June 4, 2018

Without a photograph, the "by-no-means exhaustive" list in the NYT style magazine is exhausting.

"... Loewe has released a collection of four limited-edition T-shirts to honor [the artist, filmmaker, writer, and activist] Wojnarowicz, whose deeply personal work about political and social issues relating to the AIDS epidemic... sparked political controversy — and provided inspiration — during the ’80s. [The designer Jonathan] Anderson chose four of Wojnarowicz’s works, made between 1982 and 1990 — including the colorful supermarket poster 'Jean Genet Masturbating in Metteray Prison' — to turn into vibrant silk-screen prints. "

From "5 Things T Editors Like Right Now/A by-no-means exhaustive list of the things our editors (and a few contributors) find interesting on a given week," in T, The NYT Style Magazine.

Here's the missing image. I found it for you. You can click on it without hesitation. The poster looks like one of those signs that used to cover the front window of supermarkets, showing the price of a particular item. Words about the price of a cut of meat are printed in blue on white and pink. A small, hard-to-discern image of (presumably) Genet is printed on top of that supermarket sign. You'd have to look closely even to get that it's a photograph — it's black-and-white, without intermediate graytones  — and much more closely to tell that seems to be a person or to get the idea that the person might be masturbating. The idea that it's Jean Genet is attainable only through reading the title.

Here's a link to the Loewe website page where you can see a photo of a weak, wan man wearing the shirt. We're told the "proceeds from the project" go to a charity that helps artists with AIDs. And here, you can buy the shirt for $99.

Why was Jean Genet in prison?
After returning to Paris, France in 1937, Genet was in and out of prison through a series of arrests for theft, use of false papers, vagabondage, lewd acts, and other offenses.... In Paris, Genet sought out and introduced himself to Jean Cocteau.... Cocteau used his contacts to get Genet's novel published, and in 1949, when Genet was threatened with a life sentence after ten convictions, Cocteau and other prominent figures, including Jean-Paul Sartre and Pablo Picasso, successfully petitioned the French President to have the sentence set aside. Genet would never return to prison.

18 comments:

rhhardin said...

'Jean Genet Masturbating in Metteray Prison'

That'a a Droodle. Like ship arriving too late to save a drowning witch.

Oso Negro said...

Thanks God for T editors. Always there with what to like.

David Begley said...

There’s a supermarket chain in Nebraska and Iowa, Fareway, that uses those paper signs advertising prices.

David Begley said...

Waukon, Iowa is the closest location to Madison.

Ann Althouse said...

I'm really not sure if supermarkets continue to do that! Why would you systematically block windows with paper signs? I guess they want to attract people from the street and the look into the store isn't very interesting or informative. As for the people in the store, maybe you want them not to be gazing out into the noncommercial world and perhaps getting this idea that they don't want to be in here. Paper-filtered light is best for the people already lured into the box.

mezzrow said...

Genet is an iconic figure to those obsessed with style. The worship of evil is stylish, I suppose.

The attraction of the existentialists and feather-brained style mavens to Genet shows that if you're really just focused on existence as the highest value, there is no difference between good and evil. It's just a matter of style. The first half of the twentieth century such was a heinous gauntlet of evil in Europe, and this kind of philosophy is all part of the effort to kill beauty and goodness wherever it can be found, which is a major part of the artistic effort of the past 100 years.

Look at today's world and tell me I'm wrong. Now to check this week's Publix ad.

mezzrow said...

I swear that made sense when I wrote it. I bet you can figure out what it meant anyway.

daskol said...

casinos have no windows at all. and jean genet is a strange man. very funny to read about him in dan savage's old paper, the stranger.

daskol said...

mezzrow, I think carl jung might suggest that many of those existentialists, rather than being evil and seeking to destroy mystery, were railing against the constraints of the dominant thought paradigms of the day. many were onto something. all the worst of them might have turned out better people if folks had been nicer to them when they were little children.

daskol said...

lol @ that picture on the loewe website. if my kids end up like him and pajama boy, I'm not going home for the holidays.

Earnest Prole said...

Speaking of AIDS and fashion, yesterday I recalled for the first time in many years the ubiquitous United Colors of Benetton magazine advertisements that deployed images of dying AIDS patients and famine victims to sell colorful Italian sweaters to American yuppie hipsters.

Richard said...

“when Genet was threatened with a life sentence after ten convictions, Cocteau and other prominent figures, including Jean-Paul Sartre and Pablo Picasso, successfully petitioned the French President to have the sentence set aside. Genet would never return to prison.”

It didn’t work out quite as well for Jack Henry Abbott.

mezzrow said...

@daskol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Panzram

Indeed.

gilbar said...

fairway tries hard to be an old fashioned grocery store. It's retro, but they don't know that. If hipsters in Prairie du Chien knew about the Waukon fairway; they'd be flocking there.
PLEASE GOD! do NOT let hipsters know about the Waukon fairway. If Hipsters start coming there, I'll have to go to the one in Oelwine (the hipsters already in Decorah wouldn't let the Prairie du Chien hipsters into their town (and i already avoid Decorah like the plague).

Fairway is my grocery store! Please don't let hipsters know about it

hstad said...

AA I'm amazed at your constant writing/observations of anything to do with the NYT? I guess you like fiction? Does Madison not have a Newspaper? What about Milwaukee? Chicago? To be honest your constant discussion on anything which appears in the NYT is rather obsessive. You should move to New York City and live, I think you'll change your mind about the NYT once you experience the coarseness and grossness of the City. That's why the NYT's articles a bordering on make-believe versus the reality in the City. When I lived there, the NYT wrote about fiction, not about real life. I suggest the times haven't changed that much today.

Earnest Prole said...

I think you'll change your mind about the NYT once you experience the coarseness and grossness of the City.

I take it you’re new around here.

William said...

Harvey Weinstein masturbated in five star hotels in front of A-list movie stars. He deserves a commemorative, luxury t-shirt far more than Jean Genet.

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