Textual Poaching

The Fallen Art of Expressionism

Happy Face

Textual poaching has its roots in Dadaism, as with Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q. His mustachioed Mona Lisa comments both on the protest of art and rejection from the traditional norms. In a sense, Duchamp is putting himself onto DaVinci's masterpiece. In his article, "How Texts Become Real," Henry Jenkins describes this kind of textual poaching in regards to television. He argues that art is meant to generate more art, and that nothing compliments an artist more than people ripping off the work. Now perhaps this isn't quite what Duchamp had in mind, but it certainly sums up my thought process.    

Munch's The Scream has transfixed me ever since I saw it. First it was the rich colors and swirling textures. Then it was the emotions it described and evoked. At different times, this piece has taken the face of my teenage angst, unrequited love, fear of the unknown future, anxiety about life, and just about every other distressing phenomenon. The Expressionist movement came as an attempt to liberate color and form to convey emotion. It wasn't enough to paint things as they appeared; expressionists painted them as they felt. Thus the sensuality of Van Gogh's sunflowers becomes more readily apparent when one takes into account the unnaturally warm color palette and evocative brush strokes. Kandinsky abandoned traditional form altogether and painted music in abstract patterns of texture and color. It was an era marked by a wide range of approaches, each of which carries an emotional message specific to the individual viewer, as shown by my experience with Munch.

However, we live in a culture and in a society that simultaneously extols expression while avoiding negative emotions. It's a world marked by empty "I'm fine"s and "I'm just tired"s. Happy Face comments on this kind of emotional masking. Sightless eyes and a gaudy painted-on smile leer sarcastically from below a cheery and cheesy sun. The bright colors hide the horror that was once so forceful. For me, Happy Face describes the superficiality we wear to cover our vulnerabilities. As actors, we put on a good show for ourselves and our friends, but we refuse to see what is really going on. The media we choose to consume reinforces false ideals and cheap happy endings. And thus the realism of experience is lost.