Time Expired, Vern Blosum, 1962

Unlike in the painting, time has not yet expired. We still have a few more days of this year’s campaign season still left to endure. I’m ready for Election Day and I’m ready now! If Missouri allowed early voting, I would have voted already, but that still would not have put an end to things. This saga must play out at least for a few more days. Here is a call out to that seemingly mythical undecided voter out there. Please make up your mind, for me, if not for yourself. That way, maybe, the robo-calls might cease and peace could return. That way, maybe the stock market would lose the funk that it’s in. That way maybe we as a country could begin to move on and get on with our lives. Please. Please! PLEASE!!!

The back story on this painting is even more interesting than the artwork itself, because it turns out that Vern Blosum does not really exist. MoMA got punked. The Museum of Modern Art acquired Time Expired in 1963 when Pop art was a happening thing. Later, while attempting to complete its catalog on the work MoMA made inquiries of the art dealer from whom they had purchased the painting. The response was less than satisfying and MoMA concluded that Vern Blosum was a pseudonym and did not really exist. MoMA further concluded that the painting was part of an elaborate joke meant to poke fun at the banal subject matter and commercial style of Pop art. For years not knowing what to do with it, the painting was not displayed and has only recently come out of the closet sort of speak. Vern Blosum may not really exist, but his art still does.