Art...or Why I Like Art That Looks Like People

I could have been a cop.

I could be the patrolman out on the beat making decisions that alter lives. Life or death decisions. Decisions that once made do have an effect on whether one is alive or dead.

Living or that state of being where you are not so living (think: Mechanicsville, but not breathing.)

But could I have made a decision about life or art? That, my friends, is a decision that you just can't teach. Every cop just has to have it or he doesn't.

From The R-TD:

Andy Coppola's show was a hit in Italy and Germany. In Richmond, it was a bust.
Coppola is a performance artist who makes himself into "living sculpture" by adorning his body with paint and clay or by wearing costumes.

He launched his latest "performance piece" Feb. 5 by donning a hallucinogenically colorful, head-to-toe outfit made of powermesh (normally used for swimsuit lining) and walking from his South Richmond home to Art6, the downtown gallery sponsoring Coppola's performance as part of its "Orlando Furioso" show.

Coppola was walking down the Second Street exit off the Lee Bridge about 1 p.m. when he heard an amplified voice ordering him to stop and show his hands.


And the best ones will push the limits. Cops that is. My uncle was a cop. And he went all the way to the commissioner until he got them to admit that maybe Duchamp was right after all- an upsidedown urinal may just have something to say about the world we live in.

I just hate to think about how Bush and his Halliburton crew have sent all of our young men and women into harm's way without even a post-structionalist approach to acrylic applied to canvas.