#from The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious (1905) by Sigmund Freud

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“God will forgive me. It’s his job.”

— The last words of Heinrich Heine

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Freud on humor and jokes

Freud on humor and jokes Freud on humor and jokes, a text about humor and jokes starting from the works by Sigmund Freud and continuing with quotes and thoughts by Mikes, Brown and Cooper. Last but not least, as you can see from Freud's portrait, you must always keep well in mind that humor is a very serious thing. Now humor is a means of obtaining pleasure in spite of the painful emotions involved; acts as a substitute for the emergence of these emotions; he puts himself in their place... at the price of not releasing an emotion: it comes from saving in the expenditure of emotion. Sigmund Freud Heine is said to have created the last blasphemous joke on his deathbed. When a priest friend reminded him of divine mercy and gave him the hope that God would forgive him his faults, he is said to have replied: ” Bien sûr qu'il me pardonnera: c'est son métier.”… Thus in the dying , which lies there without strength, the awareness arises that he had created God and that he had given him a strength so as to make use of him when the occasion arose. The supposedly created being revealed himself, just before his annihilation, as the creator. Sigmund Freud Two Jews were talking about baths. “I take a bath every year,” said one of them, “whether I need it or not.” Sigmund Freud A doctor, moving away from the bedside of a lady, said to her husband, with a handshake: "I don't like her appearance". "I haven't liked her looks for a long time," her husband agreed quickly. Sigmund Freud The difference between full professors and extraordinary professors is that ordinary professors do nothing extraordinary, and extraordinary professors do nothing good. Sigmund Freud An individual who became poor borrowed 25 florins from an acquaintance. The same day the creditor meets him again at the restaurant, over a plate of salmon with mayonnaise. "But how? You ask me to borrow money and then order some salmon mayonnaise for you? That's what you used my money for. "I don't understand you," replied the defaulting debtor, "if I don't have the money, I can't eat salmon with mayonnaise, and if I have some money, I mustn't eat it. So when will I be able to eat salmon with mayonnaise?”. Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud on Humor Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten) is a book written by Sigmund Freud, the famous psychoanalyst, and was first published in 1905. In this book, Freud explores the nature and significance of jokes, delving into their psychological underpinnings and their connection to the unconscious mind. Already in the Interpretation of dreams of the 1900s there are numerous references to witticisms, puns and laughter as an emotional discharge with a catarchic function. Continuing with his various researches on the psyche, unconscious activity and sexual theories, Freud goes so far as to compare the technique of witticisms with dream work, and the results of this investigation are found in his book on the motto of spirit and its relationship with the unconscious of 1905 (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten), and here his reflection takes on a structured dimension, such as to make the witticism one of the fundamental modalities of the presence of the unconscious in the portion aware of mental life. Freud begins by suggesting that jokes serve as a social and psychological outlet, allowing individuals to express thoughts and emotions that might otherwise be repressed or unacceptable. He argues that jokes often involve the release of pent-up psychic energy, providing temporary relief from tension and inhibitions. Freud claims that "our enjoyment of the joke" indicates what is being repressed in more serious talk. Freud argues that the success of the joke depends upon a psychic economy, whereby the joke allows one to overcome inhibitions. According to Freud, understanding of joke technique is essential for understanding jokes and their relation to the unconscious, however, these techniques are what make a joke a joke. Freud also noted that the listener laughing really heartily at the joke will typically not be in the mood for investigating its technique. The book is divided into three sections: "analytic," "synthetic" and "theoretical." The book's first section includes a discussion on the techniques and tendencies of jokes. The second section includes a discussion on the psychological origins and motives of the joke and the joke as a social process. The book's final section discusses the joke's relation to dreams and the Unconscious. Freud analyzes various types of jokes, including innocent wordplay, obscene humor, and wit. He examines the mechanisms behind joke formation and enjoyment, such as condensation (combining multiple meanings into a single expression) and displacement (redirecting taboo thoughts or desires onto more acceptable targets). According to Freud, jokes often rely on the violation of social norms and the release of repressed desires, making them a form of disguised wish fulfillment. Furthermore, Freud explores the relationship between humor and the unconscious mind. He suggests that jokes often contain hidden meanings and symbolism that reflect unconscious desires, conflicts, and fantasies. By analyzing the underlying content of jokes, Freud believed it was possible to gain insights into an individual's psyche. Overall, "Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious" is a pioneering work that explores the psychological aspects of humor. Freud's analysis provides a deeper understanding of the mechanisms behind joke formation, their social functions, and their connection to the hidden workings of the human mind. The essay on Humor of 1927 instead deals with an aspect that had been confined to a few pages in the last chapter of the text on the Witz. The pleasure in saving expenditure was identified in sentiment, with the suspension of affective participation in facts or phenomena that should have caused great affliction. It was then a question of a defense mechanism, superior to repression as it triumphed over automatism. In the brief essay Freud reiterates the importance of that "noble", grandiose character of humour, which is explained in terms of a triumph of narcissism, in the victorious affirmation of the ego's invulnerability to external attacks, thus demonstrating its proud closeness to Jewish humor.

