Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Inopportune




Cai Guo-Qiang

8 comments:

D.Macri said...

Makes bunnies look like...bunnies?

Anonymous said...

Nice kitty! This looks cool, taxidermy meets art. And it's still not dead after all those arrows?!?!

As for similarities between Thorneycroft and this...nah, not really, dead animals maybe,
I don't think Monstrance (her bunny work) is her best work, but it has more depth than this.

Anonymous said...

I really like his explosions!

word verif: terfa

Anonymous said...

more depth?! how do you measure that?

Anonymous said...

With a depth-o-meter! It reads things on levels of engagement.

In comparison, you can hang a tiger in the air and stick it with arrows or you can hang a rabbit on a stick and put a piece of art inside it, I guess their both the same....although Thorney's art that is inserted is usually loaded with spiritual meaning....are those arrows 'holy arrows'? What does the tiger symbolize?

When I made that suggestion, that Monstance was deeper, it was something said from my perspective, in my opinion this Tiger piece is really cool, but doesn't resonate like those rabbits did. I guess you had to see the exhibition to really get into it.

So really, it might be safer not to make these comparisions. Although I do like dead animal art, if that's what we're talking about. Is that a real tiger?

Anonymous said...

Yes it's a real tiger, and I guarantee it is loaded with symbolism. You might want to recalibrate the depth-o-meter. =)

From a personal perspective, I totally get that. You have seen and conversed about the monstrance and have just seen a blog picture of the tiger. I'm personally not a big fan of dead animal art as a whole, but to me this is an extremely powerful image. The tragedy of such a graceful, powerful, beautiful creature being in such a state nearly induced tears.

The tiger is godlike in Asian culture, so my symbolic interpretation is limited (not knowing the full breadth of the myths). To me, I see it as a representation of sublime, uncontrolled, wild nature. Here, it's violently and mercilessly subdued. It is like seeing a clearcut forest, giant factory, or a cadmium contaminated lake. It's beautiful aesthetically, but ultimately tragic. I'm weird like that I guess, at times enjoying the warm embrace of melancholy. Depressing music, rainy days, sad stories. I find a unique sort of enjoyment in knowing the pain of the world. It's not like watching cnn or rubbernecking a car accident, it's more like empathy-fuel.

Lorne Roberts said...

ha ha.

empathy fuel.

nice.

Anonymous said...

wow, great words there macro, I love some of your phrasing!