Humor As Art

A scene from Joe Gibbons' Deadbeat (1986).

A few years ago Jared Medeiros released (on the internet) a few videos that remade some old media. The remakes are filled with humorous subtlety thats speak about the mediums they're emulating. These are some of the most honest, creative, timely remakes on the internet. And we know how swamped the internet is with remake culture. This is one of the few times I support remake culture in art.

This website reaches a lot of the intellectual community. One of those communities is called Germany. Recently, I have had numerous hits from numerous towns in the great country of Germany. I always wish to show my appreciation for anyting that deserves my appreciation. I felt this warrants that appreciation. Here is a video addressing the German population that has found interest in the research done here.

The people who shot this video are friends of Tony.  I asked what the story was behind the video originally uploaded on YouTube.  The following is from that correspondence: Tony's a friend of a friend so we get to spend time with him every now and then...he had an opening for his "yellow movie" paintings at walter bucholz gallery in cologne a few winters ago and we happened to be in germany at the time so we went. the day after the opening tony bought and stuck the canvasses to his feet and walked to the gallery with them on and gave them the canvasses as kind of a funny gift for having the show... Twarnock's You Tube page

Oops... Round Up

Based almost entirely on incongruity, The Lion & the Twins, leads you through no familiarity whatsoever. It's a piece of humor similar to the Mothman Proficies (maybe) when you think you've got it, you don't, then you don't again. From the brains of Emily Geanacopoulos & Avi Paul Weinstein

"A very direct and subtle, very sad and funny look at nothing more or less than sexual frustration and aloneness. In its economy and cogency of imaging, HOLD ME surpasses any of Kuchar's previous work. The odd blend of Hollywood glamour and drama with all-too-real life creates and inspires counterpoint of unattainable desire against unbearable actuality." - Ken Kelman "This film could cheer an arthritic gorilla, and audiences, apparently sensitized by its blithely accurate representation of feelings few among them can have escaped, rise from their general stupor to cheer it back." - James Stoller, The Village Voice I remember my first film class. It was a Super 8 class with Luther Price. I was a snotty nose teenager wanting to make comedy films. Luther taught us how to process our own film and put emphasis on the straining the batch of chemicals to it's last potential. Well we saw a lot of experimental films in that class. At the time a lot of them past through my memory. Except Hold Me While I'm Naked from George Kuchar. There was a lot of talk about the way George used light and color and exploited the 16mm saturation of color. Although that was very important to the film, I was more interested in the delivery of the film. George Kuchar was filming a melodramatic sequence which pulled you into the drama effectively. He also showed you his directing techniques in the form of a performance within the film. George combined music and his fantastic exploitation of his directing to execute a hilarious pathos on both himself and his talent. Key scene: George holding the bird on his finger. Cinema's greatest capture of the pathetic nature of sniveling poetics.

Iggy Want to Fuck nice... Patrick Rock Rock's Box Gallery Judging by what Patrick Rock's artist statement: "I am not prepared to make a statement at this time." leads me to believe the work is open for interpretation. Which is the way great art should be, and Rock's work leaves enough for us to contemplate in the short amount of time he gives us in his videos? performances? videotaped performances? The lines are not defined, nor should they be. Rock's work breaks form in a lot of traditions of humor, performance art, and video art which is why the work stands out. It's an honor to have his video pieces on this site, as I've been admiring his work, nearly, once my foot landed in Portland. He's an Oregon native who studied in San Francisco only to come back to Portland to start his gallery Rock's Box. If you're an artist coming back to Portland, starting your own gallery is in my opinion "doing it right".

Adam Giangregorio animates some of the process of allowing oneself to be funny. In this process Giangregorio creates art and humor out of nothing. While analyzing the psychology, the nuts and bolts of a cognitive process many people go through in considering humor, he creates the laughter within the frame of the analysis.

James A. O'Brien gives us a tour of his high profile book collection.

I think of humor development, humor education, and learning through humor when I watch this video.

From: Art of Russia In the art of the group "Blue Noses" are embodied the innovatory trends of Russian modern art – the communicatory and the comical. The artists work in zones, borderline for the aesthetic and social response, and with the most poignant problem for these zones and the general social state. The art of "Blue Noses", as a worldview, tends sooner to the Rabelais-like simple-hearted clear thinking, than to social criticism. Frequently their works represent video-documentation of some absurd and hilarious actions, performed by the artists as improvisations based on pre-prepared roles. The works of "Blue Noses" elegantly balance on the edge of the everyday and artistic phenomenon, reminding one of a half-professional, half-amateur video, where the intended fiasco is indistinguishable from a dilettante blunder. The model of the world of the "petty man" is affirmed through parody in diverse ways of ridiculing the fetishes of mass consciousness. "Blue Noses" mockingly imitate the high art of the XXth century, mass culture, television, glamour, the joy of leisure, the spectacle of sport, the sacred rituals of everyday life etc. The whole existential state of the petty man appears in their works in an energetic, sympathetically-idiotic manner. Alexander EVANGELY

This was the time I got sucked into a video hole live on television.

Get so Emotional Baby with me and Whitney Houston!!

Believe the children are the future with Whitney Houston and I!

Guffmore by Stuart Randle

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Joe Gibbons instructing his students at MIT on how to remove a paper jam.

Joe Gibbons instructing his students at MIT on how to remove a paper jam.

Joe Gibbons instructing his students at MIT on how to remove a paper jam.

This tape is also found on http://www.illegal-art.org. From Creative Capital: Joe Gibbons is recognized as a groundbreaking filmmaker in experimental autobiography. His more than thirty films include Unnatural Acts (1975), Going to the Dogs (1980), Hellhound (1995), and Final Exit (2000). He has been recognized with fellowships and awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Black Maria Film and Video Festival, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities. He has recently screened his work at the Rotterdam Film Festival, the Whitney Biennial, Museum Of Modern Art, and on PBS. He is a 2001 recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. Joe Gibbons

This tape is also found on http://www.illegal-art.org. From Creative Capital: Joe Gibbons is recognized as a groundbreaking filmmaker in experimental autobiography. His more than thirty films include Unnatural Acts (1975), Going to the Dogs (1980), Hellhound (1995), and Final Exit (2000). He has been recognized with fellowships and awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Black Maria Film and Video Festival, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities. He has recently screened his work at the Rotterdam Film Festival, the Whitney Biennial, Museum Of Modern Art, and on PBS. He is a 2001 recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. Joe Gibbons

This tape is also found on http://www.illegal-art.org. From Creative Capital: Joe Gibbons is recognized as a groundbreaking filmmaker in experimental autobiography. His more than thirty films include Unnatural Acts (1975), Going to the Dogs (1980), Hellhound (1995), and Final Exit (2000). He has been recognized with fellowships and awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Black Maria Film and Video Festival, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities. He has recently screened his work at the Rotterdam Film Festival, the Whitney Biennial, Museum Of Modern Art, and on PBS. He is a 2001 recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. Joe Gibbons