George Mikes Since every religion was able to make me laugh, I decided that after all humour might have become my own true religion. Carl William Brown I don’t believe in God, but I have got a magical sense of humour. Carl William Brown All art is quite useless and so it is the universe. Carl William Brown The world is destined to become even more comical; that is why humorists are the real precursors of our future civilization. Carl William Brown Jokes are better than war. Even the most aggressive jokes are better than the least aggressive wars. Even the longest jokes are better than the shortest wars. George Mikes A humorist is a writer, like the rest. He may make superficial fun on manners, he may crack jokes on the obvious or again he may be a serious and profound critic of society. George Mikes A philosopher with a sense of humour will laugh at a joke instead of performing a post mortem on it; and a philosopher will not be able - however competent he may be otherwise - to teach us a lot about the sense of humour if he himself lacks one. George Mikes The Oxford English Dictionary defines a joke as a thing said or done to excite laughter; witticism, jest; ridiculous circumstance: Nuttall's says: a jest to raise laughs: something witty or sportive; something not serious or in earnest. One could argue that these definitions are not perfect. But as (a) everybody can argue that no definition is perfect, and (b) we all know what a joke is - I shall not waste too many words on this point. George Mikes It is obvious that inventing a joke is a creative activity which should come under the definition of art. Telling a joke is a performance, it is performing art. George Mikes The context is the playing surface of the joke; a background, a condition, a set of limiting facts. In Humour, as in usage generally, context may be verbally linguistically, in the understood situation or the general cultural assumption. Walter Nash First of all, a joke can put things, definitions, ideas in a nutshell ... Secondly, jokes can elucidate things, often more revealingly than long and complicated scientific definitions ... A joke or anecdote can prick pomposity and show up cant and hypocrisy better than any other method. George Mikes Or take the political joke - another case where the joke, while it must be funny in its own right, has a deeper, more significant meaning... Under oppressive regimes jokes replace the press, public debates, parliament and even private discussion - but they are better that any of these... The joke is a flash of lightning, athrust with a rapier. It does not put forward the "argument" that the tyrant is possibly mistaken: it makes a fool of him, pricks the pomposity, brings him down to a human level and proves that he is weak and will one day come crashing down. Every joke told weakens the tyrant, every laugh at his expense is a nail in his coffin. That is why tyrants and their henchmen cannot possibly have a sense of humour, any more than an archbishop can be an atheist or a monarch a republican. No one living in the free atmosphere of a western democracy can imagine the liberating and invigorating effect these jokes have as they spread from mouth to mouth. George Mikes We are hit by the joke but, as psychoanalysts put it, our ego regresses, gives up some control and for a moment relaxes its jealous, guarding position. George Mikes Understatement springs from the English character: and having become second nature it also contributes now to the formation or development of the English character. As I said, it is not only a joke, not always a joke and, occasionally, it is very much the opposite of a joke ... The whole rhythm of life in England is understatement; their suppression of emotion is understatement; their underreaction to everything, the polite word instead of the expletive (when the latter would help so much more to clean the air), the stiff upper lip, the very climate with its absence of extremes, all these are understatement. George Mikes

