Tuesday 20 November 2007

Hair today - but gone tomorrow?

Today's lecture was about modern art and artists - as usual, it fell to me to give the vote of thanks. I'd spent the first few minutes of the talk feeling quite anxious - what on earth was I going to say on a subject I had studied so little? However, it was an enthralling lecture with wonderful pictures, and I found I had to condense my enthusiastic reactions to fit the customary couple of minutes.

But there was one question that I had to pose - and the lecturer didn't know the answer. Check, if you please, this link, scroll down to 'Divided Self' and, if you wish, click on that to enlarge. It is a still photo from a ten-minute film of the artist, D0uglas G0rd0n, wrestling one arm with another. He has shaved one of his arms - if you saw the film without realising that, you would think it was two people fighting - maybe a man assaulting a woman and she fighting back.

So, what I want to know is - after filming, did the artist shave his other arm, or did he go around like that for months? I really need to know. He'd be a fabulous living art exhibit with arms like that, but creepy, dreadfully creepy. Quite difficult to cope with I should think, making every shop assistant, waiter, passing stranger, squeak and recoil with horror whenever they saw his hands. And the grow-back, ew, stubbly.

10 comments:

Pat said...

My guess is he would leave it to grow back normally. The artists I have known would never bother to conform and would welcome looking different and arousing interest. Could be wrong.

Monozygote said...

Well, it looks to me like a man's arm holding a monkeys!

Anonymous said...

That is one follicly gifted man.

A wildlife gardener said...

Like going to bed with a gorilla...come to think of it, my hubbie's a bit hirsute...maybe that's why he's always feeling warm, and I'm always feeling cold...he has more insulation:)

AFC 30K said...

I was Just literally about to say that in fact one of the arms does in fact belong to a gorilla but just Wildlife beat me to it

Anonymous said...

Euuuwww! I had a boss who was very hirsute. He liked to don minimal jogging attire and go for three mile runs during lunch. Everyone in the neighborhood knew that "barechested hairy guy who goes running at noon".

Harriet (the fshlady) said...

Perhaps he waxed the arm (wouldn't be so prickly on regrowth then). I bet he shaved the other one to match. Would be funny to see him naked though - bet he has a really hairy chest and back - with his naked arms - it'd look like he was wearing long gloves.

Casdok said...

I thought eeuuwww to!

Z said...

I'm quite torn, in trying to put myself into the position of the artist, between the dramatic effect of such very different arms and the fascination of actually seeing my bare arm and maybe enjoying it - like dying one's hair a completely different colour.

I decided (you see the effortless switch to being a darkly hirsute young man) that I'd go for an entire body wax, just for a change.

Welcome, Harriet - I know you don't often comment so it's a pleasure to see you, and hello and welcome Casdok - yeah, but it's the 'eeuuwww' of horrified fascination, isn't it?

Z said...

Er, 'dyeing' *embarrassed cough*