Colossal Confrontation

Colossal Confrontation

This was the last thing that I needed to be greeted by this morning……

Before I begin, I would like to issue this disclaimer:

The current social and economic climate makes me tremendously grateful for everyone and everything in my life.  

I work at a museum, primarily in development. But am also kind of like a jack of all trades.

When a new piece of art is acquired by the museum or a new exhibit is about to open at the museum, we as staff members must become semi – well versed on the subject. I wouldn’t call it connoisseurship; it’s more like a remedial crash course. But that all depends on how drunk Mr. Shanley is.

The piece of art, more specifically the painting we as staff members are becoming semi-well versed in today is an extremely large canvas housed in a bay all of its own.  It’s about 10 feet tall and 8 feet wide.

Imagine if there were quadruplets of Lebron James. Two appropriate adjectives would be: gargantuan and monumental.  Apocalyptic forces of nature couldn’t make it tremble. The handling of paint is phenomenal. The scale is powerful, obtrusive and it makes absolutely no apologies for it.

It’s so real that it breathes….

And what is it? What is this image?

In all of her glory there she is, an obese woman. Not only is she obese, she has committed a mortal of sin. She’s obese and naked. The nerve of her.

Her back is to us and her head is slightly turned. It looks like me checking my back in the mirror for melanoma.  I wander if anyone sees any similarities. Do they think that this could be what I look like naked? (Greg, from the Registrar’s Office can’t look at me with a straight face. Like he is Mr. Fantasy or some Adonis… He’s prematurely bald.)  

KATIE from Conservation (Katie is 23 and likes Justin Bieber) – Is that a portrait of an autopsy? It’s like from that movie, with the cannibal guy.

Either I am getting old or she is more intellectually disabled than I originally suspected.  No Katie, it’s not a carcass off Buffalo Bill’s carving table.

She’s ALIVE. She makes me want 16 Xanex. And of course she is located right outside my office. And I have to pass her at least 27 times a day from using the ladies room (It’s all the water) to running around the building like a crack head because there are no more elevators in my world. It’s stairs, only stairs.

 

Enter Mr. Shanley.

Mr. Angus Shanely is the director of the museum and everyone’s boss including mine. And he doesn’t let anyone forget it. Some say he is cultured and polished. Yeah, you try working for him. Quite frankly the man is an elitist douche turd.  A dandy asshole, and there are no two ways about it.

He stutters.  It is very pronounced with “n’s” and “s’s” with the occasional “f” or three syllable word. He has an abrasive British accent and a thunderous voice. He speaks with absolute confidence and a bit of contempt. He couldn’t care less about his stammering. But given that he is half in the bag 99.9% of the time might help.

Cocktail hour begins when he wakes. I am telling you the day is upon us where the pulsating gin blossoms on his nose explode spattering the artwork. Like most of the staff I too have secret fantasies about him falling down the stairs and breaking his neck.  But that’s not going to happen since he only takes the elevator.

I am only telling you all of this because it’s something Mr. Shanley said that compelled me to begin our adventure together here. It’s something I have known all along. It’s always been present in my FAT thoughts.

Working on memory and paraphrasing here…

SHANLEY –   (Chastising Katie) – Only scholars have opinions about art. No, it’s not a portrait of an autopsy and it has nothing to do with Sir Anthony Hopkins.

(Addressing the staff)

What do you think of her?

Audible and uncomfortable gasps of disgust from my colleagues.  

She is a spectacle. BUT in the Hogarthian tradition of painting, this painting f-f-focuses on the repulsive. It provides us with a real sense of humanity. Instead of warts and all, we have blubber and lard. The artist makes n-n-n-no effort at hiding it. It asks, “What is beauty”? Does that concept exist? Or is there only truth? Every mole, every imperfection, every intense ripple of flesh and crater of cellulite is glorified within-n-n an epic scale of the carcass like figure. The artist boldly takes the human body, her body, every possible proportion of it and amplifies it to the unchartered s-s-s-sectors of obesity and obscenity.

Is this painting reaffirming societies aversion, our aversion to veracity at its most pure and n-n-naked state? We live in a society obsessed with image and beauty. We are defined by cannons of aesthetics – what we look like and not who we are, what we think or how we feel. The painting comments on our hyper hysteria once we are con – con- con-confronted with the imperfect, the repugnant, and the real. What does that say about human- man – man- ity?

ME: That we are all a bunch of plastic imbeciles who deserve to be set on fire by the blow torches of hell.

Even more audible and uncomfortable gasps of disgust from my colleagues.  

KIDDING. I never said that out loud. In fact I stopped listening to that scoundrel Shanley long ago. By now I have already retreated into my fat thoughts.

Here’s one:

Uncertain if or how this would hold up in court. But I am considering filing a restraining order against Jennifer Hudson for cyber stalking me all day, every day.  There’s no going on line without her harassing me about her weight loss freedom. And if that’s not bad enough, she torments me with images of herself getting smaller and smaller and smaller.  

But seriously, how am I supposed to look?  According to society’s standards and misguided delusions the preferred aesthetic for women is as follows: Caucasian, long straight blonde hair and skinny jeans skinny with perky tits and a tight little pecan ass.

Just out of curiosity, when did we anoint a Body Image Czar? I don’t recall being part of this decision making process.

Since when did we give this oppressor license to secretly transplant microchips inside every woman’s head programming them to aspire to become Gwyneth Paltrow clones.  Oh, wait. My bad. It’s not a singular supreme oppressor. It’s the media.

Ah, the media. The noxious nuclear power plant spreading its toxic radioactive message far and wide. Far and wide like my ass. Poisoning and pulverizing our souls. Filling shrinks offices in throngs of young women because of skinny jeans.

Am convinced the anti Christ wears skinny jeans.

SHANLEY –  (still yammering on.)The artist forces us to reflect on our own bodies and how we feel about them and inside of them. Look at her! The en-n-normity of her! Rotund and/

Flight or fight! Flight or fight! Click my heels together. Flight! Flight!

SHANLEY – Just where do you think you are going in the middle of MY gallery talk?

Audible, uncomfortable and glaring gazes of disgust from my colleagues.  

Inaudible shrieks of horror reverberate throughout my entire body.

SHANLEY – Were you leaving us to prepare your autobiographical discourse on this painting?

VERY audible, barbarous and cruel laughter from my colleagues.  

One small silent tear falls from on my face.

SHANLEY  –  (It’s all about him.) Rotund. Radical and revolting, she shows us reality.