Tommy Cooper Here are now some other examples of very short jokes by a famous English comedian and then a longer one: I told my wife she should embrace her mistakes. She gave me a hug. Tommy Cooper I went to buy some camouflage trousers, but I couldn't find any. Tommy Cooper I said to the waiter, 'This coffee tastes like mud.' He said, 'Yes, sir, it's fresh ground. Tommy Cooper I haven't slept for ten days. Because that would be too long. Tommy Cooper I've been on a diet for two weeks, and all I've lost is fourteen days. Tommy Cooper I told the doctor I broke my leg in two places. He told me to stop going to those places. Tommy Cooper One day a waiter fell sick and was rushed to hospital. He was lying on the table in great pain. When a doctor passed by the waiter said: “Hey doctor, could you do something for my pain?” The doctor said: “I’m sorry this isn’t my table.” Tommy Cooper I said to the waiter: “There is no chicken in this chicken soup.” He said: “And there’s no horse in the horseradish either. Tommy Cooper I saw an old tramp walking down the street wearing one shoe. I said: “Hey, you lost your shoe.” He said: “No I found one.” Tommy Cooper Electricity is a wonderful thing. Do you realise that of we didn’t have electricity we’d be watching television by candle light? Tommy Cooper A newly-appointed school inspector was assigned to a class in one of the local kindergartens and was introduced to the class by the teacher. She told the class, “Let’s show the inspector just how clever you are by allowing him to ask you a question.” The inspector reasoned that since this is a kindergarten started by a church, so he asked a biblical question: “Class, who broke down the wall of Jericho?” For a full minute there was absolute silence. The children all just stared at him blankly. Eventually, little Alec raised his hand and was asked to speak. Little Alec stood up and said: “Sir, I do not know who broke down the wall of Jericho, but I can assure you that it wasn’t me.” Of course the inspector was shocked by the answer and the lack of knowledge of the famous Bible story and he looked at the teacher for an explanation. Realizing that he was perturbed, the teacher said: “Well, I’ve known Alec since the beginning of the year, and I believe that if he says that he didn’t do it, then he didn’t do it.” The inspector was even more shocked at this and stormed down to the principal’s office and told him what happened, to which the principal replied: “I don’t know the boy, but I socialize every now and then with his teacher, and I believe her. If she feels that the boy is innocent, then he must be innocent.” The inspector could not believe what he was hearing. He grabbed the phone on the principal’s desk and in a rage, wanted to dial PM’s office, but he paused and decided this could be a bit of an overreaction. So instead he phoned his old childhood friend – Minister of Education. The inspector rattled off the entire occurrence to him and asked him what he thought of the state of education in kindergartens. Education Minister sighed heavily and replied: “I don’t know the boy, the teacher or the principal, but just get three quotations and get the wall fixed lah!" To make a good healthily laugh you can also visit the following pages! Funniest English Comedians Fish, fishers and good humour Three men in a boat by Jerome K. Jerome Carl William Brown on humour April fools day or All fools day George Mikes e l’umorismo  (My Ko-fi Shop) Il motto di spirito di Sigmund Freud George Mikes quotes George Mikes on Italy George Mikes on English Good English jokes Christmas crackers jokes Puns riddles and jokes Christmas jokes Professional jokes Funny and crazy notices Charlie Hebdo Magazine Reader’s Digest Humour For more information Visit  www.daimon.org/hum Read the full article

[leebird-simmer]

Russian Fairy Tales Review: Freudian Psychoanalytical Criticism

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

- Austrian neurologist who founded talk-therapy method called “psychoanalysis”

- Carl Jung’s mentor

Published:          -  Interpretation of Dreams (1899)          - Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1904)          - Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905)          - Civilization and Its Discontents (1930)

Major ideas:

- Most mental processes are unconscious. Thus, we are largely unaware of our own motivations/drives. (still considered valid)

- All human behavior (including infant behavior) is motivated by sexuality and the libido. (not considered valid anymore)

- Many of our desires and memories are repressed by the force of our culture’s taboo on sexual matters. (considered semi-valid, probably not as important as Freud thought)

Why do we continue to study Freud’s ideas if we believe some of them are wrong?

