Marriage Cake
life is a choice between loneliness and vulgarity
PEOPLE ARE MAPS. Australian Galleries, Sydney. Sept.3-22
People are maps
Cameron Hayes
People are Maps, 2017
oil on linen
77 3/4 x 95 3/4 inches
photo: Vince Ruvolo
Courtesy the artist and Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York
As humans are evolving away from animals they are losing their ability to empathise
with, anticipate or relate to other animals. Within human
civilization people don’t need to know the agenda of other animals because they no
longer have to catch and eat them or run to avoid being eaten by them.
As people became more sophisticated and protected from attack they no longer need
to empathise with other people. Therefore, that part of the brain is unused and
continues to shrink to make room for more opinions – a requirement for contemporary
civilisation rather than for survival. Today, people are free to live their entire life without
having to empathise with or to understand another person.
Driving in your car is now the only place where you want to be aware of the needs of
other people – or you will crash. On the freeway there is a car crash, angry drivers get
out of their cars to start chasing each other in circles around the crash. While they are
blaming each other, they neglect to look behind themselves to see who is blaming
them.
To escape the violence at the car crash angry drivers climb down off the freeway into
the jungle. There they see animals eating other animals, but not looking behind to see
who/what is about to eat them. Lost in the jungle shoppers stare blankly at a carousel
full off snake skin shopping bags while being consumed by snakes and a woman
hunting for crocodile handbags can’t see the croc she is already halfway inside. This
is called “assertion fetish” where animals / humans are only interested and capable of
asserting their own view, oblivious to the views of others. This jungle is Milton’s version
of Eden destroyed when animals start thinking exclusively of themselves only, and so
become human .
There are two radio receivers, because when people spend more time expressing
opinions rather than forming them you need talkback radio. On the freeway in the
privacy / safety of their cars people are phoning in unchallenged opinions about topics
they have no qualifications for, but do have rented costumes for. When they fall into
the jungle they lose their phones, so they have to drag their expert costumes around
on a rack using a megaphone to tell a ballerina how to dance and a pregnant woman
how to give birth. Tarzan thought because he wore leopard skin he understood
leopards – he was wrong, and his body parts are being shared amongst his animal
“friends”
Because every other person has something useful to tell, teach and show
us, people are maps for navigating life. Without understanding of, and curiosity for,
other people the fallen drivers start moving in ever decreasing circles, drilling
themselves down further and further into the one spot. They are not noticing this
because they are staring into their phones and all the mirrored reflections it provides .
Even birds in the sky evolve into single winged birds and can only fly in circles. Cats
who only chase their tails, stretch their tails from trees so as to have a life more
extensive than the length of their original tail. Many trees have magician top hats in
them where magicians have put them in the branches still believing in their own
personal magic to conjure food and create a sustainable life.
detail typical idiot woman
After everyone went blind, everyone was afraid they wouldn’t be able to remember what they now couldn’t see
After Everyone Went Blind, Everyone Was Afraid They Wouldn’t Be Able to Remember What They Now Couldn’t See
oil on linen
2 panels
overall size: 82 x 100 inches
Courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York
After everyone went blind, everyone was afraid they wouldn’t be able to remember what they now couldn’t see. And everyone became overprotective of their memories and antagonistic towards any contradicting memories. When someone died everyone thought they should build the coffin in the shape of their memory of the dead person. Many corpses were torn apart in the fight for their right to their contradicting memories of the dead. Some grievers agreed on a compromise but had to squash or cut off parts of the hardening corpse to fit it into the compromised coffin shape.
Fingerprints and footprints became an important part of recording where you were and who you were when your memory failed you. The city became covered with fingerprints and footprints. And it became illegal to wash any surfaces. Because of this the world became an incubator of disease and then was ruled by disease. Also models had to be touched now instead of looked at and modelling became the most unglamorous job ever there was.
When people couldn’t see they became more aware and afraid of the things they could never see in the first place ; like radio waves, love and bacteria. Bacteria like Tibercle, Entamoebe and Bacilli became household names and there was even a petting zoo of bacteria.
