Posted on

Everybody Dance Now

First published in The Guardian, 28 November, 2012.
This cartoon was amazingly topical at the time but as events fade into the distance I realise it could benefit from an explanation.
 
Background: 
The Gangnam Style video, by the South Korean singer Psy, is the most viewed in the history of Youtube.
 
The song and its video spawned many parodies. Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist who often gets into trouble with the Chinese government, created his own version, which was quickly blocked by Chinese government censors.
 
The British artist Anish Kapoor then produced a version in support of Ai Weiwei. He rallied a lot of the art world to perform in it as a protest against the repression of free expression.
 
That, in a nutshell, is what this cartoon is about. 
 
 
What always baffles me is where they get the stones? When I am on the dance floor my ad-lib dance moves sometimes cause consternation and occasionally I get pelted by rocks. But we’re in a nightclub. Do they stuff their pockets with gravel before they leave the house? Are there rooms in nightclubs where you can get rocks? I’ve never seen them. Anyway, at times like this, Gangnam is my go-to dance style. The familiarity of the moves reassures the crowd; their feelings of anxiety and mounting anger at my improvised technique are assuaged. Cheers soon fill my ears.
 
Gangnam Style certainly is familiar. As I said, it is the most watched and liked video in the history of Youtube. I have watched it again just now and it has been viewed nearly 2 billion times. An amazing statistic. My blog doesn’t get even half that.
 
In China government computers scan Chinese cyberspace constantly, hunting for words and phrases that censors have dubbed inflammatory or seditious. When they find one, the offending blog or chat can be blocked within minutes. Ai Weiwei’s Gangnam Style parody is called Grass-Mud Horse Style. which is a reference to a Chinese Internet meme that employs a pun on an obscene phrase. The grass-mud horse and several mythical companions appeared in early January 2009 on the Chinese Internet portal Baidu. The creatures’ names, as written in Chinese, are innocent enough. But much as “bear” and “bare” have different meanings in English, their spoken names were double entendres with inarguably dirty second meanings. So while “grass-mud horse” sounds like a nasty curse in Chinese, its written Chinese characters are completely different, and its meaning —taken literally — is benign. Thus the beast not only has dodged censors’ computers, but has also eluded the government’s own ban on so-called offensive behaviour. It is an effective, if juvenile, way of mocking government censorship of the Web.
 
By mimicking the horse riding moves in the Gangnam Style video with a pair of handcuffs, Ai Weiwei is taking a swipe at government censorship. So even though Ai Weiwei’s version is pretty crappy, it is witty. There is also something appealing in watching such a seriously respected artist make a fool of himself. 
 
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Anish Kapoor’s take in support of Ai Weiwei. It’s like watching a street march with people carrying signs saying “War is bad”. Of course, the sentiment is worthy – “end repression, allow expression” – and perhaps the video is designed as nothing more than a show of support, but the witlessness of the result from one of our top “creative” talents really irks me. Why would anyone not involved in the art world ever watch this? Being subject to deadlines, I can appreciate that this was put together quickly and involved organising a lot of people, so perhaps not a ton of thought went into it, but still. There is also something really grating about what comes across as hero worship of Anish Kapoor in the video. Why? It is particularly inappropriate in this context. All this is doubly annoying because Anish Kapoor does make some terrific stuff.
 
Just like Ai Weiwei’s video, the (Paul) Gauguin Style dance moves in the cartoon are explosive examples of free expression that threaten the very existence of a repressive government. In the final panel I have gone a bit further. What usually happens after a revolution is that the new orthodoxy is enforced with utterly frightening ruthlessness. It is profoundly depressing. Whether the Revolution is French or Bolsheveik or Chinese Communist this often seems to be the case. In the cartoon Degas veers out of line with some unorthodox dance moves. He is denounced. The crowd bays for blood. He will pay the price
 
I have no idea why but Toulouse-Lautrec and Edgar Degas have developed an antagonistic relationship in my cartoons. Things will only get worse I’m afraid.
 
