Monsters are tricky things. We love them, fear them, need them, despise them when they invade our dreams a little too often. Their ubiquitous and yet marginalized presence in our lives rests on the contradictory emotions elicited by such creatures. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen writes “The monster’s body quite literally incorporates fear, desire, anxiety and fantasy (ataractic […]
If the truly Weird causes a sense of great dread, then the grotesque provides another approach to the inexplicable through aggressive horror and humor. Geoffrey Galt Harpham argues that the truly grotesque stands “at the margin of consciousness between the known and unknown…calling into question the adequacy of our ways of organizing the world” (3). Caught […]
I first met Travis Louie in 2008 at Carrie Ann Baade’s Surrealist Tea, where a lovely group of artists got a chance to meet and eat tiny delectable sandwiches and drink a good spot of tea. I imagine the Victorian beasts of Louie might do something similar, for certainly they seem to be the most well behaved of all […]
I was first introduced to Ray Caesar’s work when writing the catalogue essay for Carrie Ann Baade’s Cute and Creepy show, which was exhibited at Florida State University’s Fine Art Museum this past October. I haven’t been able to shake the images of his haunting, and haunted, beauties ever since. Trapped forever between woman and girl, […]
Please join us in welcoming Nancy Hightower as a regular art columnist for WFR.com! Read more from Hightower on her blog. — The Editors When people use the term “grotesque,” they often mean many different things: bizarre, monstrous, unsightly, weird, nightmarish, or gross. But if there was one specific characteristic that I would wish for you to take away […]
The following general introduction by Nancy Hightower was first published in the catalog for the Cute & Creepy Show curated by Carrie Ann Baade (Florida State University). The catalog also contains Hightower’s extended exploration of specific pieces in the exhibit. Please see our other Cute & Creepy coverage this week, including a gallery, read the Curator’s Note, and visit Nancy […]