Most people try to keep their memories through taste. They would have cake, soft drinks and lollies to remember their childhood, junk food to remember their teenage years and alcohol for the rest. They mainly became fat which wasn’t a big deal because no-one could see them anyway.
What happens when pretend politicians pretend to be terrorists
What happens when pretend politicians pretend to be terrorists
Cameron Hayes
What Happens When Pretend Politicians Pretend to Be Terrorists, 2011
Oil on linen
66 x 136 inches
Photo: Bill Orcutt
Courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York
In the week of the 2007 Australian federal election, it was clear that the Liberal Party were going to lose power to The Labor Party after 11 years in government. The electorate of Lindsay was made up of middle to lower earning white Australians with pockets of immigrants and first generation Australians from the Middle East.
The seat was held by Jackie Kelly for 11 years, but she was retiring and hoping to pass the seat onto a Liberal Party colleague, Karen Chijoff, on the Thursday before Saturday’s election. The husbands of Kelly and Chijoff were seen putting pamphlets in the Lindsay voters’ letter boxes.
The husbands had invented THE ISLAMIC AUSTRALIA FEDERATION. They printed pamphlets from this fake organization, thanking the Labor Party for seeking clemency for terrorists, building more mosques in Llndsay, and for supporting the Bali bombers. The husbands put the fake pamphlets in letterboxes in the poorest white areas.
This painting is about what happened in the local girl’s school and the local shopping mall when the white parents thought that the “Islamic Australia Federation” was targeting Lindsay to be an Islamic/Sharia enclave, with mosques on every corner, bombs in every bus shelter, and most frightening, women with scarves on their heads. The white fear of Lindsay becoming Islamic spread to the schools and made the most vulnerable (Muslim girls) the most accountable for the fear. The Muslim girls already in semi-denial were forced to completely deny their identity.
They had to leave home in traditional dress and change at bus stops and the shopping mall, semi-naked in front of predatory white men – cleaners, gardeners, and business men. The girls had to hunt around shopping malls for the cheapest possible versions of non – Muslim dress: singlet tops, short shirts, high heels, and brand names. While their parents, particularly their fathers, did laps at the mall, anti-clockwise, oblivious to the children’s struggle.
Once the girls had given up their identity and started to desire to be someone else, they became nothing and extremely vulnerable to drugs, alcohol, boys, and brands.
TERRORIST IN A CAKE SHOP
Before there was a terrorist in a cake shop everyone was afraid of what came out of the water ; sharks, stingrays, refugees, blue ring octopus ect….Australians grow up believing that they are the lucky country , everything they have is because of good luck, nothing they have is earned so nothing they have is owned. So everything they have is illegitimate – subject to a change of luck – subject to a change in circumstances.
Before there was a terrorist in a cake shop Australians feared that eventually the unlucky people from the unlucky countries would come and bring their wars, their hunger , their poverty and their queues. A plague of experimented on rabbits; Indian dancing bears , tortured TV animals, baby drowning muslim mothers and card box living Phillipinos can’t be held out much longer by the shark net that surrounds Australia’s waters and the handful of lifesavers that surround Australia’s beaches .
In Australia people are so afraid of the water that they make bridges that go in circles and on those bridges people drag their yachts along the roads, they pile their sealess yachts on top of each other to make luxury seaside apartments looking out on the water they will not sail on.
Before there was a terrorist in a cake shop Australian’s favourite pastime was to tell each other how lucky they are compared to other countries. They hold big raffles where the first prizes are ; the ability to have children, running water, or a free and healthy press. Everybody has a ticket but nobody can tell you where you can’t have a child or turn on a tap and Melbourne has two newspapers and one of them is the Herald Sun. It’s like an old T.V. commercial for Gumbaya Park where you could go to play chasey or do push ups or play totem tennis providing you bring your own totem tennis pole.
Like most criminals and lottery winners Australians have a semi-conscious guilt that they are taking more from the world that they are worth. Rituals that dress up dress up the rest of the world as corrupt are important to us ; Muslims dressed as baby drowners, dolphins dressed as sharks, seventh day Adventists as baby sacrificers , Sudanese kids as the apex gang ect…
Australians are simultaneously bonded and excited by their fear of their coming bad luck , they go to Lunar Park and stand in two buckets of water and are encircled by a carousel of dolphins wearing fake shark teeth and tied on shark fins. After that they can relax in their second favourite pastime – shouting things out of the windows speeding cars at minorities walking on the footpath.
