weird discovery: it's not exactly my fault that the flag is so wrong? Like, here's my version of the gay brazil flag overlaid with the SVG from wikipedia. It lines up pretty well, except for the smallest stars.

But then we overlay the gay brazil flag over the actual brazil flag, and...

none of these stars line up!

which is bullshit. the layout of the stars is defined by law. there's literally an official government diagram on how you align the stars:

so whatta fuck.

please tell me I don't need to go modify the SVG on wikipedia, because some other fool made it wrong?

okay so.

The SVG on wikipedia was uploaded by user Eddo (since renamed Giggette, apparently?) in 2010. It got updated in 2011 by Fry1989, but that was just a fix to adjust some of the colors.

Now, Eddo listed it as being their own creation, but then also said they got it from a site called National Gay Flags of the World.

That site is long gone, but I found a partial archive from 2012. Annoyingly the internet archive didn't manage to save the Gay Flag of Brazil flag from that page, so I can't check how it aligned the stars.

But here's the weird part: They say that some flags have a logo before them, which means they were designed by Greg Gomes, the creator of the site. And if it does, this is a copyrighted flag by them, and you need to get permission to reuse them, and you need to give credit.

And guess what? The Brazil Gay Flag is one of those!

So now we've got two problems:

This flag seems to be copyright infringement of a Greg Gomes design, which has been incorrected marked as public domain (ie, no restrictions) for 14 years!

So not only is the flag wrong (due to a mistake by either Greg Gomes or Wikipedia user Giggette), it's copyright infringement!

@the-rear-admiral-reborn that’s one of my mom’s! if you look closely, she quilted words throughout. it’s a memorial piece to honour her dad (my grandpa), and the words are stories from his life

and that’s great! gotta love when you can finally see the finished piece

The Whores and Bawds' Club in Drury Lane raises some questions about the Muffin Man

At the time that the nursery rhyme is believed to have originated, Drury Lane was one of the most infamous slums in London, noted for its many brothels and gin palaces. However, it's unclear whether this is an intentional joke on the part of the rhyme's anonymous author, as early versions of the rhyme sometimes name other streets.

For those who care, this is the Bernardi Residence by Fritz Haeg. I found a floorplan, albeit in Spanish and low-res:

I’ll note that the stated construction date of 1925 is for the original house before it was gutted to make this in 2008. Viewing this as a 2008 house makes more sense.

The fact that Fountain is pissing off trads over a 100 years later is so fucking funny

As an art major, while I know Fountain is a valid piece of art that accomplished exactly what it set out to do, I also think it’s one of the stupidest things. We have a urinal in a museum display. I have yet to see a work I think is dumber.

The thing I love most about Duchamps urinal piece is that it was so “low cost” in terms of creative labour (compared to say, a large scale oil painting or sculpture for example), but it’s absolutely FULL of rage against the traditionalists and the world at that time and it’s SUCH a statement, it’s like, “oh just a mass manufactured item with a signature” but the reality of it is so many layers of meaning and without understanding the history at the time you don’t get it.

It’s an incredibly clever “fuck you” and I love it

An old professor of mine, an expert in Duchamp who has written several books, has a theory. In part, “Fountain” was a prank, a personal “fuck you” to the organization looking for artworks. It’s importance cannot be overstated, and this importance stems from the fact that “Fountain” is /ridiculous/. It is enraging, it is hilarious, and it is very fascinating.

Aside from Duchamp’s readymades, I love “Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors Even”. Pictured below, the work invokes a complex machine, one my professor spent a great deal of time studying. Eventually, he reached his conclusion. My professor had been pranked. He believes “Bride Stripped Bare” is a joke about masturbation, hidden to all except those study it excessively.

At first blush, Duchamp’s works are stupid. Upon further study, they’re very complex. And, upon true understanding, Duchamp is laughing at you. To me, it seems the closer you come to truly understanding Duchamp, the more he slaps you in the face with a large fish.

Let me rage about “traditionalism revival” here. This is a dogwhistle.

As a lover of art, there are many complex and technically impressive works being created today, which both embrace different artistic traditions and break from them. To ignore those is to ignore contemporary art.

Here, OP is raging against conceptual art, which stimulates thought and challenges tradition. He wants his followers to believe that art has “degenerated”, because the West has “degenerated”. OP is intentionally engaging with fascist ideas of “degenerate art”.

If OP wanted to be accurate, he would seek to restore the Salon System, the Beaux Arts Academy, and classical training in the arts. The collapse of this specific system allowed for Modernism to evolve. Of course, that’s not what OP is talking about. He’s evoking beauty as a moral standard, telling his followers to “restore Western tradition”, to fight against aesthetic “degeneracy” in culture.

(By the way, Duchamp is commenting ON MODERNISM with “Fountain”. Duchamp submitted the work to the Society of Independent Artists’ salon in New York, who would accept any work by any artist, for a small fee. In part, Duchamp is saying, “Is this what you Modernists want? A urinal? Look me in the eyes and prove this is not art.”

If OP dared to use his brain, perhaps he would agree with Duchamp here.)

The thing is that it isn’t even a urinal! It doesn’t match any model manufactured at the time. Also Duchamp was an accomplished ceramicist. It’s likely that he made the sculpture and absolutely everyone is like “I know what a urinal looks like. This is sufficiently urinal-shaped for me to assume it is one without looking at it closely!”

Duchamp had other readymades, like his snow shovel, where if you actually look at the photos, the handle is square and the bowl is way too flimsy. Why would manufacturers make a snow shovel with a squared-off handle? It’s impossible to hold! Duchamp slapped the “readymades” label on all these items and the hoity-toity art people who were so good at looking at things didn’t see it (probably because they’d never had to do labor like shovel snow imo, amongst other things).

Marcel Duchamp. In Advance of the Broken Arm. Museum of Modern Art. (4th Version [Ed.!!!] after lost original of November 1915)

wait what. there… what?!?! IT ISN’T AN ACTUAL URINAL?!? or might not be anyway. what the fuck.

if the dude seriously did that, his troll game is out of everyone’s league except Leader Kibo.

My favorite thing about Fountain (besides the fact it has been pissing off fascists for over a century, natch) is that the original was lost and he made a bunch of official editions to sell to various museums (after the original was lost, possibly on purpose).

And they’re different! If it was a real “readymade” he could have just bought some more at his local hardware store, but no. He changed them in OBVIOUS WAYS.

See the triangle of holes?

Here’s the one from the Tate Modern:

Oh hello, cross-holes. Fancy seeing you here.

SFMOMA’s edition has the triangle holes, but it also has a line of holes at the top that are completely different from either other version.

Here’s one from Moderna Museet. Line and a circular set of holes!

Duchamp definitely intentionally made these different on purpose. It’s a “readymade” but it’s not, really, each of these is a specific custom creation.

It’s not even clear if he made it! He wrote a letter to his sister claiming that a female friend sent it to him, and he just enrolled it in the art exhibit under his own name. There’s also a possibility that that female friend was himself, since he later had a female pseudonym of Rrose Sélav.

This whole piece of art is a fractal troll, and it’s a beautiful one.

(Album art from Body Electric – Walking Through Walls, cropped to remove the title.)

It’s always interesting to see an old building where you can tell that it was updated at a Very Specific Time. In this case, there are obvious Memphis Group influences going on. They’re well-done, as well. The use of bright primary colors tends to end up looking a bit like a preschool if you do it wrong, but they managed to strike a good balance here, keeping the brighter colors as accents, and keeping a reasonable amount of wood visible.