The inky folk have staged an exhibition --
you'll find a sample at your local beach.
The project isn't lacking in ambition;
the verdict in a nutshell: overreach.
Performance offers plenty of potential,
combining images with themes from dance.
Terpsichorean study proves essential
for any artistry to stand a chance.
Without it, disappointment: muscle ripples,
a buxom lass lets loose her flowing tresses.
Performers point bikini-covered nipples
to alter what a boyfriend's face expresses.
Expect no virgins: nothing here is pure --
the best comes when an unskilled hand contrives
to raise the tone of vulgar portraiture
by stealing notes from primitive still lives.
The decorated shoulder, arm or wrist,
the tinted buttock, thigh or bulging belly,
can't match an amateur impressionist
or casual cartoons by Botticelli.
No fine appreciation of the nude,
absence of taste prevails among the inky —
the images, invariably crude,
are often lewd, and sometimes downright kinky.
No use of Rothko's meltings, Pollock's action;
conceptual art leaves no important traces;
they only use cliched forms of abstraction;
these "artists" are obsessed with female faces.
Those pioneering soup cans are ignored,
a naive realism marks these skins,
(but Andy Warhol reaps a small reward
in millions of third-rate Marilyns).
How should the champions of ink respond
when art's development seeks new displays?
Your body's fully inked -- how press beyond
your purple period and cubist phase?
Creative artists must explore new channels,
in hopes they will arrive at something fresh —
you'll need to commandeer untainted flesh ...
Philip Kitcher
If you have any thoughts about this poem, Philip Kitcher would like to hear them.
