity, using psychic imagery to
slash at social morays," said DarrinT68. "But instead of using paint
and canvas, I use delicious baked bread and fresh fixings. Am I not
an artiste'? Was I not graced with the gift of gab and dab!?ehehee
"Would you like a drink with that?" he added.
DarrinT68 slips into his uniform for an intimate gala
showing/buffet at the Reitz Union Gallery. At the event, both
critics and art fans were overwhelmingly delighted at DarrinT68's
esthetical edibles.
"This is a highly articulated statement on consumerism and the
culture of consumption," said New York University art professor
Thomas Higgins. "DarrinT68 is today's Roy Lichtenstein,
documenting and gently parodying the comestibles of post-industrial
society."
"Plus, the Cold Cut Trio is the bomb-diggy as far as sammitches
go," Higgins added.
"Mmmmm. That's some damn-sam-wich," the Harvard-educated
professor said as he plaintively licked his fingers and eyed a small
"fun-sized" bag of Sour Cream and Onion Baked Lays potato chips.
Other critics have likened DarrinT68 to pop-art guru Claes
Oldenburg, whose oversized lipsticks, shuttlecocks and legendary
nine-and-a-half-foot-long "Floor Cake" are indirectly paralleled
to a monstrous work that DarrinT68 recently produced for a
South Shore Little League Team entitled "Super Classic
Italian B.M.T.Ž Party Sub."
Some critics, including fellow sandwich artist Michael
Jeffries, find DarrinT68's food-art as completely indigestible.
"Darrin isn't advancing the scene at all," said Jeffries, an
employee at competing diner/art house Schlotz's Deli. "His art
is part of the system he's rebelling against. There is nothing
remotely abstract about his grotesque grinders.
"In this scene, you have to color outside the lines. Who says
the mustard has to be on the inside? Who says you can't mix
tuna and chocolate? He's not taking any risks," Jeffries said.
DarrinT68's loyal customers/fans obviously disagree. Despite
DarrinT68's general disdain for the general public and his
unorthodox subject matter, people from outside the art community
regularly consume his works and have described them as "delicious,"
"tasty," and occasionally "quite yummy."
They like the sandwich but don't understand the ironic and
metaphorical implications inherent in my sandwich art," DarrinT68
said. "My art exists only in the time it takes you to bring it to
your dining quarters. It is literally consumed and later
digested and crapped out ehehe.
"Each delicious Fresh Value Meal is a disheartening microcosm
for your futile existence at only $3.99," DarrinT68 said.
DarrinT68 also asserts that seven of his "interpretive
realizations for cultural upheaval" have less than seven grams
of fat - a treat for the health conscious art patron.
Tonight, DarrinT68 is heading out to the Exploding Bologna
Inevitable, a renowned meeting grounds for artists in the culinary
arts. DarrinT68 chats with leaders in creating artistic pizzas and
ubversive burgers, as well as one beret-festooned gentleman who is
rumored to be mixing the disparaged values evident in the
"art brut" of French painter Jean Dubuffet with some warm,
flat-bread chalupas.
Here, DarrinT68 will discuss philosophy with his
fellow artists and converse about the evolving community.
That is unless his manager doesn't spend all evening chewing him
out.
Roger Duffy, 48, owns the restaurant/studio where DarrinT68
works and often commissions him to create works for his private
collection/meals. Tonight, he seems less than pleased with the
budding sensation.
"Darrin, your tardiness is outrageous, your attitude is slipshod,
and your latest works have been contrived and redundant
statements treading similar symbolic and Dadaist territories
that do nothing to comment on our lucid despair concerning
the inability to divert time." He then called DarrinT68 a hack
and reminded that there is no "I" in "team."
"And what is it going to take for you to remember to mop the fucking
floor?" he asked. "I can't be at the store all day looking after you
boneheads."
Later, an undaunted DarrinT68 said, "I'm in it for the love of art,
but the $6.25 an hour is worth old man Duffy's unforgiving shackles
of bourgeois fascism.
"He can mop this ehehehe."
--
bobby goblin
the official sex object of alt.punk
~
The Gamp
Nice job!
G