Cute. Gross. Cute. Gross. We try to make up our mind.
(Credit: "The Theraputic Nature of Chou Chou, " 2007, courtesy BSFA)
The world-known illustrator and respected lowbrow artist paints cuddly, whimsical cartoons... in positions you'd rather not see. Cartoons doing things to each other that cartoons should be of legal age to do. Oh, and cartoon bodily fluids.
But there's something about the poppy hues and flat rendering of his hypersexualized work that takes viewers utterly off guard, coupling the nostalgia of Depression-era animation with The Everyman's obsession with genitalia. On the fence, I hit his new show "Hide and Seek in the Forest of ChouChou" at Culver City's Billy Shire Fine Arts gallery to see if my mind would sway in either direction.
Never having seen his work in the uh, flesh, the first thing that struck me was scale. I had expected suitcase-sized panels of barren landscapes and trademark bright-eyed characters, often nude and dripping something. But a few of these pieces were wall monsters, eight feet in length and presented in ornate gold frames. The tongue-in-cheekiness pairing of sweet and subversive was heightened by the scale and presentation. Also, it made his subjects' crotches that much bigger.
Panel after panel shared both religious overtones and the ChouChou's setting, a mystical place populated with adorable creatures and bare-assed naked ladies. Amid the din of opening night, I also wandered into a nook of drawings, which resembled long-lost pages from Walt Disney's under-the-mattress sketch books.
The most striking elements of Baseman's work overall are the tidbits of narrative and the sexual/moral dynamics between his figures. Innocent girls are tormented by nebbishy devil men, nude mother-types beat something bloody with a club. These dark stories of feminine power, of hiding and seeking, take the work beyond the schtick of its irony.
Would I pony up thousands for a Gary Baseman piece over my couch? No. But I wouldn't even pony up thousands for a couch itself, so price is irrelevant. Yes, I walked away feeling a little gagged out by the dripping orifices, but also appreciative of the work that Baseman, as leader of the "pervasive art movement," has done to pop the monocle out of the pursed faces of the high-brow art world.
Where: Billy Shire Fine Arts, 5790 Washington Blvd, Culver City
When: through August 11th (closed Sundays and Mondays)
Why: To test your prudishness and get down with the lowbrow.
Alie Ward is Events editor for Metromix Los Angeles.
