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Steven Quinn Clown Face (2014)
‘In his series Clown Face, the artist creates new, more cheerful characters, for old actors and actresses. Using found images of old Hollywood’s stars, he stencils clown makeup over their faces, with spray paint.’
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Yishai Jusidman Clown Spheres (1990)
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Clown Core Hell (2018)
‘Clown Core perform their song “Hell” while inside of a large Porta Potty. According to Urban Dictionary, clowncore is a style of music “having fast paced beats and usually containing a combination of D’n’B, trance, hip hop, acid, and circus music.”’
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Keith Sonnier Clown Novice (1997)
Nylon sailcloth, metal, blower, Argon, and electric light
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Aziz + Cucher By Aporia, Pure and Simple (2011)
‘By Aporia, Pure and Simple is a multi-channel video installation in which Aziz + Cucher appear in an absurdist, clownish performance that alludes to the daunting and seemingly futile task of engaging with existential questions as they piece together video footage from their travels to the Middle East.’.
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Allison Schulnik Clowns (2008)
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Llefen Carrera Clown (2019)
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Piek! Clown (2001)
‘Clown is an installation in which the spectator is one of the main characters. When looking through a peeping hole in a blue wall, one sees a projection of a forest. In that forest a half naked clown is trying to get her trousers out of the trees, in which she almost succeeds. It seems that she isn’t enjoying her ‘act’ but what the reason of the ‘act’ is doesn’t become clear. The clown isn’t the only one in the forrest: the spectator is also appearing in the projection. He /she is watching from behind a tree at the jumping clown.’
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Tim Shaw The Birth of Breakdown Clown (2017)
‘Breakdown Clown is an outsider, a bit like a priest or a shaman or a therapist. The program malfunctions, data gets mixed up, and out of the mouth of the clown come wonderful nuggets of truth mixed up with verbal madness. The clown doesn’t look like a clown, and that’s OK—clown imagery is not for me, it’s too decorative. I’d intended a large, perhaps asexual figure, but in its present form, it’s quite masculine, although that might change.’
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Wayne Thiebaud Clown Paintings (2000 – 2018)
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Liz Craft Mermaid (2008-2015)
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Brian Whiteley Clown Masks and Performances (2016)
‘Performance artist Brian Whiteley dresses up as the clown of your worst nightmares in order to explore ideas of fear and phobia. You may not see him at first, as he lurks in a Chicago graveyard on a brilliant, spotless day. It takes you a few moments to spot him as he passes from gravestone to gravestone. The sun is bright, and at first he’s just a coloured speck, distinguishable by his trio of balloons and oversized clown costume. Whiteley is a former clown himself (he attended clown school at the age of 12).’
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Lucio Fontana Clown (1949)
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Ugo Rondinone let’s start this day again (2017)
‘Life-size clown sculptures pose within a gallery to emphasize their introspection and melancholy. In a world that seems increasingly divided between scary clowns and jovial ones, Rondinone provided a third choice: silently contemplative clowns. His exhibition saw 45 of these unsettlingly life-like sculptures — with closed eyes, red noses and Pierrot-white faces, dressed in a riot of neon, sequins, tulle and teeny, tiny black hats — lost in a surrounding world of color so intensely alive it should make them want to jump and dance… but they didn’t.’
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Larry Ogle Bear Problem – SOLVED (2017)
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Wham-O Fun Fountain (1980)
‘This “fountain” consisted of a clown head-shaped base that sprayed water at high pressure skyward, and a clown hat that you placed over the stream. The water pressure would lift the clown hat skyward, levitating it just out of reach, and spraying everyone near it with an enjoyable drizzle of chilly hose water. But The Fun Fountain has a dark secret. It wasn’t just a stay cool toy, but was instead a game of Russian roulette.’
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James Ormsbee Chapin The Merry Clown (1941)
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Marnie Weber Giggle of Clowns (2009)
‘In the fairytale of Marnie Weber’s Giggle of Clowns (2009), a group of twelve surrounds a flower-laden corpse, shocked at the prospect of adventure without their ringleader. This corpse has returned to her higher calling to lead her all-female rock band called The Spirit Girls on their quest for spiritual salvation. The clowns are aghast: the fun is over.’
