Art Piece Gets Attacked By Tougher Than Nails Chick

Art Piece Gets Attacked By Tougher Than Nails Chick

You see this chick?



Yeah, she's tougher than nails and she ain't gonna take none of this bullshit of having Jesus be mocked by some "artist"

Kathleen Folden of Kalispell, Mont., was heard shouting "How can you desecrate my Lord?"

A woman armed with a crowbar entered the Loveland Museum/Gallery on Wednesday afternoon and destroyed a controversial exhibit that some said shows Jesus Christ engaged in a sex act.

"The Misadventures of Romantic Cannibals," by Stanford University's Enrique Chagoya, has been the subject of a week's worth of protests by those who claim it is blasphemy.

"It's sad and upsetting," Chagoya said Wednesday night by phone from California. "I've never had this kind of violent reaction to my art. Violence doesn't resolve anything."

The suspect was identified by police as 56-year-old Kathleen Folden of Kalispell, Mont. She is in custody on a charge of criminal mischief, a Class 4 felony with a fine of up to $2,000.

Police said the woman entered the museum about 4 p.m. and stood in front of the exhibit. Using a crowbar or similar tool, she broke the plexiglass protecting the image and tore up the artwork. She also cut herself in the process.

Chagoya said the lithograph was one of 30 prints in a limited-edition run.

Police said there were reports of gunfire at the museum, but it turned out the noise was due to the banging of the crowbar against the plexiglass.

(snip)

Loveland City Councilman Daryle Klassen has called the artwork "smut" and initially wanted it removed. But on Wednesday, before the attack at the museum, he said the piece should stay but with a warning of its explicit nature.

"If you go to a XXX-rated movie, at least they have the decency to put a sign out of the theater, letting you know this is what you will see," Klassen said Wednesday. "I'd like to see something like that, a warning, placed at the museum in this case. But so far, that has not happened."

"The Misadventures of Romantic Cannibals" is a 7 1/2-inch-high, 90-inch-wide color lithograph print with a series of folded panels similar to an Aztec codex. The final panel shows what some say appears to be Jesus receiving oral sex.

Chagoya indicated he produced the lithograph as a commentary on revelations of child abuse committed by priests in the Catholic Church.

"My work is about critiquing institutions and politics," he said. "I wasn't trying to portray Christ; it's a collage of cutouts from different books."

I'm not sure if I would become a convicted felon to destroy a lithograph but hey, to each their own.

I have to say, as an artist myself, drawing offensive pictures of Jesus in order to be "provocative" or whatever is genuinely dumb. You mean it's Jesus? In a promiscuous sexual context that contradicts the teachings of the church?! Well then, now I've seen EVERYTHING!

It's really a cliche when you think about it.

"I insult people's cherished religious figures because it's easier than actually saying anything of worth."
-70% of all bad attention whore Artist

Now, I looked high and low for this "offensive" piece of art and let me tell you, it was not easy to find in the least. But eventually I came across one version of it that I could actually see.



I gotta say, the dudes art is ugly as shit. Besides that, it's this white guy with long hair and everyone is assuming it's Jesus.. I don't see any identifying markers and I don't believe Jesus looked like that. Mainly because I don't believe in Jesus.. and he was probably black if he actually was a person who lived in that era.

Besides, if you're going to be provocative and then act like a whinnying piece of shit when someone takes a crowbar to your provocation, why are you even bothering? Not to mention that she took a crowbar to the painting, not the artist. Oh no, someone destroyed my art. Waaaah.

Destroying art is the most powerful artistic statement of them all. Much of contemporary art is about invoking emotions, if art can cause people to become so enraged they seek to destroy, then the artist has succeeded. No matter how fucking ugly that piece of shit CRACKED Magazine it looks like.

If you're aren't trying to get your nation's embassies torched across the Muslim world, then you shouldn't even bother with art, in my honest opinion. Anything less and you're fucking main street Thomas Kinkade bullshit.

Everyone involved in this story is a fucking baby. The artist for the obvious stated above reasons and this lady for seeing this, not liking it and then coming back and having a little temper tantrum on a print of something that she didn't like. If you don't like a piece of art, don't look at it, it's not like it was shoved in her face or anything.

I guess I'm just jealous that I wasn't there in the gallery to watch this Tougher than Nails bitch tear up a print of a picture. I would have been laughing my ass off and would have assumed that this was all a staged performance art piece with very over lining social commentary of our nation at this point in time.

Then again, she may have went after me with the crowbar.. Now off to Art Walk with a mother fucking Crowbar. I'm going to Gordon Freeman up this art shit!

Buying Art

Buying Art

Today is Art Walk Downtown day. It's the second Thursday of every month and it's a tradition that I seem to be doing more and more of. Why? Well, for as much culture that transplants and New Yorkers claim that Los Angeles doesn't have, Art Walk provides a lot of little injections of culture that no one bothers to go to. It's really a shame, but at least this means that it's not so crowded.

Now, I'm not in the market to buy some art pieces. That's way to pricey for me at this moment. I'm in the middle of renovating a building to be a slum lord. I have no extra cash to spend on fancy art. But that doesn't stop me from going to Art Walk and taking it all in. Taking the new art in terms of paintings, sculptures and of course getting some first hand enjoyment of culinary art from the food trucks.



I'm sure some of you are wondering if Downtown is still a scary place at night. It's not. Far from it. Yes, there's still a couple of bums here and there. But for the most part they have been pushed out of the area and are only in the skid row of downtown even more so. Besides, they're not the scary kind of homeless anyway. Just the strange ones who have sort of lost their sanity.

Last month at Art Walk one of the homeless dudes walked up to me and asked me if I liked poetry. Frankly, I'm not that much of a fan of poetry. Yes, it's spoken word and expression, but as you can see from this blog, I don't mind a lot of words to convey what you are feeling. I told him I didn't, but he still offered me a poem he wrote for whatever I could spare. He gave me this piece of work;

Why?

Today, does not matter, so what
do beg for. I beg for man
to respect man, and in honesty,
what are we if we hold no
capacity to change another
frown to a smile. Happy
are we when we relinquish
control. It is only then
we gather the harvest of immortality.

Kenneth Towler

Now, I paid a dollar for this sheet of paper with these random words. Did I pay too much? Probably. But still I think I got my money's worth since I got someone's hard work out of it. Maybe Kenneth Towler is reading this blog at the downtown Library computers after doing a google search for his name. Maybe not. I don't know. All I do know is I'm not paying more royaleties for this.. And if anyone wants to copy it, it's all mine! I paid for it, damn it!



I like to think that in some small way I helped the local "Arts" that night. Though going through the flea market that is located on Main Street between 4th and 6th street actually does help a lot of local crafts and artist. As well as hearing and seeing a lot of galleries and their DJ's spinning. It's really a great event that more of you should go check out.

The flea market really does have a lot of interesting shops to go to. There's a card lady there that I love buying cards from. They're so strange and yet so good. I seem to pick up a couple of cards from her every month for birthdays and whatever holidays are coming around. They have quality put into the item, unlike the poem I bought for a buck, this lady has some good material.. Though she's a little insane also.. but in a good way.

What I'm trying to say is that you should go to Downtown Art Walk sometime. Good food, great art, great people watching and a chance to see that Downtown L.A. is actually alive and well.