The Language of Art
If you want to be thought sophisticated in L.A., you simply must have a painting or drawing of an ugly naked woman in your living room. And no coy concubines swathed in drapery with only a nipple peeking through will do. There must be pudenda. It’s the only way to show how far we’ve come, apparently.
She can’t be beautiful. If she’s beautiful, it might be mistaken for an Abercrombie & Fitch ad. She should be safely beyond the slender age of young adulthood, old enough to have womanly hips and a distressingly sensible haircut. She should be as naked as a plucked chicken and nearly as attractive.
Place such a painting or drawing prominently in your living room, and then surround her with other works of art that are much more traditional (as long as the tradition goes back no further than 1920.) Folk art with a Hispanic theme is, of course, an excellent way to compensate for being white.
Don’t have too many plants; it’s bourgeois. People will think you spend too much time at home, watering them. You don’t have time to water plants. You’re taking in a concert tonight and a play tomorrow.
Once you’ve surrounded your Brunhilde pudenda with works by people named Diego and Sebastian, add a roughweave, natural-textured couch of a color so neutral there is no name for it, and perhaps a table handcarved by someone named Fernando which you bought on a foray in Mexico back in the 1970s when you were young and wild (add self-deprecating chuckle here) and you are ready to earn your LA street cred.
I have no explanation for this trend, I only know that it is so: every house I’ve been into so far that was owned by a white person has some variant of the naked Brunhilde in the living room. I’m beginning to think they’re giving them out for free at Bristol Farms.