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Kathryn Andrews Run for President (2016)
‘The title of LA-based Kathryn Andrews’s first solo museum show in the US refers to a presidential campaign by—surprise!—Bozo the Clown. Fifteen seductive yet chilling sculptures, made since 2011, many of which amend certified movie props (among other political footballs thrown from the collective unconscious), will be appointed to a wild exhibition narrative for which Bozo’s largely forgotten 1984 bid serves as a backdrop.’
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Bruce Nauman Clown Torture (1987)
‘Bruce Nauman, through his Clown Torture, delves into what is known as torture comedy. However, what you will not see clearly is the identity of the person undergoing torture. The work doesn’t show us the exact kind of torture the clown faces. If you are keen enough, though, you will realize that the tortured party is the one watching all of this unfolding – you! The loudness, the mess, and the screaming clown, among other features all torture your senses. Here, Nauman reminds us that art doesn’t always have to be beautiful. It can be quite ugly too!’
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Michael Rees Pneumatopia (2018)
‘The sculptures become clownish vessels that not only contain something, but that alter our perception of what’s on the other side. And by adding a layer of imagery when we view the sculpture through the tablet imagery — ants seem to emerge out of a clown’s head — we either become closer to the object because we’ve entered into its distorted psychic space, or further metaphysically removed because we become focused on the small screen in front of us. Either way, Rees destabilizes the here and now within this constantly shifting, trippy environment.’
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Czech Technical Institute Blind Juggler (2011)
‘”Blind Juggler” is an impressive machine that has no sensors or cameras. Instead, it relies on mechanical feedback and some fancy math to control the trajectory of the ball and keep it airborne. The Blind Juggler debuted back in 2009, but creators Philipp Reist and Raffaello D’Andrea introduced an interesting wrinkle for version 2.0 by turning the entire thing into a pendulum that passes the ball to itself. Clearly, the next step is face paint and a red, foam nose.’
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Georg Baselitz Clown (1981)
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Sean Landers Clowns at Sea (2011)
‘Landers embraces his anti-hero fully however, freeing him from the circus and sending him around the world as skipper of a disturbingly un-seaworthy and shape-shifting vessel. He eschews the laws of physics and narrative continuity in this series – the captain’s wheel shrinks to flimsy inadequacy and expands to dwarf the helmsman. Though the artist is an experienced sailor, the details of the boat are purposefully wrong or missing; the jib is not tied to the boom, the gunwale appears to consist of carved wooden bannisters, the wheel sometimes faces the stern. His brave avatar is far from land, in a deliberately inadequate craft. The ocean is rendered more authentically – shifting from green to blue to calm to roiling – indicating that on some level this journey is real. Despite the perceptual ambiguities and challenges present, this voyage is not entirely doomed.’
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Ben Clown Bomb (2012)
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Epic Fireworks Crazy Clown Fountain (2018)
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Life of a Craphead Entertaining Every Second (2018)
‘The title of this exhibition comes from a Nam June Paik quote: “I am a poor [wo]man from a poor country, so I have to be entertaining every second.”’
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Paul McCarthy
Pinocchio Pipenose Household Dilemma (1994)
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Max Streicher Endgame (Nagg & Nell) (2019)
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Jumex Spraypaint (2019)
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Luke Stephenson The Clown Egg Register (2017)
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Jeffrey Vallance Clown Family Tree (1998)
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Angus Fairhurst & Damien Hirst A Couple of Cannibals Eating a Clown (1993)
‘This 22 minute-long video is an exercise in extreme deadpan. Hirst and Fairhurst, sitting in a pub dressed as clowns, competitively tell each other stories in the style of British humorists Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. But instead of jokes or amorous conquests, the two friends reel off morbid accounts of accidents, wallowing in the graphic details, until they burst into laughter.’
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Marion Peck Red Clown, Blue Clown (2019)
‘I have long enjoyed painting clowns. Clowns have depth. They are disturbing, like strange spirits, mysterious characters emerging from the depths of the psyche, which is why many people fear them. Clowns convey pure emotion. It can be very cathartic to paint them. The paintings I made for Red Clown, Blue Clown allowed me to express some of the intense, difficult feelings I have living in these crazy times, when everything seems poised to fall apart.’
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Wild Bill’s Nostalgia Shop (1992 – 2018)
‘Wild Bill’s Nostalgia Shop opened more than 3 decades ago. Last year, its founder passed away and his family says they can no longer maintain the store. This is the store’s final weekend.’
