Buttholes and Cake Decorating

by Robert Boyd


Douglas Crimp

Noted art critic Douglas Crimp spoke at the CAMH on Saturday. Crimp was there to talk about Donald Moffett, who has a big exhibit there. I was a little worried about what the talk would be. This guy had been an editor of October, so there was a grave danger that the talk would be full of post-structuralist jargon. But he was quite accessible, if not a bit professorial. His professorial nature was most amusing when he was talking about the various holes in Moffett's paintings. He explained that they were like "buttholes"-- but they weren't just buttholes. That got a big laugh. Imagine your Shakespeare prof talking about buttholes.

Also, he explained how Moffett painted his paintings. Now before I reveal Moffett's technique, let me say that I thought Moffett had made "paintings" by gluing aluminum foil on different configurations onto the canvas. But no, Moffett had trained to be a cake decorator, and realized he could use cake decorating tools to create interesting textures with his paint. The silvery quality is because he uses (I assume) silver paint.