webofevil: (dagnabbit)
webofevil ([personal profile] webofevil) wrote2008-03-10 03:08 pm

77 Testicular Imprints

“77 Testicular Imprints is the most recent in a series of projects in which Guagnini presents a multiple of the number 7 as the fundamental element used in combination with an intervention in publications and other ephemeral printed matter. 77 Testicular Imprints consists of 77 paintings, along with a limited edition of 16 cloth-bound books with a unique oil imprint on each cover, and a trade edition bound in wrappers.

“The paintings were produced with oil paint applied directly to the artist’s testicles and imprinted on various bound and ephemeral printed matter including: mainstream magazines such as Time and Life; art market staples such as Artforum, Art in America and Art News; exhibition and auction catalogues; rare magazines and artists’ books; personal letters; and lastly, on an assortment of original artworks, poems and studio notes by Vito Acconci, Simon Bedwell, Alejandro Cesarco and Dan Graham.

“Many of the imprinted items are valuable and integrate within a niche market; they can be read as originally intended and also collected as precious objects. In the act of transforming them into paintings, Guagnini suspends their original use value by altering their commodity of exchange through an act of artistic intervention. They can no longer be handled. Adding to this transformation, Guagnini has further imposed a new meaning to the material by excerpting a portion of text from within and pairing it with its cover. Thus the pictorial act of imprinting and bodily appropriation functions simultaneously as signature and editorial.

“Like Marcel Broodthaers’ eagles, the testicular imprints also delineate a critical archive, acting like stamps of inclusion. What Guagnini establishes through this process are the relationships between Patriarchy, Private Property, Power, Progress, Position, Packaging and Personality in twentieth-century art production. The geniuses that shaped the century—Picasso, Duchamp, Joyce, and le Corbusier—are paraded alongside Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and the atomic attack on Hiroshima. Minimalism, Postminimalism, Conceptual art, Abstract Expressionism, Experimental film, Lettrism, Situationism, and other significant outgrowths are integrated, illustrating their instrumentality in becoming history.

“Guagnini’s selection of texts is visually married to their sources to create a meta-narrative; they establish a fragmentary relationship with the object from which they were removed. The placement, color and materiality of the oil imprints cohere into a precise critical and aesthetic statement about the images on which they intervene. In certain instances they are placed in a complimentary position with the image, at other times they obliterate specific parts of the image or text, generating new and often unexpected meanings.”

[identity profile] uniquefergus.livejournal.com 2008-03-10 03:54 pm (UTC)(link)
What a lot of bollocks!

© Jim Davidson, Roy Chubby Brown, Bernard Manning, Stan Boardman et al.

[identity profile] robsoft.livejournal.com 2008-03-10 03:54 pm (UTC)(link)
The restraint you just showed, by not ending this post with the words 'What a load of bollocks', is remarkable.

I'm impressed. :-)

[identity profile] robsoft.livejournal.com 2008-03-10 03:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Heh. I was too slow with my post. :-)

[identity profile] offensive-mango.livejournal.com 2008-03-10 04:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Did you see that guy who made art with his ejaculations? I can't find a link right now for obvious reasons.

[identity profile] uniquefergus.livejournal.com 2008-03-10 04:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes. It was a semenal piece of work.

© Fergus Mitchell

[identity profile] uniquefergus.livejournal.com 2008-03-10 04:28 pm (UTC)(link)
I have no restraint!

[identity profile] offensive-mango.livejournal.com 2008-03-10 04:28 pm (UTC)(link)
That's exactly why I didn't use the word semen. I hope you will thank me for setting up these opportunities for you.

[identity profile] uniquefergus.livejournal.com 2008-03-10 04:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I just put 'em in the net. Call it a double act...Mango & Mitchell?

[identity profile] webofevil.livejournal.com 2008-03-10 04:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Not so much Man Ray as Man Fat, etc etc.

BIG BLOODY BUGGERING BALLS

[identity profile] moleintheground.livejournal.com 2008-03-10 08:43 pm (UTC)(link)
That picture really reminds me of this picture -



I'm glad I figured out what it was, it would have driven me nuts otherwise. It could have been a right balls up. It's a testes of character I suppose. Does it make a vas deferens?
Edited 2008-03-10 20:43 (UTC)

Re: BIG BLOODY BUGGERING BALLS

[identity profile] webofevil.livejournal.com 2008-03-10 11:27 pm (UTC)(link)
i too hav staigd an INTERVENSHUN

Image

tho frankly i dont kno wot the art master wil sa