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Jonathan Borofsky Ballerina Clown (1989)
‘When it was first unveiled, the sculpture caused a big stir in the community, not just for its odd aesthetics – it looks like a female ballerina with a large clown mask and gloves standing on a crate – but also because it would kick out one of its legs continuously and “sing.” This 30-foot tall giant would “dance” and belt out the Sid Vicious version of the Frank Sinatra classic “My Way” throughout the evening to the chagrin of its neighbors. Needless to say, the song was the first to be cut out (a few days after its debut) due to complains coming mostly from the condominium residents that reside in the building, followed by the shutting down of the “kicking leg” a bit later. For its 25th anniversary, Ballerina Clown began “kicking it” again according to an arrangement with the current Renaissance housing association and former owner Harlan Lee.’
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Erwin Olaf Paradise Club (2001)
‘Never has coulrophobia been realized so perfectly than with this glossy, sinister, saturated clown bondage-fest.’
*
p.s. Hey. ** DennisCooperSucks, Wow, hello. I don’t what book you’re referring to. If I blurbed it, I must have liked it. As for your insults … I don’t know, enjoy? ** Jay, Half a marathon still sounds like a lot. Congrats! People with stability related fears usually appreciate the paternal, so no worries, unless it upends your and his thing, I guess. Anyway, you’re good. Have a checkered flag waving Monday. xo. ** fish, Hi. Medicine is pretty noble. But, yeah, there’s all that schooling involved? But if it’s what excites you when you think about the future, that’s what matters. And everything great is difficult. Um, no, I could tell from very early on that being creative and artistic in some way was my only possible value, I think. Much to the misery of my parents, of course. ** Barkley, Fulci’s camerawork is pretty magical, yeah. I like zooms. Like Visconti always does those abrupt, melodramatic zooms. They’re kind of weirdly sexy. I read some Hakim Bey, but not for a long time. His real life identity, Peter Lamborn Wilson, really hated my work, so it was hard to read the Bey stuff objectively. The zine sounds really exciting. I hope it gets born and I can see it. Best to you! ** _Black_Acrylic, It’s true, I associate you so strongly with Dundee that I sometimes forget you aren’t still there. Any theories as to why the Scotland team is shite? ** Carsten, Thank you, sir. The honor was entirely the blog’s and mine. Things cultural definitely drop way down in the mid -> late summer here. Events become more tourist oriented. It’s not a total wasteland, but it’s not Paris at its glorious peak. My schedule is eternally dependent on what’s going on with film. I suspect I’ll be around Paris at least somewhat in July. In August we’re showing RT at a festival in Norway, and we’re thinking to extend that and do road trip around Scandinavia re-hitting our favorite amusement parks there, but nothing is set yet. ** kenley, Hi. So sorry to hear about the almost collapsing, but you just have to hold on and stay in one piece for two more days if your March theory is correct at least. Any uplift as of this morning, I hope? ** Adem Berbic, Time is fluid here, no sweat. No, Close-Up completely blew us off. I was kind of shocked. I think basically at this point we aren’t going to show the film in London unless something from there reaches out. It’s sad and strange since the screenings of our earlier films went really well there, but London doesn’t seem to want the film, and we’re tired of banging our heads on that wall. You have a provisional Paris date? When? ** ⋆˚꩜｡darbbzz⋆˚꩜｡, Hey, pal. There’s still a possibility of the Charlotte, NC screening. We’re waiting to hear. Ooh, sweet, about your Korg being alive. I can’t wait to hear what you’re concocting. I almost never eat candy, and I think that’s really sad, but it’s my own fault. The site with your poem wouldn’t let me in. It said I need a password, but I don’t have one obviously. Let me know if you get the door open. Or maybe my laptop is being weird. I’ll try again later. ** Steve, I hope your cold is/was a quickie. I get why people who only go to see Marvel and etc. movies think ‘PHM’ is ‘amazing’, but that’s about it. Yes, there was a reasonably substantial No Kings rally here, but of course it was also about our own homegrown far right too. ** HaRpEr //, I’m so sorry about all the ugly stupidity around you. Somehow you have to re-situate yourself in London or somewhere, but I don’t how one blows that shit off in the meantime. They’re primitives, but primitives rule the fucking world these days. I don’t know. I’m so sorry, pal. ** Right. I think today’s post will work whether you like clowns or hate them? Maybe? I decided to take that chance. See you tomorrow.
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