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“Initiation, Cord” (2009), one of the inexplicable, dream-world images by Lin Shih-yung in the exhibition “HEY! Modern Art and Pop Culture. |
HEY! is an art magazine that specializes in a particular kind of art, which might be called the Joel Peter Witkin school of kinkiness or, (very) alternatively …
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“Initiation, Cord” (2009), one of the inexplicable, dream-world images by Lin Shih-yung in the exhibition “HEY! Modern Art and Pop Culture. |
HEY! is an art magazine that specializes in a particular kind of art, which might be called the Joel Peter Witkin school of kinkiness or, (very) alternatively, in the kind of art in which the “normal” morphs into the repulsively grotesque or pornographic, currently extremely popular, especially with younger artists.
The magazine has now put on its first exhibition, “HEY! Modern Art and Pop Culture,” at the Halle Saint Pierre, a space that specializes in Art Brut (Outsider Art) and Art Singulier, which might be translated as Weird Art.
Curated by HEY!’s owners, the show is a mishmash of all the various types of art mentioned above, plus a lot of tattoo-related art. It features a few famous names like Robert Crumb, Henry Darger, Robert Combas and many little-known artists, some of whom deserve to be better known. Most are living, but some, like outsider artist Darger, are long gone. Most of the works in this all-over-the-place exhibition are united by a certain desire to outrage, whether conscious or unconscious (often in the case of the outsiders, many of whom just did what they did without really knowing why).
For those of you who can get past what may be an initial feeling of revulsion at the sight of some of the grotesqueries on show, there are many rewarding pieces that will not only make you recoil but that may also make you laugh and/or squirm. It’s impossible not to react in one way or another to most of the works by these 60 artists. Also included, somewhat confusingly, are pieces that are not original artworks but collections of things, such as Pierre Bazalgues’s cabinet of very curious curiosities, or a tattoo artist’s collection of tattoo machines.
In some cases, the connection between popular culture and art announced by the show’s title is clear: Erro’s comic-book-inspired paintings, for example, Titine K-Leu’s intriguing “icon” portraits of tattooed people or Alex Gross’s Mickey Mouse man. In others, it is not at all evident.
Some of the most powerful works here are installations, notably Alexandre Nicolas’s fetuses of superheroes and other icons encased in Plexiglas (the ethereal angel fetus is the most beautiful) and Yu Jinyoung’s heartrending Pop statues of girls with transparent bodies and extremely realistic, extremely sad faces.
The term OCD pops into the mind at the sight of Horst Haack’s “Chronographie Terrestre” (work in progress), a maze whose walls are formed of pages and pages of handwritten texts in French, German and English, superimposed with images. The artist has been expanding his “one-page work” every day since 1981. Jessica Harrison makes delicate Meissen-like porcelain statues of women whose hands have been chopped off or who have been decapitated.
Lin Shih-yung’s paintings show inexplicable scenes (e.g., a banana-headed man sitting at a desk, his feet rooted in the floor, touching with chopsticks one of three naked legs hanging from the ceiling) that seem to come straight out of a nightmare. The collective Neozoon has contributed an installation consisting of five furry, vaguely human shapes seated around a breathing machine to which they are connected by plastic tubes, a work that leaves you with a distinctly queasy feeling.
I have spared you descriptions of some of the more sickening pieces. You’ll just have to go and see for yourself. But, please, leave the kids at home unless you want them to have nightmares for a long time to come.
Halle Saint Pierre: 2, rue Ronsard, 75018 Paris. Métro: Abbesses or Anvers. Tel.: 01 42 58 72 89. Open Monday-Friday, 10am-6pm; Saturday, 10am-7pm; Sunday, 11am-6pm. Closed December 25 and January 1. Admission: €8. Through March 4, 2012. www.hallesaintpierre.org/
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