Yuk, God of the Grotesque

"Satan tempts Smarh with knowledge leading to despair, plunging him into the infinite, leading him to doubt God, and calling on Yuk, God of the Grotesque, to teach him about life, 'for the God of the grotesque is an excellent interpreter for explaining the world'...In fact, Yuk is really the God of Language, which is both grotesque and creative, the true form of immortality in that nothing exists outside it. For Yuk's power is all in speech. He opens his mouth and out come 'calumnies, lies, poetry, chimera, religions, parodies,' which expand, interact, amalgamate, 'enter ears, take root and sprout, construct and destroy, bury and unearth, raise up and bring low' (I, 202). To ground the vanity of the world in the grotesque autonomy of language will become a familiar theme in Flaubert..."

from Flaubert: The Uses of Uncertainty by Jonathan Culler

Sybille II by Win Delvoye

This video is quite a spectacular piece. I was introduced to this artist in another class, and continually think of new ways to interpret this particular video. It's definitely grotesque and worth the watch, I'd like to talk about it in class too if enough people take a look! I hope you enjoy.

Here it is.

Show at Swarthmore

So here's a link to an artist/former teacher of mine, Peter Paone, who has a show up at Swarthmore right now. It's a great show and the campus is really beautiful at this time of year. The work, while not what I would directly call grotesque, deals with many of the things we have determined to be so in class (morphed forms, exaggerated features, creepy atmosphere, etc.).

Studying Anatomy Before Photography

The idea of drawing a human whose body has been sliced open so that precise muscles or tendons or bone structures can be observed seems to be similar to creating sculptures (or wanting to take part in the process for science or art) like those that were shown in the Bodies exhibit, and therefore equally as grotesque.

Artists Books Exhibit at Tyler School of Art

There seem to be a lot of great things worth checking out, but if you plan on going, I suggest doing so soon... the exhibit closes on Oct. 25th!

http://www.temple.edu/tyler/exhib_news.html

Instructions on folding a "Jacob's Ladder" book

ms-t-inc.com/pdf-file/jacob.pdf

Spherical Aberrations

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E85FZ7WLvao&NR=1