STRANGE TIMES

It was a lazy, hazy afternoon in Manhattan, the kind of early September Saturday that finds summer struggling to maintain its grip on the city, even as one can sense the advent of the chill winds of autumn. There are a million or more ways to while away such a afternoon in this town and deciding upon one is not always an easy task. But every now and then, on a day like today, one simply has no option. On such a day, opportunity comes knocking and simply refuses to take no for an answer.

For on this day, a one-woman show is making its debut in a Soho art gallery, the sort of exhibit that promises such ridiculous sublimeness that one cannot, for a moment, imagine ignoring its siren's call. Oh sure, brunch can be squeezed in, as long as it's an early one. There may perhaps be time for a movie matinee, as long as it does not run too late. For somewhere between the hours of two and four p.m., one simply must make one's way to 137 Spring Street, where a retrospective of the painting career of Phyllis Diller is opening its doors to the public.

That's no typo. You've not misread. This strident comedienne, she of the multiple facelifts and the fright wigs, fancies herself an artist or, at least, would have us fancy her so.

She is not, of course, the first performer who has attempted to carve out a second career as an artist. Tony Bennett paints; so does Martin Mull. And Red Skelton and Anthony Quinn. And while one may well play the skeptic regarding the artistic talents of any of these thespians, none, to my mind, equals the fearful image of Diller, standing before a canvas, paintbrush in one hand, palette in the other. Like a commuter at a car wreck, I couldn't resist the urge to rubberneck.

So it was that I found myself at the Ambassador Gallery, experiencing, as I entered, an odd mix of exhilaration and dread. Ms. Diller was to be present at the opening, or so I understood, so I was a bit concerned that I might, while viewing her paintings, audibly giggle, offending the stretched-skinned septugenarian.

I needn't have worried. There was nothing funny about the paintings. Perhaps someone of stronger stock would have endured, spending time with each "work" on display, examining each closely. I don't, for a moment, claim the iron constitution required for such punishment; my stay was a brief one, indeed. Overtaken by the magnificent lack of talent on display, I dashed out the door to the street, leaning against the brick wall of the gallery for support, gasping for air, straining to gain my bearings, to gather my wits about me.

One must applaud Ms. Diller's stick-to-it-iveness. She's taken a stab at just about every imaginable style, from Kindergarten Primitivism to Braque-ian Cubism and failed, in flamboyant, flaming fashion, at each. And her shamelessness extended to the pricing of the pieces on display. The tags accompanying each work carried prices ranging from $500 for tiny works that amounted to little more than doodles all the way up to $16,000 for a two or three of the large pieces. And while they were not rapidly being snatched up, she did seem to be doing a fairly steady business.

It got me to thinking...Van Gogh sold, what, two paintings his whole life? And both of those were to his brother. I wonder if it ever occurred to him to work up ten or twelve minutes of boffo material and take it on the road? He could've played the Arles Yuks-Yuks and the Provence Comedy Hut; he might've even managed a full weekend at the Lyon Catch A Rising Star. Who knows how many paintings he might then have moved?


Read next article.
Return to the BRETTnews Archives.