Concepts.

Incrediboy and Beechnut were out of town this weekend, so this post isn't funny.

I've been taking a lot of heavy, upper-division English classes lately, and it's really amazing how much of this stuff they actually expect me to wrap my head around. Here is a topic from class discussion a couple weeks ago: Was Richard III evil because he was deformed or deformed because he was evil? It took a lot of brainpower to not reply: Uh, he was an ugly, bad dude, who, uh, got on a chick, then, uh, killed some people. (Note: if anyone is dying to know the answer to aforementioned question, I have a paper about it--it's boring.)
So, yes, some of this stuff is a little dry and tedious. But, then again, there are some pretty choice bits I'm picking up, too, most awesome of which is the idea of conceptual art. Conceptual art is product that results from the school of thinking that asserts that the manifestation of the idea behind a work is more important than the traditional aesthetic or material value. Artists who could be labeled as "conceptual" include Marchel Duchamp, Damien Hirst (whose The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living is pictured above), Tracey Ermin, and, ironically, anonymous British graffiti artist Bansky. Banksy probably hates being mentioned in the same breath as his ideological antithesis, Hirst, but, hey, I'm calling them like I see them. A lot of 'chillwave' bands sometimes get labeled as conceptual artists, but I disagree with this.
Anyways, the cool thing about conceptualism is you can pretty much do whatever the hell you want if you keep the idea alive. If someone disagrees with you, that's ok, because different ideas mean different things to different people. Or, if someone disagrees with you, you can tell them they're not smart enough to 'get it.'

'A dead shark isn't art? You don't know art.'

In the past I have railed against the over-commercialization of conceptual art, and, to clarify, yes, I still don't think it's worth a hundred million dollars. But I do recognize and respect--even envy--the thought that went into, the raw emotion that charges it, the intention it took to create it, and the internal unquiet invoked by the posing of the title and piece. And if that's not art, I don't know what is.

Most of the stuff I've had the chance to do isn't nearly as cool as anything a 'real' conceptual artist would do, plus it doesn't readily lend itself to digitalization (I'm still a humanist in this respect). But, if the opportunity arises I might put it up, or I might not.

In the meantime, here is one of the dopest blogs I have ever encountered: Werewolves Fuck Your Face. I actually have borrowed a few pictures from here for various projects (love the Internet) and think it's pretty sweet what this guy's doing. Note: the collage for March was way sweeter, but this guy doesn't archive so let's hope May brings him back to top level.