July 4, 2009

"Warhol said art should be meaningful in the most shallow way."

"He was able to make commercial art that was taken seriously as fine art... that's what I'm doing too... I make soulless electronic pop... Everybody wants me to show my vagina to the world. And the truth is, I don't have to."

Says Lady Gaga.

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

"But when you're on ecstasy in a nightclub grinding up against someone and my music comes on, you'll feel soul."

Well, you'll feel something. I'm just not sure that soul is the right word.

But note the highly taylored product - dancfloor AND ecstasy.

Marketing at its most advanced form.

Cabbage said...

I didn't think she had one.

XWL said...

When I see her I think more Duchamp, than Warhol.

Of course, part of the Duchamp connection has to do with things not art, but more superficial.

In a biography I read about Duchamp, it is said that he favored women with plain to ugly faces, but with great bodies. His reasoning, it's really the body you have the most fun with, and if a woman has a pretty face, she gets too much positive regard, and is therefore less appreciative of attention. Plus, pretty women don't have an incentive to develop mentally or emotionally, but plain-faced women have to work on themselves inside and out to be attractive, and therefore are far better company.

It actually seems like good advice.

And when not made up in intentionally bizarre ways, Lady GaGa is rather plain, but maybe that means she has secret depths that a prettier pop princess simply hadn't needed to develop.

And, you know what, I have to admit, her soulless, shallow music, is fun to listen, too.

(and for me in my personal life, I've never followed Duchamp's dating tips, I'm a sucker for a pretty face)

XWL said...

I can't believe I mixed up a too and a to in the previous post, I guess my fingers wouldn't let me end a sentence with a "to", even while my brain tried.

Anonymous said...

Why do so many perfectly hot women have a hang up about showing their vaginas to the world?

It is boggling and extremely selfish.

Zachary Sire said...

I hate her so much. A talentless, phony, fame whore. Madonna did it a zillion times better a long time ago. Not to mention the fact that GaGa is truly one of the most ugly women in the entire world.

Disgusting.

Anonymous said...

She's just filling the vacuum created by the loss of MJ.
We all know how nature abhors a vacuuum.

Jason (the commenter) said...

I think that's a bad artist to emulate.

I was at a Warhol exhibit a few weeks ago and everyone was ignoring his pieces. Instead everyone was crowded into an exhibit next door of personal letters artists had doodled on.

Modern art and its ilk are just too easy to get.

rhhardin said...

Britain is full of castles to rent.

traditionalguy said...

Whores are a problem. If you love them,then they destroy you. If you stay away from them, then you miss a lot of fun. Decisions, decisions. This free will is a bitch. What's a poor boy to do in a world that has become one big House of the Rising Sun?

Anonymous said...

Madonna did it a zillion times better a long time ago.

These kids today. Why can't their trampy sluts be like ours were? Perfect in every way...

Ann Althouse said...

I seriously could not tell if she was using the word "vagina" as a synonym for "soul" (like "heart" for emotions).

Anonymous said...

Me: Why does the whole world want to see my penis?

Woman at bar: Excuse me?

Me: You know. My penis. My soul. The whole world wants me to show it. The truth is, I don't have to.

[Woman gets up; scurries away; seen talking to angry bouncer.]

Curtiss said...

Andy Warhol also said: "I am a deeply superficial person."

rhhardin said...

Usage-wise, soul means connection to others.

rhhardin said...

Vagina is euphemism already, vulva being vulgar.

Synecdouche, call it.

Ritmo Re-Animated said...

"Synecdouche"... That's funny.

I used to think she was an improved version of Madonna.

Now I have a better idea of why they both suck.

Maybe it's the "vagina as a synonym for soul" thing.

Yep. That'll do it.

themightypuck said...

Occams razor suggests she was just talking about the fact that Britney Spears flashed her vagina to get attention.

Charlie said...

Am I supposed to know who Lady Gaga is?

ricpic said...

Warhol was and this Gaga creature is an inventor of shtick that sells. Which has absolutely nothing to do with the attempt to make a thing of beauty (the old definition of art).

David said...

In other, more important news, Cliff Kresge T-8 ATT National after 3 rounds.

Ann Althouse said...

@David Thanks for noticing. He outplayed Tiger Woods today...

Beth said...

Me: You know. My penis. My soul. The whole world wants me to show it. The truth is, I don't have to.

But rock bands love to, one way or another. Pearl Jam. Stavin' Chain. Jeez, what are they getting at with those names?

rhhardin said...

Art for old people Kate and Anna McGarrigle with Emmylou Harris.

No tattoos.

Jennifer said...

I think everybody wants her to put her vagina away. And wear some pants. At least, the GoFugYourself girls and I do...

Beth said...

rhhardin, I love that song, and love Wrecking Ball, the album Emmylou includes it on. I sometimes use it when I teach an intro to poetry course, in the ballads section, since it cites ballad characters and traditions so well.

Despite our rabid disagreement on so much, we continue to share some likes: Thurber, dogs, and now Emmylou (and the McGarrigles).

rhhardin said...

"Incidentally, when you do get cases of Professor Richards' Disparity Action in a pure form, I think they can be classed as Mutual Metaphor and not as Metaphor. The most promising candidates are the refrains of ballads:

She leaned her back against a thorn
(Fine flowers in the valley)
And there she has her young child born
(And the green leaves they grow rarely)
.

The effect of the contrast is not simple; perhaps it says "Life went on, and in a way this seems a cruel indifference to her suffering, but it lets us put the tragedy in its place, as we do when we sing about it for pleasure." And you might say that the birth of the child and the growth of the plants are treated as both natural, so that in a remote way they are compared. But the flowers in the valley and the girl on the hill are both meant to be really there; she will illuminate them as soon as they her. The likeness, I think, comes in if at all as a faint Mutual Metaphor, so that there is no need to call the thing a Metaphor as such even when further meanings are extracted from it."

Wm. Empson, _The Structure of Complex Words_, p.347-348

Arguments were more respectful then.

I.A.Richards was Empson's teacher.

Kirby Olson said...

Warhol was a practicing Catholic who went to church religiously. There's a neat book by Jane Dillenberger that looks at the secret Christian art that Warhol was making for his own pleasure, but which he never showed to the secularists for fear they'd crucify him.

Noumenon said...

Are you seriously expecting you'll need to use the "Lady Gaga" tag again?