- He was very influential in psychology, so not discussing his ideas would leave a huge gap in that history.

- He’s an object of fascination for humanist scholars.

- He was a skilled literary and art critic.

- He was a major influence on the 20th century public’s self-conception and his ideas still permeate in pop culture.

Freud’s Model of the Mind

Bruno Bettelheim (1903-1990)

- Born in Vienna to a secular Jewish family; (allegedly) earned an art history PhD at Vienna University.

- Survived death camps of the Holocaust (1938). The Rockefeller Foundation sponsored a wartime project to help resettle European scholars by circulating their resumés to American universities, and this led to Bettelheim getting a job at University of Chicago as a research assistant.

- Published “Individual and Mass Behavior in Extreme Situations” (1943) about his experiences in the death camps. This paper was highly regarded, but based on unlikely claims and shaky academic credentials. Regardless, he was appointed professor of psychology at the University of Chicago and director of a school for emotionally disturbed children. He held both positions from 1944 until his retirement in 1973.

- Published The Uses of Enchantment (1976), an application of Freudian thought to the interpretation (and use) of fairy tales. Bettelheim suggested that traditional fairy tales, with all their darkness, allowed children to grapple with their fears in symbolic terms.

More and more controversies have come to light since Bettelheim’s death. Not only are there credible accusations of plagiarism against him, and the aforementioned concerns about his academic credentials, but he also abused his emotionally troubled students. Even if Bettelheim’s use of corporal punishment *was* in keeping with the standards of his time, as some claimed, it is still wrong, and a man who wrote so respectfully of children’s needs for autonomy and dignity knew better.

In addition to the damage he did personally, his advocacy for the idea that autism has origins in early childhood events or trauma (as opposed to being a genetically inherited neurotype) has done enormous damage. Bettelheim believed that autism did not have an organic basis, but resulted when mothers withheld appropriate affection from their children, and/or when the fathers were absent or weak. While he did not coin the term “refrigerator mother” (that dishonor belongs to Leo Kanner), Bettelheim did a lot to popularize the term. His school was intended as a residential treatment environment for children whom he felt would benefit from a “parentectomy.”

“I have nothing personal against Bettelheim, if it is not personal to resent being compared to a devouring witch, an infanticidal king, and an SS guard in a concentration camp, or to wonder what could be the basis of Bettelheim's statement that 'the precipitating factor in infantile autism is the parent's wish that his child should not exist.” - Molly Finn, who loves her autistic daughter and is not about the bullshit [source: https://www.firstthings.com/article/1997/06/006-in-the-case-of-bruno-bettelheim]

Finally, Bettelheim *deep sigh* blamed Anne Frank and her family for their own deaths due to not owning guns, fleeing, or hiding more effectively. I’m not making this up; here’s the direct quote: “Everybody who recognized the obvious knew that the hardest way to go underground was to do it as a family; that to hide as a family made detection by the SS most likely. The Franks, with their excellent connections among gentile Dutch families should have had an easy time hiding out singly, each with a different family. But instead of planning for this, the main principle of their planning was to continue as much as possible with the kind of family life they were accustomed to.”

You might ask, “Lee, why are we still studying THIS guy?” Well, he managed to fool everyone during his lifetime for a reason: he was a talented writer, a charismatic speaker, and he had seen some shit. That gave weight to his ideas about the human psyche.

What do fairy tales DO for us? Why are folk fairy tales so valuable in the upbringing of children?

          - The folk fairy tale helps the child to develop their psyche.

          - The tales aren’t explicitly didactic; they work on an unconscious level.

          - Different kinds of tales address different developmental issues.