Amongst all the fossil fuels, beautiful beaches , blue skies and all those sheep and suntans Australians can’t fully enjoy their luck – like children held hostage in a chocolate shop.
By the time they opened the first Museum of Rap in Fatehpur Sikri no-one could taste, smell, feel, hear or remember it anyway
Cameron Hayes
By the Time They Opened the First Museum of Rap in Fatehpur Sikri No-One Could Taste, Smell, Feel, Hear or Remember It Anyway, 2006
oil on linen
66 x 100 inches
Photo: Hermann Feldhaus
Courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York
By the time they opened the first Museum of Rap in Fatehpur Sikri no-one could taste, smell, feel, hear or remember it anyway
Fatehpur Sikri was a city built by a Mogul king to be a perfect city; but it was on high ground and not near any lakes or rivers, so no-one ever lived there because there was no water. In 2004, the National Bank of India opened the first Museum of Rap there.
All the stars from television, film, and music were expected to arrive in cabs and step out of a painting or a limousine onto a red-carpet conveyor belt. The stars then had fifteen minutes to line up behind and then have their photos taken in a wooden picture of Beyonce Knowles, Justin Timberlake, Tupac, or the cat from Friends. Many stubborn stars refused to take their heads out of their image and stumbled around until they accidentally hanged themselves in the wood.
Outside the Museum of Rap, many entertainers have come to cash in on all the hype. Ten-year-old girls have brought their dancing bears dressed as Madonna, Brittany, and Run DMC. A dance school has opened next door for girls to train their bears using only bells, knives, and scissors. Another entertainer painted many different species of animals with black and yellow stripes, and people pay to see them raped by a real tiger.
Not-so-famous rap stars have brought their own spotlights, and have tied capes to small animals, and are dropping them from scaffolds.
Because the way everyone and everything looked was all important, people lost their sense of smell and needed dogs to smell if food had expired, and homeless people carried bees in glass jars to check if their bodies were decaying badly enough to worry about.
As people’s sight strengthened they lost more and more memory, so musicians were able to do cover versions of hits while they were still on the charts. And many sitcoms were able to use the scripts from other sitcoms the day before.
The empty water pipes of Fatehpur Sikri were used to circulate the same three or four scripts through all the TV studios and hopes of the people.
Orphanages make the best skyscrapers
Cameron Hayes
Orphanages Make the Best Skyscrapers, 2011
Oil on linen
78 x 100 inches
Photo: Bill Orcutt
Courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York
Orphanages make the best skyscrapers, 2011
Orphans make up the best corporations because so many of the people who work in them, especially investment bankers, lawyers, and management consultants, need to win the approval of older men in suits. The more neglected a child is, especially as a boy by his father, the harder he will work as an adult for the corporation.
The rise of conservatism in the working population is a direct result of the increase of absent and negligent fathers.
The Human Resource departments of big companies see a generation of needy workers unconsciously drawn to being patted on the head by rich old white men in suits. HR departments know these people will take work home, work for unpaid overtime, eat lunch at their desk, and adopt the goals and values of the corporation as their own.
Without fathers, these workers still live in the wish fulfilled fantasy world which they and their mothers created. They expect everyone else to know intuitively what they want and how they feel. They believe in blowing out candles, gambling, and throwing money in wishing wells. They pray in front of gym equipment as orphans pray in front of phones that don’t ring for them, empty letterboxes, and taxis that never return their fathers.
In these skyscrapers the elevators only go up. Not to strive to the top through work is to freefall to the bottom. Many workers carry their chalk drawings in their brief cases, and many psychiatrists are sent straight to the top of the skyscrapers to wait for the most successful workers.
