MadRabbit Writes About Art and These Works You See Here

A great intellect once said that a good artist's statement says more than his art ever does. This is usually true.

This is not an artist's statement. Artist's statements are where artists tell you what you should think about when you look at their works. That is not my job. That is a job for art critics. And since the only other job art critics have is living in shallow burrows, springing out at children and dragging them underground to be dissolved alive and sucked through the art critic's proboscis, I would hate to take that away from them. Think about whatever you want: your lunch, your relationship with your mother, the injustice of man's world and the cruelty of existence. I don't care. I will now answer some questions, which I made up and pretended you asked.

I don't understand some of the names of your paintings. What do they mean?

Nothing. I named them because it is easier to refer to things that have names, and it is easier for me to remember which is which if they have names instead of being called Untitled One through Sixteen. The only exception is the title "October 26, Moscow," which refers to events which took place in Moscow on October 26, 2002. The rest of them? You buy it, you name it.

I looked at your pictures on your website. What the hell is wrong with you?

I suffer from an identity crisis. I drank too much in college. I drank too much after college. Childhood vaccinations gave me a dissociative disorder. Jesus Christ visits me and gives me terrible visions of the Apocalypse. George Bush makes me see dead people. I don't know, maybe it was something I ate.

I would like to pay you a lot of money for one of your paintings. Is that okay?

Possibly. You are no doubt a wise and beautiful human being, and you will be eternally rewarded for your service to the nation and the world as a patron of the arts of unparalleled taste and insight. Try emailing me at: MadRabbit, then the at sign, then madrabbit.com. It will probably get eaten by my spam filter and I'll never see it, but if not, maybe we can make a deal.

I would like to buy a painting, but I have no money. Can you cut me a break?

Go to hell.

What does art mean to you?

It means a way to get a college degree without having to do any more math than is absolutely necessary.

What literary quotation do you feel best captures your motivation?

"I once knew a madman who thought the end of the world had come. He was a painter—and engraver. I had a great fondness for him. I used to go and see him, in the asylum. I'd take him by the hand and drag him to the window. Look! There! All that rising corn! And there! Look! The sails of the herring fleet! All that loveliness!

He'd snatch away his hand and go back into his corner. Appalled. All he had seen was ashes."

--- Samuel Beckett, Endgame

Bit of a put-on, isn't it?

Hey, you're the one who pretend asked.