The hinge from Neo-Romanticism to Mannerism, also, is a
reasonably blatant one. Our whole approach to art— more is more, rather then
less is more— features exaggerated portions and warped perspectives, even
amidst the elaborate formality and architectural hi-jinx. Abby and I both share
a perspective, which recurs regularly, that there is or can be something inherently
funny or absurd about complexity, and that the multiplication of tangents from
a work of art should include tangents the basis of which are absurdity and Dada
and Duchamp. With the rejection of simplicity, of course, comes the realization
that if we are not to appear too stentorian or heavy-handed, a light touch can
be as effective as a sturm und drang one. The Walls Have Ears, here, has
in-built the Mannerist tensions around queerness and bisexuality; behind that,
the idea that sexuality itself, as both an ideal and an idea, is inherently
Mannerist. It brings out in individuals, always, what is warped and/or
perverse, not to mention exaggerated, in them; and because the formality of the
painting is, as ever, masterful, and because queerness is a serious theme to be
addressed, audiences can choose to take The Walls Have Ears as an exercise in
painterly absurdism or not. Coloration issues— everything bathed in piss-yellow
(Serrano?)(Piss Dykes?)— opens a vista that, when Neo-Romanticism builds into
its constructs a sense of absurdity, Mannerist exaggerates aid and abet us
towards a realization that the Philadelphia
architecture, kitchen sink approach can yield the right dividends. Or
Apparition Poem 1327:
Neo-Romanticism is, take it or leave it, pretty free and
easy about sex and sexual intercourse. Just as Philadelphia architecture is pretty free and
easy about co-opting your space and thrusting its symmetries into your brain.
Not to mention that the ambiance in Aughts Philadelphia which we all lived
through was largely about free and easy sex. This poem starts from a ground
that the two figures in the poem appear to be either very stoned, or bimbos,
possibly porn stars (or actors), and then sets the game in motion which it
wants to set. It’s about straight sex too, which (to be frank) I feel might be
ready to make a comeback. The Dada level is how goofy the exaggerations are, towards
a sense that every conceivable imperative to aesthetic excess is served, other
than the number of lines in the poem. Apparition Poems only has a handful of
sonnets in it, and sonnets as a poetic form are usually the enemies of the
Mannerist (sonnets think small, stay confined), but that’s part of the game
here, as in Undulant. And the fact that both The Walls Have Ears and 1327 “have game” and play
games is one of the reasons Neo-Romanticism is contemporary and ready to
compete right now. Because the whole twentieth century is always showing up in
the paintings and poems sideways, and at odd angles, audiences won’t need to
feel disappointed that they are falling into a trough of anything backwards
seeming or retrograde. This is true, particularly because the free and easy
approach to carnality is rather advanced, and executed with a sense of
borderline-disjointed looseness. What can I say? All those years our
architecture was dictating our art, it also pulled off the neat trick of
freeing Philly’s bedroom antics, which were considerable in all circles, both
when masks were necessary and when they were not.
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