Ulterior motives and pressing publishing deadlines are the choke-holds of academia. So much sloppy solipsistic drivel is churned out yearly, one can only marvel at our tolerant capacity for intellectual sewage. But just when you think you've seen it all some new artifact of high-minded onanism finds your mandible plunging like a gavel.
A certain professor by the name of Min T. Teerapat from Humber College in Toronto has recently offered a new and eccentric interpretation of the origins of American expatriate artist Faun Roberts' iconic imagery. Published in the Canadian periodical Mardi, professor Teerprat mentions me by name and cites, rather mockingly, some of my well-known (and thoroughly researched) conclusions.
Prominent among his hysterical hobbyhorses is my claim that Roberts' radical reversal of the "male gaze," so destabilized conventional avant-garde expectations that there was a concerted effort among French cultural critics to suppress her work.
I have always maintained that the influential taste-makers of the time felt threatened by Roberts' overtly empowered sensuality and saw it as an aggressive refutation of their neat, linear, heterosexual rendering of Modernism's relentless macho march.
Treepath somehow finds this thesis laughable. He dismisses it without so much as a shrug and offers in its place a simplified depiction of a cross-cultural anxiety of influence. He trots out a little known 19th century northern Japanese calligrapher by the name of Hidesada Yukidoke who supposedly compiled a small compendium of caricatures in a notebook, known until now only to specialists.
He seems to think that the entire Left Bank knew all about Yukidoke's work and that Roberts' injudicious imitations are, in his words "merely trifling simulacra."
That this professor Teapot has a job, much less gets published, is just more evidence of white male privilege!
Needless to report, Mardi rejected my rebuttal so I'm once again reduced to whistling in the rain.
Prominent among his hysterical hobbyhorses is my claim that Roberts' radical reversal of the "male gaze," so destabilized conventional avant-garde expectations that there was a concerted effort among French cultural critics to suppress her work.
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| Wicked Illuminations (Rome version) Faun Roberts, oil on linen, 1931 |
I have always maintained that the influential taste-makers of the time felt threatened by Roberts' overtly empowered sensuality and saw it as an aggressive refutation of their neat, linear, heterosexual rendering of Modernism's relentless macho march.
Treepath somehow finds this thesis laughable. He dismisses it without so much as a shrug and offers in its place a simplified depiction of a cross-cultural anxiety of influence. He trots out a little known 19th century northern Japanese calligrapher by the name of Hidesada Yukidoke who supposedly compiled a small compendium of caricatures in a notebook, known until now only to specialists.
 |
| Hidesada Yukidoke, ink on rice paper, 1885 (Courtesy of Gakuin Women's College Manuscript Archive) |
He seems to think that the entire Left Bank knew all about Yukidoke's work and that Roberts' injudicious imitations are, in his words "merely trifling simulacra."
That this professor Teapot has a job, much less gets published, is just more evidence of white male privilege!
Needless to report, Mardi rejected my rebuttal so I'm once again reduced to whistling in the rain.
