The New Abstraction of Testicular Wonderment.

23rd February, 2011.

Unbeknownst to the relative reason of a sunny summers day, I found myself queuing at the Mitchell Library request desk yesterday. And when ultimately it did become my turn to request, I payed special attention not to rush the pronounciation of my desired journal. "Kunstforum Please", I stammered like a nervous guy asking for a magazine with an almost suggestive sounding name. For you see I had once before blurted and tripped over this German art handle: ending up red faced in the gynecologists chat room of an abstract, security guard grilling. The prim library assistant had taken none too kindly, and the dishevelled look of my person only served to intensify the perception most seedy.

You may well ask what a footy loving ludite like myself would want with the latest edition of "Kunstforum" for it is surely filled to brimming with Germanic words and installations most illogical, however I do so love to gaze at the pictures and often chuckle to the point of moistening. Art is a funny caper in the "Kunstforum" sphere, and I do so appreciate a funny caper. Is it not true that the great Mel Brooks could not conceive of such a cutting edge spoof ?

Coming away from my bi-annual "Kuntsforum" experience, I wiped the perspiration from that corrigated sheet of flesh known in Gray's as 'me forhead', and could not help but be reminded of the words of  bespectacled artist and sometime collage photographer David Hockney. Many years ago "The Hock" was given the chance to paint the portrait of the great British poet WH Auden who suffered from the exotic Touraine-Solente-Gole Syndrome, a condition that manifests itself in craggy features, short stumpy fingers ... and stuff.  Upon completing the portrait the artist is alleged to have poured himself a nice cup of Earl Gray, snapped a Scotch Finger and said,

WH Auden

"I kept thinking, if his face looks like this, what must his balls look like ?" 
              - David Hockney