July 5, 2011

"We wanted to make sure that this amount of make-up wouldn't kill a person."

Dutch artists Lernert Engelberts and Sander Plug apply — in one sitting — 365 layers of makeup to a model's face (after testing 100 layers "on our intern, who is a man").



What was the main effect of this project?
It illustrates the way the beauty industry oppresses women.
It fascinates by taking something familiar and making it weird.
It expresses contempt for women who use cosmetics.
It titillates viewers who get off on seeing women restrained and humiliated.

  
pollcode.com free polls

50 comments:

Anonymous said...

With the caveat that I didn't watch the video (at work) and am only basing my comments on the poll, can I just add how annoying it is to be told that choices that I willingly make are somehow "oppressing" me, just because I'm a woman.

If I had any respect whatsoever for the opinions of the people that deal in this nonsense, then I would find that kind of infantalization absurdly offensive.

- Lyssa (who likes wearing makeup, and feels sorry for the men who don't get to have fun with it)

Andrea said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...

Why? It revealed absolutely nothing unexpected. They could have cleaned my house or cut the grass instead.

Scott M said...

Lyssa (who likes wearing makeup, and feels sorry for the men who don't get to have fun with it)

Have no fear. We feel sorry that overwhelming majority of women (outside the WPFL...ugh) will never get to slam into people at full speed in an attempt to break them in two. Dislodging the ball they carry is a secondary consideration...

Andrea said...

You forgot this one: "That artists have completely run out of ideas and have taken to just fucking around."

(Fixed my comment.)

Alex said...

Why not the "bullshit" tag?

Palladian said...

When beauty, sublimity and technical ecstasy either fail to move you, or are absent from your heart and beyond the ability of your hands and mind, try a cheap sideshow stunt, and call it art. That coinage is already so debased that no one cares about counterfeits.

Europeans, like so many debauched and terminally decadent societies before them, are only aroused by perversion and spectacle.

Shouting Thomas said...

File under:

Jerkoffs pretending they are doing some sort of academic/artistic stuff.

Anonymous said...

Scott M, to each his (or her!) own.

MadisonMan said...

Couldn't you do the same thing by falling face-first into a bucket of paint?

gerry said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
gerry said...

Was this piece of crap funded by tax dollars?

Wince said...

A guy's reaction (picture a thought bubble):

"Hmm, I suppose this means a 'facial' isn't totally out of the question."

traditionalguy said...

Is that like yesterday's hotdog eating contest? The winner proves that they are a successful masochist. The make up artist is a sadist. So sadist meets masochist and they live happily ever after.

Curious George said...

Another poll fail.

MayBee said...

The setup looks remotely vaginal.

Scott M said...

We tested a 100-layer session a few days before on our intern, who is a man

Last one off the sinking ship. Last one out of the burning house. The one to die if only one parent can be saved while saving the family. First one to receive 100 layers of makeup to ensure it's "safe.

At first glance, the old Electric Company "one of these things is not like the other" comes to mind until you realize that they're all part of the same trend.

David said...

Yeah, I don't get it, which makes both me and the "artists" happy.

rhhardin said...

Disparaging sideshows doesn't work. The whole US government is run on sideshows.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

It illustrates that the term 'art' is meaningless.

Palladian said...

Makeup is similar to paint; it's just pigment with a binder. You can actually make beautiful, soft drawings using makeup. I have my students do studies of a model using lipstick and other makeup as a medium, because they blend so nicely. Sfumato a la Maybelline.

If you want to explore the subjects of beauty, decay, artifice, faces and masks, why not skip the silly sideshow and look at James Ensor? The makeup stunt you can figure out without ever even seeing it, but you can look at James Ensor forever and still find a mystery.

DADvocate said...

It shows that some Dutch artists have funny names. Sander Plug. Really?

Peter Hoh said...

Simpsons did it.

Tank said...

Don't women wash off make up each day and start fresh? I mean, they don't just apply one layer on top of another.

Yes, BS tag missing.

Shanna said...

This is stupid.

Also, no one makes me wear makeup. I do or I don't based on what I want to do.

Bryan C said...

If you put lots of gloop on someone's face then it'll look like they have a lot of gloop on their face. It's art!

It was an interesting premise but I expected a more engaging presentation.

Carol_Herman said...

It's stupid. Because it is way off track on how makeup gets used.

The only women I know that depend on heavy makeup cover were the ones born with those red splotchy birthmarks on their faces.

If you put something to a use ... that it is NOT used for ... there's your gimmick right there.

TWO: Women apply their own makeup. But they don't apply their own wax. This could involve layers of wax. With the idea when it hardens a bit, you pull it off. And, the facial hairs ... (usually eyebrows) ... are removed.

This "test" doesn't even proove what weights you can carry around on your face. If you put a heavy garbage pail on her face ... you'd be "measuring" what it must have been like to be under chivalrous armor.Still not worthy of being called "art." Or even "experimentation."

This stuff just replaces snake-oil salesmen.

Ann Althouse said...

"Is that like yesterday's hotdog eating contest?"

As I was writing the post, I had a plan to connect it to that, but then I took the post in a different direction.

Ann Althouse said...