A child can absorb different lessons from a tale depending on their developmental stage.

Fairy tales represent normal, healthy development AND make that process appealing for the child. Parents and cultural heritage are the main methods through which children find meaning and maturity.

Finding meaning in life is our biggest struggle. It’s considered the mark of full psychological maturity, and it’s the goal of logotherapy (developed by fellow Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, who was a lovely man with no “controversy” section in his Wikipedia article).

Fairy tales take our “existential anxieties” very seriously, unlike most modern children’s literature (a dubious claim; Go Ask Alice had been published five years earlier).

Problems with this Approach:

- It’s based on Freudian thought, which many psychiatrists have discredited (although literature and theory circles still find Freud relevant).

- It assumes that fairy tales are primarily intended for an audience of children, which is anti-historical.

- It’s ignorant of the children’s literature canon.

- It neglects to consider that parents are not reading these tales to their children in their original forms. What kind of hipster brings out the leather-bound Perrault when they’re asked for a bedtime story?

Bettelheim on “Youngest Child” Tales:

- The youngest child is third, a number with which the child reader identifies (Mommy, Daddy, me; Parents, siblings, me)

- The child sees themselves as incompetent (particularly during the anal stage) and fears that they will never mature.

- These tales teach children that independence and maturity will come through proper behavior.

[liyasaustrianlitblog]

Non Fiction Novels

The Interpretation of Dreams (1900)

The book represents Freud’s first major attempt to set out his theory of a dynamic unconscious, created in childhood, which operates continuously in every human mind.For Freud, dreaming is a mental activity that follows its own logic. By identifying its mechanisms, Freud also shed new light on the workings of the unconscious and its powerful role in human life. (freud Museum London)

The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901)

The Psychopathology of Everyday Life ranks among his most enjoyable works. Starting with the story of how he once forgot the name of an Italian painter—and how a young acquaintance mangled a quotation from Virgil through fears that his girlfriend might be pregnant—it brings together a treasure trove of muddled memories, inadvertent actions, and verbal tangles. Amusing, moving, and deeply revealing of the repressed, hypocritical Viennese society of his day, Freud’s dazzling interpretations provide the perfect introduction to psychoanalytic thinking in action.(penguin Random House)

 Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905)

Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious is one of Sigmund Freud's less technical works. It is quite easy to understand for the common reader and does not delve too deeply into treating mental illness. This book is a bit different from his other works. This is because its focus is primarily on how societies work and the role jokes play. In this work, Freud gives detailed accounts of what he perceives to be different techniques used in creating jokes. He postulates that joking is a form of catharsis for repressed hostilities. He also claims that we can tell a lot about a society from the types of jokes they tell. In this work, Freud expresses strong belief that the same processes that relate to the creation of dreams in the unconscious mind are also at play when making jokes. The book is easily one of Freud's most easily understood work on his brief detour on social anthropology.(sigmund Freud.net)

 Understanding Human Nature: The Psychology of Personality

Understanding Human Nature was an attempt to acquaint the general public with the fundamentals of Individual Psychology. Adler explores human personality from all angles – how character develops, the nature of the psyche, how we see the world and how we become who we are. He believed that the work of understanding should not be the preserve of psychologists alone, but a vital undertaking for everyone to pursue, given the bad consequences of ignorance. This approach to psychology was unusually democratic for psychoanalytic circles. It is a work that anyone can read and understand. (barnes and Noble)

   Intro to psychoanalysis

The book Introduction to Psychoanalysis is currently one of the most used to introduce students of psychology to Freud's theories on the human psyche. It is worth noting that these lectures by Freud were given during the First World War. These notes helped to lay the groundwork for his later works. In these lectures, Freud gives a concise description to the audience about his discovery of the unconscious. He would also begin to put forth the role of sexuality in the development of the individual. Although many other scholars later tried to duplicate his work, nothing came close to the mastery with which Freud wrote these lectures. The book gave the world a new perspective on dreams and acts that seem random and unrelated. These notes were the foundation on which modern psychoanalysis was built. Throughout the lectures that make up the book, Freud uses a conversational tone. In so doing, the book gives the reader concrete insights into psychoanalysis.

