Subject: lookit da horsie
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 10:19:45 +0000
The Omni hotel in Kansas City hired an interior designer (named Tami, god help us, from a Phoenix firm) who decided to put framed prints of Picasso's Guernica in all the guest suites. Why? Because in her stupefying ignorance she thought it would lend the joint an atmosphere of European sophistication and "midwestern warmth." Midwestern warmth, presumably, because the painting contains a cow and a horse--never mind that their faces are twisted in fearful death agony. And no one in Omni management so much as giggled or hesitated before slapping those prints up on the walls. I mean, even someone totally ignorant of the painting's history should be struck by the horror, pain, and chaos on the canvas. Or so you'd think.
What's the visual equivalent of a tin ear? I don't know. In my nightmares (much like the ones I imagine Omni guests are currently suffering as they snuggle beneath a scene of Basque anguish and dismemberment) I can hear this Tami-with-a-circle-over-the-"i" smacking her gum loudly as she brays something about "classy Europeans."
Anyway, the icing on the cake is that this grimly hilarious story appeared in the same section of the KC newspaper as an article about further cuts to funding for arts and education.
jo
ps- The irony, of course, is that her clumsy choice does happen to capture
"midwestern warmth" just perfectly.
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