During Desmond Morris’ professional and artistic peak in the middle of the 1950s
through the early 1960s, he became the agent and public relations manager
of a chimpanzee named Congo, who he found to have the talent to create art
forms consistent with abstract impressionism, around 400 of which survive
in art museums and private collections of measurable worth. During the succeding
frenzy of zoological trials and discovery (Morris being a zoologist himself
besides an artist of some note), it was found that more than one wild life
species had a knack for art. But Congo, with his definable
forms: such as symmetry, color co-ordination, and design,
remained the most compelling of the prodigies. Unfortunately, it would
have taken special chimps to interpret the conceptual aim of Congo’s
art to us dumb humans beings. Because in an environment where chimps are getting
scarcer and human beings dumber, that kind of translator was difficult to find.
Until now.
During Desmond’s time, there appeared either on the tube or in a magazine now
defunct, (made extinct by its esoteric zoological content or more likely the
advent of more attractive distractions like the internet) the theory - in an
absurdist age characterized by hyperbole - that, leave a chimp in a room
with uninterrupted privacy and the tools to create representational images
of perhaps not just the musings of a creature such as Congo, but
of some element of human reality, he will inevitably recreate The Mona Lisa,
the Masterpiece of Masterpieces.
In a world where the U.S. Presidency has been re-configured from an office with
“awesome responsibilities” to the “Golden Fleece”: the Prize of Prizes,
the ultimate trophy
that bestows on its possessor a staff of omnipotence that is
equaled only by the power of the God that we've abandoned because
He has too many rules.
The Presidency has become the Masterpiece of Morons.
Leave "The Naked Ape" in a room surrounded only by a network of weasels, billions of dollars,
deadbeat friends (if any), and the tools (a Sharpie) to create art (of sorts), and he will recreate
the Mona Lisa.