Instadeath: Giotto's Tongue
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Instadeath
Giotto's Tongue
Curated by Alex McDonald
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| Sam Messer, Giotto's Tongue, 1986 |
*Curator’s Note: The
paintings within this collection were taken by the author to be artwork for the
album covers of a fictional metal band called Instadeath. The following is a
press release from Instadeath guitarist Tony Koontz on the band’s new album Giotto’s Tongue.
Critics associate
Instadeath with rash, judgmental buzzwords like angry, trash, and Satanism. With
Giotto’s Tongue, I truly believe that,
as a band, we are outgrowing these labels. So let’s go in order.
1) Angry: Okay, you
got us. We are angry. I can find no argument against that. Oddly, I am alright
with this.
2) Trash: This one
I take the most offense to. Metal bands are not trashy, they are down to earth.
We tell the truth when others are too scared to. People are disgusting pieces
of meat who need to be more in touch with their animalistic nature. We have
been trying to show people our opinions on this subject in an educated manner
by using famous paintings as artwork for our album covers. Most recently, we
have used Sam Messer’s Giotto’s Tongue.
This painting may be more obscure than our other choices (which have included such
artists as Giotto, Durer, and Titian), but Messer, being an art professor at
Yale, holds just as much artistic merit as the ancient masters. Also, Yale. Can
anyone argue that’s trashy?
Examine
Messer’s Giotto’s Tongue. Here’s a
head, whose tongue’s a snake, with its brain hanging out the back. This portrait
shows that slab of meat I spoke of earlier. The face screams in agony at its pitiful,
natural state. The snake represents the devil inside him. As for the brain, let
me explain that in my next point.
3) Satanism: Just to
make the point clear, no one in Instadeath worships the Dark Lord… except our
drummer, but he’s weird and doesn’t talk much. We use Satan to attract the kids
because kids love Satan. Why else would they go to exorcist movies or buy our
CDs? Kids outgrow Santa Claus and start believing in Satan. It’s the natural
order of things, but recently Satan has not sold as much as he should be. So
after much talk and argument from the drummer, we are breaking up with Satan. He’s
a fad our fans have outgrown. We are now Nihilists because that’s selling. If
you don’t believe me, just look at Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson. Nihilism
is the new Satanism.
Giotto’s Tongue brings
Instadeath’s new nihilism into our album cover. No spiritual entity embodies
evil. The serpent in the garden was not Lucifer (or Lilith if you are well-educated). He was not even in the garden. The serpent lies within us. We are evil
and all evil in the world originates with us.
Then
there’s the matter of the abstract brain. It has an eye painted onto the top of
it. This puts the all seeing eye of God within our own minds. Also, notice how the
brain stem and skull kind of looks like another face. The self can be found in
the mind, not the soul. Then the brown colors surrounding the head represent
the nothingness of life. No heavenly light or hellish reds or even blackness; just
a brown that represents Earthly dirt, because that’s all that exists. So, say
goodbye Satan because we’re nihilists now. We don’t believe in anything.
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