![\"PoM](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/PoM_03.jpg\")
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Like the Sirens, these sculptures at the Pageant of the Masters from 1983, er, 2014 will put you a catatonic state with their beauty.<\/em><\/p>\n The nightmare could not have been more real: a sea of aging upper-middle class suburbanites with plentiful purses, perusing and meandering mini-gallery after mini-gallery of abstract expressionist sculpture that would have been radical in \u201984 and landscapes that would put Thomas Kinkade to absolute shame (while simultaneously making Bob Ross proud).<\/p>\n Yes, I went through\u2014and survived\u2014Orange County\u2019s Pageant of the Masters.<\/p>\n Anyone knows this fact once they escape the County of Orange: much like Stockholm Syndrome, it isn\u2019t until you leave its grip do you realize how suffocating it all really was. Even at an educational institution like Cal State Fullerton or UCI, one becomes comfortable with the concept that anything old = bad and anything new and shiny = good and that homogeneity on every level (besides the boy-on-boy kind) rules with its RVCA hammer. It\u2019s much like a great professor at Fullerton once told me, \u201cWhy is the title of this course, \u2018The History of Orange County,\u2019 a conundrum? Because Orange County is ahistorical.\u201d<\/p>\n In this sense, the Pageant of the Masters makes perfect sense. Tucked far, far away from pesky poor people and the marginalized, the solipsistic denizens of OC get to enjoy the PoM in a safe space carved into a Laguna Beach hillside. There, they enjoy the world\u2019s largest collection of pointless and tacky wall and floor decorations (minus, of course, the handful of pictures of Brazilian favelas that weren\u2019t necessarily great objectively but due to their placement in the Dead Sea offered a brilliant juxtaposition, particularly when contrasted against blue hair bobbling beneath it).<\/p>\n The highlight is something only OC could achieve.<\/p>\n You herd into a Hollywood Bowl-like amphitheater\u2014a quarter the size, but all the heart of a really swell Christian summer camp\u2014and you sit to watch\u2026 Recreated paintings. Re. Created. Paintings. But these aren\u2019t just your average Joe Manets and Monets painting paintings with their boring canvases and paintbrushes and that hippie crap.<\/p>\n No, dear Starbucks, no. PoM is even better than the so-not-trill real paintings. PoM is, dare I say, even better than the limited lithographs.<\/p>\n In fact, PoM does the impossible: they re-create the paintings\u2026 with people<\/em>. It is unfortunate pictures were not allowed but understandable given the organizers don’t want anyone from the outside world to see something they’ve never seen before besides in every history text book known to man or, even worse, for the people on stage to become faded because your camera flash. I challenge you to bring your binoculars and attempt to tell the difference between the paintings recreated on stage versus the painting on your HD monitor (except with the latter you can zoom in and explore context and stare for at it as long as you want and all that artsy bullshit). I mean, it\u2019s truly mind blowing: they do not move. Even a centimeter. It\u2019s like the Silver Man human statue in San Francisco but, like, paintings, <\/em>man.<\/p>\n To top it all off, a pseudo-narrative bashing on those art-stealing Nazi bastards was provided to explain the background of each piece (which included a little tidbit about Charles Dickens and his empathetic view of the poor\u2014of course, minus any mention of his distaste for Jews and how he blamed the Jews for the poor English population but we\u2019re not here for that kind of reality, we\u2019re here for The Masters).<\/p>\n There\u2019s movements in the arts, right? We have Van Gogh, giving a big middle finger to the past and, inspired by Impressionism, moved forward. We have Picasso, saying au re-flippin\u2019-voir to Renaissance perspective and depth and feel. Dali going into dreams. Warhol going into cultural critique. Basquiat going into the vulgar.<\/p>\n How can these artists compete, though, after PoM? After all, much like the Main Street at Disneyland, why go through the troubles of experiencing actual Main Street\u2014there might be trash!\u2014when you can have the dream world of Perfection? Traveling to the Getty means traveling through\u2026 Neighborhoods. And by neighborhoods, I mean poor neighborhoods anywhere above the 5 Freeway at La Mirada. The struggle is real and for many, the thought of seeing more Hondas than Mercedes can result in a disastrous existential dilemma, possibly leading to excessive Xanax intake and extra margaritas at Javiers upon return to the Haven of Orange.<\/p>\n![\"PoM](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/PoM_01.jpg\")
I lived part of my life in Orange County, a mistake of naivet\u00e9 given I was perched on a mountain top for the entirety of my childhood and knew nothing of the Orange Curtain that divided suburbia from urbanism.<\/p>\n![\"PoM](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/PoM_04.jpg\")
But these lower art forms weren\u2019t the highlight. Sadly, the Goebel-like figurines of an elderly white couple in a variety of McCarthy-era vehicles (the wife\u2019s adorable red-dye hairdo obvi makes it high-larious and perfect for the collectibles hutch) came in at third place at best. The tiles with nature\u2019s finest trees that would only be found at the most sophisticated Holiday Inn (not that Express shit, but the Suites) barely scratched the top ten. The metal sculpture worthy of the lawn of Chipotle\u2019s head offices? No, they did not make it to the top, only into the home of Jenna Jameson.<\/p>\n
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