June 18, 2010
MAKE Magazine Shout Out to Monty Python
In his MAKE Magazine Blog post on the Terrestrial Shrub Rover, How-Not-To: Be Seen, Matt Mets brings attention to Monty Python’s darkly hilarious comedy sketch How Not To Be Seen with its camera (audience) standing in for a military firing squad positioned at the intersection of a field and a northern European wood.
The obscurity promised by the woods reminds one of the populations that went into hiding in the European forests during World War II. Yet, instead of seeking refuge from the dense forest, the targets in How Not To Be Seen remain in the cultivated and exposed fields, vulnerable even behind a bush. As we laugh, these fields balloon with the histories of destruction attended by cultivation and I think of Anselm Kiefer’s enforced perspective lines straining to keep his fields from exploding off of his canvases.
Anselm Kiefer, Aperiatur Terra et Germinet Salvatorem, 2005-2006, Oil, acrylic, emulsion and shellac on canvas. 110 1/4 x 299 3/16 in. (280 x 760 cm). Copyright the artist. Photo: Todd-White Art Photography. Courtesy Jay Jopling/ White Cube (London).