(sigmund Freud.net)

[myintrodivazmedia]

What Every Actor Needs to Know About Performing Comedy

You’ve heard it said that “perishing is simple; satire is hard.” And on the off chance that you have ever really taken a stab at comedic acting, you realize that this generally will be valid. Let’s check to What Every Actor Needs to Know About Performing Comedy.

While performing dramatization might be saddling in different manners, nailing parody should be its artistic expression altogether—yet you shouldn’t let that drive you off. Here, industry and Backstage Experts share their must-know guidance for finding them amusing.

Comedic acting adheres to the all-inclusive principles of all acting. 

“Above all else, truth. Honest responsibility for comedic conditions is amusing. A few on-screen characters think playing parody implies swearing off their essential acting schoolwork. Not really. Knowing and possessing your character’s destinations, stakes, impediments, perspective, theory, connections, and conditions are vital. You should likewise comprehend the story’s timeframe and area, and the orderly traditions. Genuinely entertaining parody requires making every one of these things genuine.

“At that point, there are sure repeating components in satire. Make sense of what specific gadgets are being utilized in—or might suit—the material, and you’ll realize better how to assume your job.” — Michael Kostroff, working entertainer and tryout mentor

You ought to most likely adhere to the content precisely. 

“Be that as it may, imagine a scenario where you’re trying out for a parody. Practically all TV is essayist driven and in case you’re trying out for shows like ‘Blackish’ or ‘Predominant Doughnuts,’ it’s best you adhere to the content except if you’re told something else. Single-camera comedies have a little space for advertisement libbing, and just in case you’re a superior essayist than the individual who booked that staff-composing work.” — Rob Adler, entertainer, chef, educator, and Backstage Expert

You don’t need to demonstrate that you’re clever. 

“Great acting ought to be imperceptible in any type. The fact of the matter I’m fortifying is that entertainers shouldn’t push the satire in any capacity or prioritize flaunting their parody cleaves or preparing. It very well may be enticing, however, I guarantee you, ought to stay away from.

“I’ve seen a ton of gifted on-screen characters commit this error at each degree of their professions. For the most part, it’s an absence of experience and preparing for the camera that drives an entertainer to guarantee they’re seen as clever. That could be because an on-screen character is new or they’ve just performed on the stage, yet I’ve likewise observed prepared entertainers who’ve done for the most part show fall into the satire trap.

“Satire has pressure focuses that don’t have an equal in the dramatization. Funniness is very close to home and for the most part, comes front-stacked with quick criticism; make a joke and you either get a snicker or you don’t. With regards to emotional principles like distress, double-crossing, and misfortune, we don’t anticipate an aggregate response.” — Gunnar Todd Rohrbacher, acting mentor, essayist, chief, maker, and Backstage Expert

Be that as it may, you do need to trust it’s entertaining. 

“How can one make a comic setting? As evident as the three words I’m going to compose will sound, you’d be astounded what number of entertainers and chiefs disregard them. Think that it’s clever. The greatest mix-up entertainers and chiefs make while making parody are concocting thoughts that they think will be directly for the satire, or that they think will make the scene amusing, or that they think will make a group of people chuckle.

The main thought that is going to make a crowd of people snicker is one that the entertainer who is playing it finds so amusing, that when the individual in question is home alone and nobody is viewing and the person ponders it, the person roars with laughter. Consider it thusly: when playing a dismal emotional scene, it’s significant that the on-screen character feels extremely tragic with the goal that the crowd feels miserable watching it.

The turnaround is valid with parody. Entertainers need to feel a scene is extremely interesting for the crowd to feel it’s amusing.” — John Swanbeck, creator, speaker, feature writer, and Backstage Expert Up your vitality.

