This Just In: I'm A Vulgar Broad

Typically in my business the question is, "Porn or Art?" but today the question is "Vulgarism or Art?"

Titled: "Struggling Will Only Make It Worse"

According to David Report, which claims to be knowledgeable on "the intersection of design, culture and business life", this is Vulgarism.

Our opinion is that the last couple of years have been poor in offering interesting and clever design. The kind of design that really makes a difference.

...An adequate question to highlight is if we should call it design, art or design-art or if we have to invent a new category and word for these experiments. Some people call it neo-surrealism or expressionism-design, but we would prefer to refer to it as Vulgarism.

(So much for the "creative and humanistic approach" at the David Report.)

"We’re hoping he’ll grow out of it" from the Noir Collection by Barnaby Barford.

While the David Report and the round-up of experts find this design trend crass and kitsch, I saw the images used to illustrate Vulgarism as a shopping list. Sure, the lack of image credits made it more difficult, but all I needed was the words 'Barnaby' and 'chandelier' and I was in business. From there I was able to find heaven -- the website of artist Barnaby Barford (who, by the way, I would not throw out of bed for eating crackers -- and not just for his artistic ability either, he's hot).


According to the site with the sexy photos of the artist, he:

re-assemble pieces of a historic and modern ‘kitsch’ production and put them as artwork into a new context. those pieces often possess a dark sense of humour. in barnaby’s work the titles are an important part of it, making an inroad to the piece and sometimes giving a totally unexpected viewpoint. the ceramic or porcellain pieces by barnaby barford are made by either painting on or cutting up the found figurines and re-assembling them together providing a clever way of getting people to look again at something they would on principle have dismissed. the way they are put together forces you to look at the figures and the scene in a slightly disrupted way. a new conglomerate is the result, a reworking of tradition that leaves it recognisable but witty, ... edited.

I agree, the titles of the works add to the overall appeal of the works.

"Oh, I thought it would be bigger"

(I do so enjoy a bit of humor with my body parts -- Barford's growing sexier by the minute!)

Title: "Mum! The cat's doing that thing again"

Barford's works have been shown in Domestic Deities:The Figurine in Art, a group exhibit at the Clark Garth Gallery:

Domestic Deities: The Figurine in Art examines this fascinating niche-genre within figurative sculpture today, exploring conflicting values in class and aesthetics. Porcelain figurines from the 18th century provided a domesticated figurative sculpture for the court at the hands of gifted sculptors like Meissen's Johann Joachim Kändler and Nymphenburg's Franz Anton Bustelli. They were costly objects, crafted with exquisite detail and care. By comparison, the figurine today, with a few high-end exceptions like the sugary but svelte works from Lladro, has become populist; a dime-store product, cloying and sentimental expression of kitsch. Collections of antique figurines are valued and reflect discernment, but contemporary figurines, often produced by Disney and others as promotional devices, are dismissed as poor taste. It is exactly this contrasting polarity between the palace and the cottage, between refinement and vulgarity, between respectability and dismissal that makes this genre such a rich human landscape to explore, satirize and transform.

Front and back of "I wish I were Hugh Hefner."

Hasn't virtually every form of 'new' art been questioned, called vulgar? From painting to ballet, it's all been called that -- and worse.

Vulgar or not, I want.