In Chapter 9 (Thick as a Brick) Eddie ridicules the abstract works hung around the Art classroom. There was no fairytale ending…
Once upon a time, there was a vain King who was preoccupied with his appearance and his image. A group of art dealers took advantage of this by offering to supply the King with the finest avant-garde art available, with qualities that couldn’t be seen by people who were either uncultured or particularly stupid. The King decided to purchase some of their wares to test which courtiers were unfit for office. The King was shocked when the dealers arrived with their works. “What’s that pile of firebricks supposed to represent?” he asked. “Why milord, that’s just like a similar exhibit in the Tate Gallery in London. “OK, how about that banana that someone’s duck taped to a wall?” “As I am sure Your Highness knows, a similar work sold recently in America for $120,000!” King was about to question the point of a plastic crucifix submerged in a jar of stale urine, but didn’t want to appear stupid, so he pretended to recognise the merit of everything, as did his courtiers. He exhibited these new ‘conceptual artworks’ in all his palaces and public squares, and the onlookers, also not wishing to appear stupid, all admired them. A small child, who didn’t understand, piped up, ‘But it’s a load of bollocks!’. Soon, all the onlookers were repeating what the child had said whilst the King attempted to maintain his dignity by pretending nothing had happened.
“Clear? Huh! Why a four-year-old child could understand this! Run out and find me a four-year-old child, I can’t make head or tail of it.”
― Groucho Marx (Duck Soup)