“I generally make individuals go around the room before I put them on tape for parody. We have a familiar adage for theatre: ‘Consistently hit the stage running!’ Comedy has a vitality to it. Regardless of whether you’re doing laid-back funniness, there’s a buzz to it. Also, you must have a fabulous time to do great satire, so you have to get your ‘juices’ streaming. You can’t do parody worn out or hauling.

Also, you would prefer not to have counterfeit vitality. It will cause you to feel and look constrained and unfunny. So truly hop around and get the blood siphoning in your body and your mind. Everything will happen quicker and all the more effectively.” — Cathryn Hartt, author of Hartt and Soul Acting Studio and Backstage Expert

Satire is tied in with importance, so discover it. 

“Entertainers are consistently looking for a straightforward key to playing parody. The best I have run over is from that snicker machine, Sigmund Freud. In 1905, he conveyed a progression of talks in Munich that turned into the book, ‘Jokes, and Their Relation to the Unconscious.’ Freud expresses that the substance of parody ‘… is making the significant, useless,’ or, correspondingly, making the unimportant, important.

“Making the significant-good for nothing is slipping on the banana strip. Strolling gets falling. Reason becomes non-reason. On the other hand, making the unimportant important is Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks.

[grandpadinosaur]

Freudian Quip

1905: Two examples from Sigmund Freud’s The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious:

A physician visits a sick woman. As he’s leaving, he shakes his head and says to the woman’s husband: “I don’t like the look of your wife.”

The husband agrees: “I haven’t liked the look of her for a long time.”

Here is another joke, which Freud considered “rather coarse-grained”:

Two Jews are talking…

[flagworkz]

David Hammons Untitled (body print) 1975 Silkscreen and ink on paper 30 x 22 in. (76.2 x 55.9 cm) Photo: White Cube (Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd)

http://whitecube.com/exhibitions/from_the_vapor_of_gasoline_masons_yard_2017/

From the Vapor of Gasoline20 September – 21 October 2017

Mason's Yard

In the years after the Second World War, a golden age of economic growth seemed set to fulfil the historian James Truslow Adams’ celebrated description of the American Dream ‘of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability’. By the end of the 1960s, a flurry of political assassinations, civil unrest and the escalation of the Cold War precipitated a national crisis of confidence that reached its apogee with the 1973 oil embargo.

The title of this exhibition, borrowing from the evocative slogan painted across Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Peruvian Maid (1985), conjures a society running on empty. Its artists – loosely linked by a network of personal and professional relationships, as between Cady Noland and Steven Parrino, Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger, Richard Prince and Christopher Wool – chronicle a dramatic ideological shift. If the prevailing atmosphere is of disillusion, then it is not without hope: with the end of a dream comes a renewed engagement with reality.

In deconstructing the national self-image, these artists brought a combination of physical violence and intellectual wit to bear on the symbols of America − the Stars and Stripes, the cowboy, the dollar bill − that Pop had seemed to celebrate. They adopted humour, appropriation and inauthenticity as strategies by which to challenge the ideologies inscribed within these signs, opening up the space between the authorised narratives of the United States and the darker histories they concealed.

Noland’s hole-ridden Cowboy Bullethead Movie Star (1990) and Untitled (Walker) (1989) profane these sacred symbols of American life. For the latter, the artist draped the Stars and Stripes over a clothes rail attached to a zimmer frame and basket. Re-inscribed in an assemblage that signals decrepitude, the limp flag reads like a challenge to American culture’s continued claim to virility and youth: the nation, like the sign, is exhausted. Or perhaps the flag alludes to violent death − draped over the coffin of a soldier returning from war − and by extension the draft, identified by Malcolm X as a structural expression of state violence against African-Americans.

Enshrined in the collective consciousness as the historical guarantor of national independence and individual freedom, violence is not only central to the self-image of the United States but − as Noland has proposed in an interview with Michèle Cone − has a broadly positive reputation within it.1 Where Noland identifies and critiques an aggressive streak in the collective psyche, Robert Mapplethorpe undermines another foundation of the American society. Photographed with an illuminated back light, his Dollar Bill (1987) is a double exposure that literalises the idea of seeing through a sign.

