Previous: The Walter Darby Bannard Archive Returns (1)
Next: Judith Schaechter Never Lies, Part 3
Scooter Understands the Soul of a True Artist
Post #1685 • April 23, 2014, 1::2 AM
![[Image: ]](http://www.artblog.net/static/posts/2014/04/muppet/gonzo.jpg)
Jonathan Jones doesn't think so highly of the latest work by performance artist Milo Moiré, who did something trifling involving a misuse of one of her orifices that you can read about if you care to. What caught my attention, however, was this (emphasis mine):
And this is the thing about performance art – it has quite rightly become the stuff of satire. When the film director Paolo Sorrentino wants to capture the brittleness of contemporary European culture in his film The Great Beauty, what does he show? Performance art, naturally. A group of arty folk watch as a woman runs towards a stone aqueduct and bashes her head against it. Afterwards she struggles to explain herself in an embarrassing interview.
Yet in mocking the art world's weakest tic, its indulgence of ludicrous performers, Sorrentino is not even that original. It's an old joke that fits his nostalgic mood. As long ago as the 1970s, performance art was already comical. The perfect satire on it was created by the Muppet Show when the Great Gonzo bashes a rock with a hammer while shouting "Art!"
Wait, really? This is a thing? Oh yes.
Bravo.