Perhaps it was that whole growing up in a cult thing but I've always sought ways to stretch and warp the symbols that define us and confine us; believing that infinite meanings can be creatively produced from the cultural matter that is so effectively manipulated by powerful people to make us believe or make us want. "The absurd," writes Camus, "is the essential concept and the first truth", to which Reggie Watts has added "Absurdity holds the key to surviving in reality."
I read an article once about 20th century Polish movie posters and the tradition of creating bizarre and frequently disturbing images that are little, if at all related to the film they represent (some of the posters are incredible and a helluva lot better than my postcards, you can browse a few here). Writing about the poster for Luis Bunuel's satirical The Phantom of Liberty by Wieslaw Walkuski, Michael Atkinson makes the following observation:
Walkuski's canvas is an eye-seizing monster on its own, but as a movie poster it acquires a secondary vein of significance--its accord with Bunuel is indecipherable but not necessarily absent, and thus between the two artworks lies a secret, and an implicit expansion of the signifying range of both.
I'm smitten with this idea, and keep it closely in mind when I make postcards, hoping that the secret they contain will bring amusement or inspiration to their recipient.
And now, as requested, here are a few of my constructions of the last few months. Now go out and make some of your own!
One of these things is not like the other
Serious people
Animals with intentions
Barbies and Beijing real estate
Talking Heads take Rajasthan
1 comment:
Yes!
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