Clowns make us happy, clowns make us laugh with their bulbous
red noses, water-squirting flowers and painted smiles … or at
least in theory.
Anyone who’s familiar with Stephen King’s
“It” will tell you otherwise. What is it about these
cultural icons that is supposed to be funny, yet instead incites
horrific, blood-curdling terror in so many people? Perhaps it is
the very fact that these walking contradictions are capable of
inspiring such ambivalence, such potent love and even more potent
hate, that makes them so enthralling a birthmark.
Diane Keaton, for one, has tapped into this freaky/funny force
in her collection of clown paintings, “A Thousand Clowns,
Give or Take a Few,” on display at Bergamot Station in Santa
Monica through December.
The exhibit, which is free to the public, showcases paintings
collected from various swap meets and flea markets by Keaton and
art collector Robert Berman, and was inspired by Keaton’s
recent book “Clown Paintings” (PowerHouse).
Keaton’s book features 66 paintings of clowns in addition to
essays from A-listers such as Woody Allen, Ben Stiller, Lisa
Kudrow, and Martin Short, who express either devotion to or utter
disdain for the floppy-shoed entertainers.
Garnering hype (or gossip) and with 2,000 people expected to
have attended the opening of the exhibit, it’s difficult not
to wonder if the selling-point is either society’s innate
fascination with clowns or more of a fascination with the lifestyle
of the rich and famous.
But Keaton carries no pretension in regard to her collected
artwork. She seems to keep her sense of humor about the fact that
she is placing “low-brow” art on a pedestal, where
celebrities and art experts alike are now examining these
flea-market finds that would normally not earn a second glance.
“Am I qualified? Probably not. It’s my judgment
call, my impulses, that’s it,” Keaton said at a recent
lecture at the Santa Monica Museum of Art.
Keaton first started collecting clowns when she came across a
clown painting that she was eerily drawn to while at the Pasadena
Rose Bowl Swap Meet with her sister, and after that she was
hooked.
“I’ve always hated clown paintings, but if you spend
enough time at a swap meet, eventually you turn around,”
Keaton said.
When asked why she would pick such a bizarre, frightening
subject to collect, Keaton, with wild streaks in her hair and
wearing lavender-shaded lenses and a dress over pants, was a bit
self-deprecating in her humor.
“I gotta go with my own team,” Keaton said.
“The way that I perform, the way I dress, it’s very
clown-like. I identify with clowns. By collecting, I’m
supporting myself.”
Keaton will be the first to say that the book wouldn’t
sell without the star-studded list of contributors and that the
exhibit wouldn’t excel without her own renown.
“I spent a lot of time in the past trying to pretend I was
something I wasn’t,” Keaton said laughing. “Now
I’m just so arrogant that I think I can publish a book on
this and people will buy it.”
Not only will people buy her book and visit her exhibit, but
many will even like it.
One, Keaton’s friend and colleague Steve Martin, is a
connoisseur of modern art, with pieces from Picasso to Edward
Hopper, yet doesn’t think the clown paintings are lowbrow at
all.
“They’re fabulous,” Martin said in a recent
interview. “They’re very moving. I thumbed through (the
book) and it’s sort of like a flip book of
emotions.”
Martin wrote a humorous essay in “Clown Paintings”
titled “The Sex Life of Clowns,” and while he’s a
fan of the clown paintings, not everyone else in the book was so
nice.
Chevy Chase, John Waters, Joan Rivers, Woody Allen, Carol
Burnett and Larry David all relayed their fear and dislike of
clowns in the book. Candace Bergen, for example, writes: “If
clowns are so funny why are they so frightening? Why are clowns a
compendium of creepy? Why (and I am not alone here) do I hate
clowns? And why does Diane collect paintings of them (which she
will eventually sell for millions of dollars and then I’ll be
sorry). Why?”
Clowns are a mystery. But love ’em or hate “˜em,
they’ll continue to hurl pies and pile into tiny cars, making
some children smile while permanently scarring the rest of
them.
“The fact that there’s a section in eBay called
“˜clown paintings’ shows that they’re here and
they’re not going away,” Keaton said.