stove going off, leaving a shambles of a gleaming modern apartment; the housewife’s dream goes up behind a barrier of shatterproof glass to shield the spectators.
Now here’s another angle for you young art hustlers: There is an explosive known as ammonium iodide made by pouring ammonia over iodide crystals or mixing it with tincture for brash work. This compound when it dries is so sensitive that a fly will explode it. I remember how I used to while away the long 1920’s afternoons with sugar sprinkled around little heaps of ammonium iodide waiting for the flies to explode in little puffs of purple vapor. So you paint your canvas with ammonium iodide and syrup and release a swarm of flies in the gallery... or the people walking around set it off with their vibrations ... or a team of choir boys touches it off with pop guns...
And metal sodium explodes violently on contact with water; so you paint in sodium (which has a beautiful sheen like the side of a silver fish in clear water), and stand well back, and shoot it with a water rifle, or induce a spitting cobra to spit on it and get blown apart. Can sacrificial art be far behind? Cut a chicken’s head off and paint with the gushing blood. Disembowel a sheep and paint with its intestines. Or you can do a combo with the sodium number.
Then there will be the famous Mad Bear Floyd, a billionaire painter who covered a twenty-foot montage of porno pictures with thousand-dollar bills soaked in ammonium iodide ... the montage was laid in the middle of the gallery, then a hamper of thousand-dollar bills rained down and set off the charge, burning a million dollars out of circulation while his agent sold the burnt canvas for $10 million on the spot.
Could this proliferation of competitive angles precipitate a revival of old-time potlatches? The potlatch was a competitive destruction of property carried out until one contestant was rained and frequently died of shame on the spot. It is interesting to consider American tycoons sitting on this game — blowing up their factories and mines and oil wells, burning their crops and sloshing oil on their beaches, irradiating their land, irrigating with salt water, letting the frozen food rot, burning Rolls-Royces and Bentleys, original Rembrandts, destroying Greek statues with air hammers ... the American team drops atom bombs on America while China and Russia match us bomb for bomb on their own ground.
The potlatch was invented by the Northwest Coast Indians in the area that is now British Columbia, and it occupied most of their time. Objects destroyed at these uncomfortable occasions included salmon oil, blankets, and coppers. Salmon oil poured on an open fire at the center of the room frequently singed honored guests in the front row, who were obliged by protocol to evince no signs of displeasure. The coppers were engraved shields of thin copper about three feet by two feet, and are now highly valued as curios.
A copper receives its value from the number of potlatches it has weathered: THIS IS THE GREAT COPPER BEFORE WHICH OTHER COPPERS PISS THEMSELVES LIKE BITCH DOGS.’ And cowardly coppers shrink back, losing value. You see, a potent copper like this represents so many value units, just as modern art objects may derive value from a series of competitive manipulations: this soup can represents fifty burnt kitchen chairs, twenty urinals, and a Wyeth pig. Competitive over-inflation of values could lead to La Chute de l’Art; a total collapse of the art market. Imagine the artist Bourse where all the painters stand by their pictures — frenzied phone calls from broker to collector ... ‘Your margin’s wiped out, B.J. You gotta cover with the gilt-edge stuff — you know what I mean: Monets, Renoirs, Rembrandts, Picassos .. ,’ And then: PICASSO SLUMPS SHARPLY AS HIS ENTIRE OUTPUT IS DUMPED ON THE MARKET BY FRANTIC DEALERS ... As an artist falls off the Board he is obligated by the Board of Health to surrender his pictures to
Now here’s another angle for you young art hustlers: There is an explosive known as ammonium iodide made by pouring ammonia over iodide crystals or mixing it with tincture for brash work. This compound when it dries is so sensitive that a fly will explode it. I remember how I used to while away the long 1920’s afternoons with sugar sprinkled around little heaps of ammonium iodide waiting for the flies to explode in little puffs of purple vapor. So you paint your canvas with ammonium iodide and syrup and release a swarm of flies in the gallery... or the people walking around set it off with their vibrations ... or a team of choir boys touches it off with pop guns...
And metal sodium explodes violently on contact with water; so you paint in sodium (which has a beautiful sheen like the side of a silver fish in clear water), and stand well back, and shoot it with a water rifle, or induce a spitting cobra to spit on it and get blown apart. Can sacrificial art be far behind? Cut a chicken’s head off and paint with the gushing blood. Disembowel a sheep and paint with its intestines. Or you can do a combo with the sodium number.
Then there will be the famous Mad Bear Floyd, a billionaire painter who covered a twenty-foot montage of porno pictures with thousand-dollar bills soaked in ammonium iodide ... the montage was laid in the middle of the gallery, then a hamper of thousand-dollar bills rained down and set off the charge, burning a million dollars out of circulation while his agent sold the burnt canvas for $10 million on the spot.
Could this proliferation of competitive angles precipitate a revival of old-time potlatches? The potlatch was a competitive destruction of property carried out until one contestant was rained and frequently died of shame on the spot. It is interesting to consider American tycoons sitting on this game — blowing up their factories and mines and oil wells, burning their crops and sloshing oil on their beaches, irradiating their land, irrigating with salt water, letting the frozen food rot, burning Rolls-Royces and Bentleys, original Rembrandts, destroying Greek statues with air hammers ... the American team drops atom bombs on America while China and Russia match us bomb for bomb on their own ground.
The potlatch was invented by the Northwest Coast Indians in the area that is now British Columbia, and it occupied most of their time. Objects destroyed at these uncomfortable occasions included salmon oil, blankets, and coppers. Salmon oil poured on an open fire at the center of the room frequently singed honored guests in the front row, who were obliged by protocol to evince no signs of displeasure. The coppers were engraved shields of thin copper about three feet by two feet, and are now highly valued as curios.
A copper receives its value from the number of potlatches it has weathered: THIS IS THE GREAT COPPER BEFORE WHICH OTHER COPPERS PISS THEMSELVES LIKE BITCH DOGS.’ And cowardly coppers shrink back, losing value. You see, a potent copper like this represents so many value units, just as modern art objects may derive value from a series of competitive manipulations: this soup can represents fifty burnt kitchen chairs, twenty urinals, and a Wyeth pig. Competitive over-inflation of values could lead to La Chute de l’Art; a total collapse of the art market. Imagine the artist Bourse where all the painters stand by their pictures — frenzied phone calls from broker to collector ... ‘Your margin’s wiped out, B.J. You gotta cover with the gilt-edge stuff — you know what I mean: Monets, Renoirs, Rembrandts, Picassos .. ,’ And then: PICASSO SLUMPS SHARPLY AS HIS ENTIRE OUTPUT IS DUMPED ON THE MARKET BY FRANTIC DEALERS ... As an artist falls off the Board he is obligated by the Board of Health to surrender his pictures to
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