ENCYCLOPEDIA OF DUMB DESIGN IDEAS, FENCIN EM OUT

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF DUMB DESIGN IDEAS

FENCIN EM OUT

Here is another painting from the sorry ouvre of Dirk Van Assaerts, recently rediscovered tyro Dutch painter of the 17th century. As usual with Mr. Assaerts paintings this one carries a fatal flaw. In this painting he has fenced the viewer out of the picture. Instead of a graceful entrance carrying us to the subject, there is a barrier to our access. We are compelled to jump over this distracting foreground (tearing our culottes in the process and revealing our possibly non-compliant areas) in order to continue our stroll up to the mighty castle of the Knights of Cooperation.

Assaerts or the Nevelson master as he is commonly known, finished his stint at the government art school for his county. The 790 million dollar structure in which it was housed cost more than every artist in his conformity district had made in all of recorded history. The tuition was as much as the income a peoples union officer might earn in a year, but he was fortunate to be able to borrow it from his parish's Subsidized Loan Facilitators. His training was heavy on theory but rather short on painting skills, however his teachers had been very encouraging as his work did push the envelope like the other "best and more obedient" students in his cohort.

The people who were buying the paintings in the marketplace seemed not to care about "real art" and were only buying paintings that matched the colors of their hovels. His natural response then, was to inflate his thin ideas into a series of enormous paintings the size of boxcars, with abstracted representations of sparkling knitting needles piercing the potatoes around which his society was constructed. Dirk knew for certain that the political implications of his art were sure to give him a place in art history. The dealers, who cared only for profit, (and had recently insisted on being called gallerists, a title that recognized where they stood around, rather their burden of selling the art) were hesitant to represent an undiscovered artist of such enormous talent, no matter how he numbered or titled his work. His prices (as high as the most established artists in his conformity district) would have brought him the fine income he had been assured he was owed by his friends and relatives.

To hold him over until the world realized his genius, he took a job as a "master painting teacher" in a nearby daycare center, married, secured a carriage loan, and then a mortgage. His first child, a girl he named Anathema was born later that week.