Art can be funny!

Only Murders in the Building is back for its fifth season and once again, I am not only tickled by the entire cast but by the supporting presence of Charles-Haden Savage’s art collection.

I have a theory that Steve Martin chose the art for his character’s apartment because he’s such an art lover and collector, and there’s one piece in particular that makes me chortle every time I see it: Nice, Hot Vegetables by Ed Ruscha.

As I’ve written before, Ed Ruscha’s work (and sometimes Ed Ruscha the human) makes me laugh so much. There’s a dry humor to his art that is right up my alley, and, to paraphrase Bruno Kirby in When Harry Met Sally, it speaks to me and that pleases me.

all photos copyright Casey Barber – please be respectful and don’t use without permission!

I love when art is funny! I love laughter as a reaction to art!

There’s a certain ingrained etiquette assumption that museums and galleries should be hushed temples to the art on view, spaces where one should be reverent and contemplative and not speak above a whisper.

And I’m not saying that you can’t revere art and contemplate it and have it move you emotionally, much like Ferris, Cameron, and Sloane do. . .

But I’m saying that there’s no rule against feeling your feelings about art, whatever they might be. And that includes LOLs as a reaction to what you’re seeing and experiencing.

Art can be beautiful and funny. It can be confounding and funny. It can be confrontational and funny. It can be heckin’ weird and funny. All these things can be true.

More artists who make me laugh

Christine Sun Kim

When I read in Christine Sun Kim’s recent exhibition catalogue that she loves Ed Ruscha’s work, I was like OF COURSE YOU DO. Her work, which deals with her experiences as a Deaf person, also plays with text and graphic design in a dryly funny-cause-it’s-true way.

Her installation Close Readings, which pairs soundless and partially blurred clips from well-known movies (Sister Act, The Little Mermaid, Ghost, and others) with captions provided by Deaf collaborators, is a hoot. You may, as I did, feel complicit and privileged as a hearing person when viewing her stuff, and that’s kind of the point too. Uncomfortable and funny at the same time!

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen

The oversized pieces of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen are some of the most delightfully funny art in existence. You probably know their stuff even if you didn’t know the artists’ names until now: the soft sculptures that turn everyday objects from toilets and telephones to burgers and BLTs into basically squishy beanbag art. . .

. . . and the monumental outdoor sculptures that make you feel like Ant-Man or the Wasp next to them. Who doesn’t love the duo’s famous Spoonbridge and Cherry at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden? Especially when you realize that it’s not just a sculpture, it’s also a fountain?! If you don’t at least smile at this, you are probably dead.

Amy Podmore

One of the weirdest funny art we’ve encountered recently was Audience, an installation by artist Amy Podmore at MASS MoCA that comprised a gathering of plaster basket casts, each with a blinking eyeball.

The whir and click of the eyes as they opened and shut asynchronously across the vast tableau on the wall was simultaneously creepy, soothing, hypnotic, and hilarious.

I don’t know how long we sat there taking it all in — looking at the various shapes of the baskets, watching them blink in their own stuttery rhythm, staring into their glass-eyed souls as they seemed to stare back into ours. I moved from eek! to ooh! to wow! to being completely captivated and in love with the assemblage.

And, dear reader, the piece captured my quirky little heart so much that when we discovered a limited series of original Audience baskets were for sale in the museum’s Research and Development store, we made that investment and brought an Audience member home with us.

It blinks at me nightly and I am a happier person for it.

Who tickles your funny art bone?

I could keep going with so many other artists and works who hit the sweet spot of my sense of humor:

• Jenny Holzer, especially her Truisms and Survival series (uncomfortably true and funny!)
• The Earth Room by Walter de Maria (why not fill a room with 250 cubic yards of dirt?)
• the way Max Ernst titled his stuff (Lunar Asparagus, Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale, The Lime Tree is Docile)
• Louise Lawler, especially her Birdcalls (feminist and funny!)

But you get it. Consider this simply a primer and an encouragement to go out and seek the art and the stuff that makes you laugh.

It’s all part of Doctor Casey’s prescription to Take Fun Seriously!