"I have my students do studies of a model using lipstick and other makeup as a medium, because they blend so nicely. Sfumato a la Maybelline.

Expensive art supplies! A crayon that costs $30.

The Crack Emcee said...

"We wanted to make sure that this amount of make-up wouldn't kill a person."

So we tried it on a man first, because,...men aren't people or something.

Rolls eyes at the entire idea.

Fred4Pres said...

I could do that in about five minutes with a can of spackle.

Interesting that they tested this on an "intern." I guess that is what interns are for!

Fred4Pres said...

Oh yeah, the intern was a man. So that makes it okay too.

MadisonMan said...

It was an interesting premise but I expected a more engaging presentation.

Yes. It was a boring video.

Ann Althouse said...

"Yes. It was a boring video."

That's the way to say "art" instead of "comedy" (or "porn").

Palladian said...

"Don't women wash off make up each day and start fresh? I mean, they don't just apply one layer on top of another."

Women used to wear a lot more, and a lot more dangerous, makeup. Queen Elizabeth I, for instance, used a white makeup made from lead carbonate, as there weren't any other opaque white pigments available until the advent of zinc oxide white in the 19th century and titanium dioxide white in the 20th century. Elizabeth survived smallpox, therefore she had facial scarring which she tried to hide with thick makeup. Her later portraits are often called "the Mask of Youth" because they were all based on a heavily-made-up and stylized template portrait she commissioned in order to prevent "realistic" likenesses from being made of her.

I have a 17th century book on art techniques that also has a section on the preparation and use of makeup and cosmetics appended at the end (because, it is explained, this was a lucrative way for artists to make extra money). Many of the recipes are horrendous, such as facial preparations made from metallic mercury and white foundation makeup made from lead carbonate and egg whites. The book, amusingly, warns against allowing the mercury preparations to touch the eyes or the teeth, and advises: "use it not too often"...

Palladian said...

"Expensive art supplies! A crayon that costs $30."

No, I get the makeup free from a distribution company. It's expired so they can't sell it to stores anymore.

Ann Althouse said...

@Crack Thanks for the old Marvin Gaye video. Great singing... incongruous drums and girls screaming.

Scott M said...

Expensive art supplies! A crayon that costs $30.

I thought one had to suffer for their art.

Palladian said...

I transcribed the recipe mentioned above from my 17th century art & makeup book, which is called "Polygraphice..." (the rest of the title can be read on my Flicker page featuring a photo of the title page of the book):

VII. An excellent Mercurial Cosmetick prevalent against most deformities of the skin.

Take Mercury purified from all blackness half a pound, Mercury Sublimate in powder as much, mix them in a stone or marble Mortar; put them into an Alembick of a strait Orifice, put on distilled Vinegar, till all be covered three or four fingers, letting it stand four days, daily stirring the same at certain times, then it extracts a whitish powder; the whitish Vinegar by inclination separate, rejecting it, and put on other Vinegar: the powder at bottom keep so for some days: which labour you must so often reiterate, till you have abundance of that white powder, which dry, and keep for use: anoint with it, by mixing with it a little distilled rain water, and it will take away all blemishes of the skin, as also Tetters. Use it not too often, and beware you touch neither eyes nor teeth with it.


Use it not too often, indeed. Like, never. Any chemists want to take a stab at what substance is created from this recipe?

Dark Eden said...

Makeup is an interesting subject. I stumbled on a whole cache of youtube videos of girls giving eye makeup tutorials and its astounding the number of steps involved in getting some of these looks down. I had no idea the complexity and artistry of something I take completely for granted.

This video kind of reminds me of that taken to the point of absolute absurdity.

I don't exactly know what the point was but yes by the end, it had a sort of humiliation fetish aspect to it that was quite uncomfortable.

fivewheels said...

Having been directed by this blog to the Daily Mail, I found a column with a wonderful headline: "LIZ JONES: If you're too bolshy to put on some lippy, why should any firm give you a job?"

Shouting Thomas said...

This reminds me, back when my wife was still alive, this British girl wanted to play in our band.

So, we played a couple of times with her. She was a real pain in the ass. Wouldn't stop talking about her idiot feminist idealism.

Anyway, we were playing one day, and my wife asked her what she would wear and how she would make herself up for a gig.

She replied: "I don't do pretty."

My wife told her to pack up her stuff and get the fuck out of our life.

edutcher said...

Missed one:

It wants to see how many people remember when it was done to Jack Lord in the pilot of the original Hawaii Five-O.

Anonymous said...

Terribly boring video is terribly boring.

Also: bukkake

Trooper York said...

Jeez they should have just asked Joan Collins if they were so worried.

Freeman Hunt said...

I don't think it has the desired effect.

Three hundred sixty-five layers, and that's all? I expected it to end up much thicker!

Freeman Hunt said...

Oh, and kill a person? Give me a break.

They're just suggesting that because they're anti-makeup.

Mob said...

Once, I saw a man wear 155 days worth of t-shirts.

It changed my life.

YoungHegelian said...

@Freeman:

"Oh, and kill a person? Give me a break."

What? You've never seen the opening scenes of Goldfinger?

AST said...

It's the next big rage in cosmetics, the face paint roller. If you tell them they'll be more attractive, women will do anything.