(For a lot of the information on the grass mud-horse meme I am indebted to a great New York Times article by Michael Wines).
Posted on

Merry Christmas

First published in The Guardian online, 25 December 2013.
Considering the mini furore in some social media outlets over my rejected crucifixion cartoon, it now bewilders me that I was much more worried about the potential reaction to this Christmas Day cartoon. Worried to the point where, of my own accord, I submitted a watered down version. I was told to relax, chill out, it’s great, have some mulled wine (great advice, by the way). In any case it’s probably unwise to try putting yourself in the mindset of someone else when you’re creating humour. There is always an angle you can find where someone will take offence. 
 
After thinking up this cartoon it dawned on me that I didn’t have a proper understanding of Boxing Day. Is it even a real thing in the Christian calendar? Luckily for me the internet has been invented. So I used it instead of asking the opinion of real people I know because it’s extremely likely that they’re as vague as I am but are too proud to admit it. I would certainly not treat their word as Gospel. In fact, the only people whose word I would are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and perhaps Craig but he rarely answers his phone so you always have to leave a message. Then you have to wait for him to deign to call you back. Well fuck you Craig. Anyway, Wikipedia tells me that…
 
Boxing Day is traditionally the day following Christmas Day, when servants and tradesmen would receive gifts, known as a “Christmas box”, from their bosses or employers. Today, Boxing Day is the bank holiday that generally takes place on 26 December. It is observed in the United Kingdom, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Kenya, South Africa, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and other Commonwealth nations.
 
So Boxing Day, to my surprise, is far from universal. In even fewer countries is it known for shopping. Wikipedia again:
 
In Britain, Canada, and some states of Australia, Boxing Day is primarily known as a shopping holiday, much like Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) in the US…For many merchants, Boxing Day has become the day of the year with the greatest amount of returns.
 
All this means that my cartoon is understood by even less people than usual.
 
The painting I have made reference to is an “Adoration of the Shepherds” by Bartolome Esteban Murillo. Normally Spanish painters are very dark and morbid, especially in that period, but Murillo, though talented, is as saccharine as a Spielberg ending. Just check out his self-portrait.
Posted on

A Nice Day Out

First published in theguardian.com, 29 June, 2011

 

The undisputed First Couple of Mexican art are Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. When they got married Diego was 42 years old, 6’1″ and was 300 pounds; Frida was 22, 5’3″ and 98 pounds. This caused them many problems as people often got them mixed up and some people even thought they were twins. This was strange because they actually looked quite different. Frida suffered polio in her right leg from childhood and later, at the age of 18, was involved in an horrific traffic accident in a bus. She had some 30 operations in her lifetime in an attempt to correct the damage. She was sometimes wheelchair-bound. Diego just ate a lot.

 

By the time of their marriage Diego was an established, world-class painter of murals. For a big guy he was incredibly industrious. When he was young he lived in Paris and painted in a Cubist manner, much like every other ambitious artist in the world. At one time he got very angry at Picasso for “stealing” one of his “inventions”. In his painting Zapatista Landscape he developed a way of painting foliage by scumbling (i.e. dragging the paint over an undercoat – see the trees in the background). He kicked up such a stink that Picasso eventually painted out most of the scumbled sections of the large painting he was working on. I can understand Rivera’s feelings but it was a bit rich. Picasso, along with Braque, had invented Cubism and virtually everyone at that time was painting in the style he had created.

 

The gag in the cartoon rests on the fact that Frida Kahlo painted mainly self-portraits. As she said, “I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone… because I am the subject I know best.” This could leave the wrong impression of a retiring recluse. She was actually very outgoing, beautiful and intelligent and was considered one of the most desirable women of her day. In 1939 she even appeared on the cover of a French edition of Vogue magazine. The story of her marriage to Diego is fascinating to the point of exhaustion. Someone should make a movie of Frida’s life. Salma Hayek would be perfect. 

 

I am quite fond of this cartoon. The humour doesn’t overwhelm the tenderness. That’s nice isn’t it?