Juxtaposition Is Overrated

Performance art, slaughtering animals, grill, protest, PETA. These are some of the words I recieved on Sunday from a seemlingly reliable source about what was going to go down at the Annual Otis Student Art show in Los Angeles.

Being both a good carnivore and student journalist I couldn’t resist checking out the story. In one swoop I was out of the newsroom and on the Interstate 405. One hour and a dozen wrong turns later, I arrived at the show.

What I expected was hippie activists chanting over a sizzling grill of freshly slaughtered farm friends. All this accompanied by a nonchalant art crowd licking their fingers after every bite of the politically fueled BBQ.

Instead walking up to the show, I immediatly noticed a petting zoo with tiny little piglets, bo-peep sheep, birdies and the like. Next to the zoo was a grill where the artist had cooked store bought meats from the same animals listed.

How can you eat something so cute? Especially when it’s standing right over there. I think that was the message, but I’m not sure how deeply the artist would have pontificated on the meaning behind his work, because quite frankly I didn’t feel like talking to him. Too dissapointed to interview.

Artists usually mean well. Like a film synopsis that says: German WWII Holocaust period piece, it’s a comedy. Like Alanis Morrisettes 90’s super single “Ironic” which just lists a bunch of crappy situations. Sometimes it works but often, when the truth is lost in an effort to be clever, that’s when art for art’s sake and technique can be refreshingly romantic.

Of course, with this example of the animal slaughter and feast that wasn’t, there is a certain audience and niche the artist must have been playing to. Let’s call it the Los Angelenos, vegan, green and proud club. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, than this was the group capable of beholding this art. But for the rest of us, it was easy to sigh “cliche” upon arrival.