Bec Bowman contemplates the serious business of funny art
","footnotes":"NOTE: Bec Bowman intended the title of this article to read with 'Pretty' in strikethrough; website formatting has required a compromise, brackets. Please imagine it as it is intended to be.
Images:
1: Borrowed, in the spirit of the meme, from Pedestrian.tv
2: Emma Buswell, the sometimes luxury handbag and other suburban fables, 2022. Image via Instagram
3: Jessica Murtagh, from the Modern Relics series, 2020. Image courtesy the artist
Illustration by Leonie Brialey
","thumbnail":{"alt":null,"width":800,"height":930,"webp":"https://a-v-a.gallery/media/pages/journal/do-you-think-i-m-pretty-funny/dca2b90f75-1743575520/doyouthinkimprettyfunny-600x.webp 600w, https://a-v-a.gallery/media/pages/journal/do-you-think-i-m-pretty-funny/dca2b90f75-1743575520/doyouthinkimprettyfunny-1200x.webp 1200w, https://a-v-a.gallery/media/pages/journal/do-you-think-i-m-pretty-funny/dca2b90f75-1743575520/doyouthinkimprettyfunny-1800x.webp 1800w","jpg":"https://a-v-a.gallery/media/pages/journal/do-you-think-i-m-pretty-funny/dca2b90f75-1743575520/doyouthinkimprettyfunny-600x.jpg 600w, https://a-v-a.gallery/media/pages/journal/do-you-think-i-m-pretty-funny/dca2b90f75-1743575520/doyouthinkimprettyfunny-1200x.jpg 1200w, https://a-v-a.gallery/media/pages/journal/do-you-think-i-m-pretty-funny/dca2b90f75-1743575520/doyouthinkimprettyfunny-1800x.jpg 1800w"},"blocks":[{"type":"text","id":"b0cabcde-0578-4634-b5df-91aec061e8be","text":"Everyone thinks they are funny. More than any other trait, a shared sense of humour is the lynchpin of our dating lives. From the relentless requests for banter on Tinder, to the barely comprehensible shorthand of 90’s era personal column ads we rely on shared laughter to validate attraction and provide a release for that budding sexual tension.
I am no exception. I may have sworn off the apps, but my personal ad circa 1998 would read:
VGL DTE writer with GSOH WLTM BFA for Conversation. A/S/L no barrier. L.H.O.O.Q.
For the most part I just make myself laugh, but I live for the moments people laugh along with me.
A mutual sense of humour is more than just an indicator of romantic compatibility. Humour is about creating a connection with another human. So what does it mean to be funny when we aren't trying to get laid?
Emma Buswell makes some of the funniest textile art works in Perth. She won the Joondalup Acquisitive Art prize (and twitter) last year with her hand-beaded artwork: The sometimes luxury handbag and other suburban fables.
Emma’s work is funny because we associate hand beading with highly priced heirloom objects - perhaps the pearls on a wedding dress - and not a mimicry of the meal your mum makes when she’s too tired to cook. It is a slightly absurd, larrikin-esque kind of funny - who, after all, spends hundreds of hours hand beading a bag that resembles a supermarket roast chook?
Meanwhile the title hints at the upwardly mobile show-offery of luxury brands and compares this to the bachelors handbag, both swung jauntily by the possessor as they wander past the empty storefronts of the Galleria. It’s a message on consumerism we’ve heard before made shiny and new with a bit of detached irony and an exquisite attention to detail.
Jessica Murtagh makes glass vessels in the shape of Grecian amphoras. We expect to see these kinds of urns in museums with concise object labels with information like “this display depicts the everyday life of the Ancient Greeks” and “the Greek Key pattern was thought to be symbolic of the unending nature of human life through reproduction”.
On display as part of the Tom Malone Prize exhibition at AGWA her works in the Modern Relics series do not depict Grecians hunting, gathering and (knowing what those Ancient Greeks were like) fucking. Instead we see scenes from 2022 - people lining up for Centrelink, figures bent over their phones, signs encouraging covid precautions. The incongruity between form and subject reminds us - once again - of our follies. This time the laughter is bittersweet - is this really the way future generations will remember us?
","heading":null,"embed":null,"video":null,"audio":null,"image":null},{"type":"image","id":"0a49b580-8ad5-477f-b2f4-6db1b5915249","text":null,"heading":null,"embed":null,"video":null,"audio":null,"image":{"image":{"alt":null,"width":626,"height":1030,"caption":null,"webp":"https://a-v-a.gallery/media/pages/journal/do-you-think-i-m-pretty-funny/3e9ab2a076-1743575520/side-a-626x1030-600x.webp 600w, https://a-v-a.gallery/media/pages/journal/do-you-think-i-m-pretty-funny/3e9ab2a076-1743575520/side-a-626x1030-1200x.webp 1200w, https://a-v-a.gallery/media/pages/journal/do-you-think-i-m-pretty-funny/3e9ab2a076-1743575520/side-a-626x1030-1800x.webp 1800w","jpg":"https://a-v-a.gallery/media/pages/journal/do-you-think-i-m-pretty-funny/3e9ab2a076-1743575520/side-a-626x1030-600x.jpg 600w, https://a-v-a.gallery/media/pages/journal/do-you-think-i-m-pretty-funny/3e9ab2a076-1743575520/side-a-626x1030-1200x.jpg 1200w, https://a-v-a.gallery/media/pages/journal/do-you-think-i-m-pretty-funny/3e9ab2a076-1743575520/side-a-626x1030-1800x.jpg 1800w"}}},{"type":"text","id":"8ab2f56d-fa9d-4a8c-af08-29943d274be7","text":"In our response to visual humour - in that split second when the mind registers and the body responds - there is an opportunity to become whole, integrated beings.
And that, I suspect, is why I get a charge out of someone laughing along with one of my silly jokes. I feel seen - connected to another person through the mind-and-body experience of humour. The difference between experiencing humour in dating and art is that art pushes us beyond a sense of connection and poses a challenge.
Together these works by Buswell and Murtagh remind us that life is absurd.
And death is inevitable.
So go get some of that sweet, sweet art while you can.
","heading":null,"embed":null,"video":null,"audio":null,"image":null},{"type":"text","id":"a9c9c853-39ba-4bd6-9ca2-93e86deb6bf1","text":".
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While her favourite joke - involving a tree, a fridge and a dead koala - is disappointingly low-brow, Bec Bowman dreams of reaching the dizzying heights of Duchamp commenting on Mona Lisas’ hot ass. She doesn’t do banter, but she does have informative and entertaining conversations with the artists, performers, writers and creatives of Perth every Friday morning as the presenter of RTRFMs arts and culture program, ArtBeat.
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