Botanica Humana Group Show in Melbourne
I’m in a group show called Botanica Humana in Melbourne with 12 other artists. It opens on Thursday 3rd May 6-8 pm, 424 Smith Street, Collingwood at Here We See – Gallery There. It is on until May 27th, 2018. Here is some more information:
https://hereweseegallerythere.com/portfolio-item/929/
The painting is: Cameron Hayes | In the end they wanted even cats to know them | 2017 | Oil on linen | 198 x 254 cm
Schopenhauer said life is a choice between loneliness and vulgarity. In this picture the most congested area of traffic is the red carpet. To get people to move in this painting you need to lure them with red carpet despite the carpet being draped over a rickety skeleton of a disused theme park.
Because of facebook, twitter etc… everyone can get everyone to know them. People are now left with only cats to impress. Cats are the least impressed by people and therefore become the most powerful of all animals. Soon cats run the world, people work to build giant scratching poles and perches with windowsills. Because cats communicate through smells people are forbidden from cleaning and wearing facemasks and nose plugs. Big brother cat face posters control people from every corner.
Other animals are now trying to get to be known by strangers as well and jungle animals are climbing with their information plaques (facebook pages) to get into the zoo cages so they can be seen by more people and tuna fish are hiding in tins so that they can get into their red carpet – the supermarket.
People aren’t wearing pants to show that they could be on T.V, post boxes are overflowing with sent letters no-one wants to receive, planes are being loaded with people’s facebook pages (information plaques) while the owners wait on luggage trolleys.
Like the animals fighting to put their information plaques in the zoo cages, priests are fighting to speak from the one pulpit while men and women dressed in diapers fight to reclaim the bed where they were nurtured by their mothers and made to feel that the whole world was interested in only them.
It continues! Hayes’ show at Dark Horse Experiment has been extended so you still have this week to go and see it. It’s attracted great attendance, media attention, academic interest – not bad for a cancelled show!
The gallery is open Wed – Sat 12 – 6 at 110 Franklin St, Melbourne.
Cameron Hayes’ extensive body of work created over the past 8 years – The Incomplete History of Milikapiti – will be on show at Dark Horse Experimentgallery in Melbourne from tonight until the 2nd September.
Come and visit the show. If you have any thoughts or questions, contact Cameron. He might even be in the gallery some days.
Have a read of this article about the body of work before you go. It’s pretty interesting. And, if you can’t get to Melbourne to see the show check out this blog and the Dark Horse Experiment website for the full catalogue.
The Incomplete History of Milikapiti
When all the Whites came to Milikapiti, they gave all the Tiwis sugar, flour, beer and the dole. The Tiwi hunters – famed for their ferocity and courage – were no longer needed to hunt and kill food for the community. The Tiwi…
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In the End Pavlov Saw Only Bells and Saliva
Cameron Hayes
In the End Pavlov Saw Only Bells and Saliva,
oil on linen, 2 panels
overall size: 82 x 100 inches
Photo: Hermann Feldhaus
Courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Art, New York
In the end Pavlov saw only bells and saliva
Pavlov proved that animals want to do as little thinking as possible. He proved animals will accept an easy substitute over something real but difficult. His dogs were satisfied with the sound of a bell, rather than looking for or fighting for food.
In his last years, Pavlov dreamed of a world where all people were trained to be satisfied with substitutes rather than real things.
Pavlov himself and everything he owned was always covered in saliva because when he rang his bells, all his laboratory animals became over-filled with saliva, as though they were feasting on a giant meal. Animals soon were happy to just only create and swallow their own saliva.
On National Science Day, Pavlov put on an exhibit of saliva and bells at Red Square. There was a parade of fit kiddies ringing bells to start the saliva sprinklers made from deers.
A dog fountain was made from putting food in dogs’ mouths and repeating the process after the food had fallen through the holes in the dogs’ throats into the saliva pool below.
There was an exhibit to show that animals will crave anything if they can suck it through an udder, and a race to demonstrate which part of the body reacts to an attractive woman.
Pavlov’s dodgy brother set up a stand claiming he could train the body to lose weight with the sound of a bell; he called himself Dr. Elephant Man.
Men gathered around to watch a mouse circle a pole and felt compelled to put money in bras tied up on a clothes line.
The top panel is Pavlov’s heaven where everything is made of hay, and the Russian police just ring a special bell to make you see brick, metal, and skin and feel happy, anxious, or sad.