A piece of art, in addition to appreciating itself, can also witness the whole process of its killing. And after killing people, the corpse together formed a new artwork.
Isn’t it interesting?
I like the movie "Velvet Circular Saw". When I saw it halfway through the first time, I knew I would find some time to watch it again.
Perhaps because I am a visual control, there is an inexplicable attraction to this movie about the murder of artworks, just like the paintings of Vetril Dease in the movie, it is poisoned at the first glance.
In fact, I have never understood art. Although I like to watch exhibitions, I'm just looking at the composition and color matching of the pictures, and it doesn't go deep into the author's intentions. And when discussing with others, I am always ashamed of being poor and only say "somewhat interesting".
In the film "Velvet Circular Saw", I can only see a piece of art. It is hanging on the wall of Josephina's living room. It is Andy Warhol's "Empire State Building".
In fact, this work was originally an ultra-long film, nearly 500 minutes in length, and I have seen this film when I was in college. I went to an Andy Warhol exhibition three years ago, and I also saw this "Empire State Building" at that time.
To be honest, this movie is quite boring. With Andy Warhol's personality, I believe he would think so too. Only by giving a low score to the movie can he truly respect his original intention of creating this movie.
Returning to the movie "Velvet Circular Saw" itself, as mentioned at the beginning of the article, its appeal is mainly that it makes the way of death appear artistic, similar to the artist's version of "Chain Saw".
There are 6 scenes of art murder in the movie, each of which reveals a weird beauty.
The first one was Bryson. While he was cleaning the wound, the monkey in the painting on the wall came alive and dragged him in.
The second one is Jon. He was hanged by a hand that appeared inexplicably in his exhibition hall.
The third is Gretchen. She stretched her hand into a "spherical" work in the Progress Hall, and then she was broken her arm and bleeds to death.
The fourth is Josephina. To some extent, she was killed by paint and engraved on the graffiti wall.
The fifth victim was Morf, who was killed from behind by an exhibit called "The Tramp".
The sixth is Rhodora. She was sawed to death by the "velvet circular saw" tattoo on the back of her neck.
These people have one thing in common, that is, they want to seek something from the dead "artist" Vetril Dease. Among them, Bryson, Gretchen, Josephina, and Rhodora all want to get money from him, while Jon and Morf want to let the world know his "past events".
And Vetril Dease's wish is to wipe himself clean from this world, and his works will die with him. Obviously, the group of people above had violated his wishes.
Since they gave life to their works, Dease will take their lives back and bury them together. In the end, these people who live by works of art are plagued by bad luck, are swallowed up by works of art, and are "arts" that they have despised.
Take Josephina, for example, when she expressed her dislike of Damrish's graffiti works, she finally turned into graffiti.
In fact, the main reason why the above group of people ended up like this is that they are all profit-seeking people.
Rhodora can be regarded as a boss-level figure in the art trading industry. In the heyday of Piers, some works were deliberately reserved for inventory and selected a good time to release them to earn a huge amount of room for appreciation.
In addition, she will also find the right time to make huge profits through bundling sales and signing newcomers.
Andy Warhol once said, "Everyone can be famous for 15 minutes." Rhodora's goal is to spot everyone's 15 minutes of fame, and then stick to it to make money.
However, Rhodora's vision in the movie seems to be general, and his sense of smell for the art market relies entirely on the undercover agent placed next to Morf.
Morf plays the role of the god of the art world, who can decide the success or failure of a work with his mouth. I remember he commented on Josephina's skin color and dress more than once, and even the coffin at the funeral.
After murdering the reputation of Josephina's ex-boyfriend, Morf said that a bad review is much better than obscurity. What Dease wanted was obscurity, which is why Morf would eventually be murdered by the artwork he had vilified.
I remember that Claude Monet and Gerhard Richter both had the habit of destroying their own works before they were alive, but they were pursuing the perfection of their works, which was different from Dease's original intention.
It is reported that, in order to shape Dease's dark painting style, the film produced more than 100 works, whose inspiration was mainly from the fringe artist Henry Darger.
Henry Darger was a janitor during his lifetime. He was found dead at home by the landlord in 1973, leaving behind 13,000 pages of works, which made it known to the world.
As Henry Darger was abused in the asylum when he was a child, violence and fear are revealed in his works. Some people describe him as a "psychological serial killer," while others believe that he is related to an unresolved murder case. (Looks like there is a lot of overlap with Dease's story in the film)
In addition to Henry Darger, in order to shape Dease's paintings, the film also quoted the works of many other artists.
For example, the British painter Francis Bacon, his works with double images or blurry images.
Or maybe it is the work of Edward Munch. There is an abusive scene in the movie that is particularly like his "The Dead Mother".
In the movie, Dease will use his blood as paint, and in reality in New York, tattoo artist Vincent Castiglia will also use his blood to paint.
British artist Mark Quinn has a series of works called "Self", which are statues made with his own blood as paint.
In the movie, some paintings are resurrected, and there are some materials to follow in reality.
American painter Bill Stoneham's "Dior's World" and Bruno Amadeo's "Crying Boy" are relatively well-known and weird paintings.
On the whole, Dease's doom did not affect other artists. A reasonable explanation may be that the artist's own energy is devoted to how to inject a part of his soul into the work, rather than the income brought by the work.
When Piers saw Dease's paintings, he excitedly picked up the wine glass again, all signs showed that he admired and liked it very much. (And he has been looking for water to drink at the previous party, which shows that he has already gotten rid of the habit of drinking.)
It is worth mentioning that Piers’ works at his peak were all done in a state of alcoholism. Once he left the stimulating effect of alcohol, his inspiration seemed to disappear.
However, the reason for the loss of inspiration is probably mainly because Piers is too sober, and utilitarianism has become stronger because of this. It can be concluded from the work reproduction factory downstairs that Piers has been reluctant to make progress for a long time. The reality of artistic creation is, "Creativity plays with the Unknown".
Therefore, only by returning to the original self and enjoying the moment of creation without investigating its value retention, art may naturally emerge. At this moment, Piers no longer minds that the waves wash away the work.
However, looking at it the other way round, the so-called art in the movie is really ironic enough.
The graffiti of the tramp can become art. A vision-correcting glasses is considered to be Persol’s latest model. A pile of trash bags also has space to become art. A woman died next to the exhibits. The big home also thinks it is "part of art." ".
Artists seem to like to use a certain organ of the human body as a metaphor, especially the "spherical shape" that appears in movies.
Is this the kind of fun that the artwork wants to show? I can only sigh: I don't deserve to understand the world of an artist.
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