Saggy Trousers

Art needs to be looked at, not talked about. A title will never do an artwork justice, so why not have some fun with it coming up with ridiculous titles?

In his hilarious article “ Naked Ladies In Chairs ,” Robert Basler describes a painting with a nude and a tiny flower called “Nude With Geraniums.” This is funny because the nude picture is, of course, not about Geraniums. Even funnier would have been if the painting had been called “Geraniums!”

This gave me this idea for a cartoon: “A Man Looks At The Centerfold Of An Issue Of Plantboy.” (He reads it for the interviews, honestly!) Though I titled it “Saggy Trousers”

How does one, after all, title a work of art? “Girl With A Pearl Earring” is accurate but kind of ... boring.

Why call it “A Large Tiger Shark Preserved In Formaldehyde In A Vitrine” when Damien Hirst can also call it “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living?” That must have been Damien Hirst’s sense of humor. The funniest thing is that the art world took him seriously when he was clearly mocking them.

Give Robert Basler ’s newsletters a read. He is funny!