Awkward Silence Mistaken for Thoughtful Appreciation at Art Gallery Opening
“God, I’m inspirational,” observes Newsom as his aunt’s ex-lover’s on-and-off mistress looks on. “Your speechlessness is so postmodern!” - photo by Tim Etler
Andrew Hallum
Jake Newsom, an abstract surrealist painter, opened a new exhibit this weekend in Upper Manhattan. As a new artist, Newsom’s family and friends were the primary attendants at his opening night. Although supportive of Newsom, the night was clouded by a recent divorce-orgy-suicide-birth between two estranged uncles that caused what onlookers reported as “a very awkward silence.”
Most guests spent their time standing in front of the paintings they saw when they entered, reportedly “not wanting to risk making eye contact with anyone else they knew.” One of Newsom’s cousins, Helen Tracker, commented, “The air in the room was so thick with tension that it could be cut with any of Man Ray’s photo negatives, or even one of Joan Miro’s rejected sketches.”
When asked about his opening Newsom commented, “They couldn’t take their eyes off my art. I knew I had made something special before, but based on their reaction I’m dropping out of school and spending my life savings on supplies and a larger gallery space.”
The common consensus of the attendees was that Newsom’s art was “horrendously boring,” reflecting an uncommonly higher percentage of “dog vomit than art.” Most plan to never again attend one of Newsom’s events or family gatherings in general until “a few of the grandparents die off.”
Tracker, an art history major at RISD, wrote her undergraduate thesis on the history of surrealism, and claims she has “never seen such a terrible excuse for art since Helen Keller took up watercolor painting.”
Newsom submitted his portfolio to the Smithsonian, New York’s MOMA and even London’s Tate Modern. Representatives from the three museums shared a conference call regarding Newsom’s submissions, stating that the artist has as much of a chance getting accepted as Van Gogh when he was still alive.
“I guess he thought that random paint on a canvas would be amazingly successful,” said a representative from the Smithsonian. “Well, five years ago he would have been right, but right now the Smithsonian is looking for the next big thing in painting: ironically painting really poorly.”
“We have several exhibits that show hand made mother’s day cards from first through third graders,” he continued. “It really speaks to the human condition.”