David Hammons drapes himself in the flag in Untitled (Body Print) (1975), an identification it seems safe to characterise as double-edged. The work foreshadows his creation of the hybrid African-American Flag (1990) that now hangs outside the Studio Museum in Harlem and which intertwines the official history of the United States with those of colonialism, slavery and rebellion. It also draws to mind the fig leaf, and the implication that the black body might affront his audience is seconded by Close Your Eyes and See Black (1969), in which the artist’s face − hands over eyes − is superimposed on the print left on the paper by his inked torso. The impression is of a body pressed up against a pane, uncomfortably confined.

Hammons’ enigmatic Phat Free (1995/99), for which the artist was filmed kicking a bucket down the street at night, puns on a common euphemism for death. Sigmund Freud, who popularised the idea that dreams are the bowdlerised expressions of much darker impulses, also identified jokes as a means of camouflaging latent aggressions. That self-destructive public behaviour can double as mass entertainment seems self-evident in the current political circumstances. However innocent they might appear on the surface, both dreams and jokes are founded on unconscious fears, anxieties and hostilities.2 This might explain why the spectacle of violence described by Bruce Nauman’s Double Poke in the Eye II (1985) is so funny, and which makes Richard Prince’s paintings an apt choice for this exhibition.

By painting jokes onto deadpan monochromatic backgrounds, Prince lays bare the insecurities underpinning expressions of humour: sexual dissatisfaction, fear of mortality, latent aggressions. The disruptive element of the joke, which allows different and sometimes dangerous meanings to attach to ostensibly harmless statements, is exaggerated by its having been ostracised from its original, ‘safe’ context in a magazine or joke book. Set amidst these degraded symbols of American society, they seem harsher, funnier, more sinister. Too close, perhaps, to the bone.

Similar processes are at work in the phrase that Holzer has isolated and embossed in her 1981 plaque − ‘SOMEONE WANTS TO CUT A HOLE IN YOU AND FUCK YOU THROUGH IT, BUDDY’. Like a joke, its phrasing normalises a disturbing subliminal conflation of sex and violence. Exposing the violence embedded in language, the text pieces of Holzer and Kruger reassess the broader contexts in which words work. In common with Prince and Wool, albeit by different means and to different ends, they subvert the dominant discourse by liberating words and phrases.

The hole − as window, wound or breach − is among this exhibition’s most compelling motifs: in the threat or diagnosis of Wool’s Head (1992), in Parrino’s easy rider biker overlaid with handcuffs, in Robert Gober’s Untitled (Drain)(1993) and Untitled (Man Coming out of a Woman)(1993−94). Holes compromise the boundaries, literal and figurative, by which society is segregated and structured. Larry Clark’s photographs are like peepholes between the pristine white-walled exhibition space and the wider culture, exciting the desire and shame that have long characterised the relationship of the very wealthy to those on the fringes of society.

The theme of division is literalised by Basquiat’s witty and part-whitewashed two-part canvas 2 for a dollar (1983), one of several works to address the mechanisms of exchange that drive both the art world and the society of which it is a microcosm. The elaborate wrought iron gates implied by Wool’s Untitled (1988) also separate America’s wealthiest citizens from its poorest. Hammons, meanwhile, adopts the visual language of the museum, a veil pulled back to reveal an elaborately framed splash of Kool-Aid.

These artists sought by different means to reacquaint their audience with the uncomfortable truths beyond the American Dream. In the intervening decades that illusion has been replaced, at least in part, by a narcissistic culture of celebrity and spectacle. By punching holes in the mirror that art holds up to society, the work gathered together in ‘From the Vapor of Gasoline’ offers strategies of use to artists working in comparably fraught times.  

Interview with Michèle Cone, Journal of Contemporary Art, 3 no. 2 (Fall-Winter 1990)

Sigmund Freud, ‘Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious’ (1905). https://www.sigmundfreud.net/jokes-and-their-relation-to-the-unconscious-pdf-ebook.jsp