Notes on Fat

Architecture is fat.  And so is Art.  Politics isn’t fat but Poetry is.   Science is fat most of the time, like Oprah, Fear is fat.  Comedy is not fat. Design is fat but religion is not.  Let’s talk about fat.

Let’s talk about a fat house.  Specifically Fat House (2003) by Erwin Wurm, it came after the Fat Car (2001) which is the usual order of things.  Let’s take a look at them.  They’re funny, aren’t they?  But not that funny, they’re serious too, just not that serious.  The Fat Car was seen in the Fat House when exhibited together.  Fat in Fat is more than a little unnerving, it seems a bit over the top just a bit too fat, really.  Don’t you agree?

The Fat Car, let me just say, really isn’t nice at all.  It goes on in this real deadpan, kinda creepy jive sounding like it’s got guns and drugs in the glove box, if only you can get past the rolls of fat.  It rants on and on about how hopeless everything is, about how confusing and how full of rage we all are.  It really is beyond the pale.  Fat cars really shouldn’t comment.

The Fat House is nice though, all pudgy and warm, just as a house should be.  I wish My House was fat like the Fat House. See, the house is like the womb (from which we are all homeless), it’s a place away from the scorching sun and flooding rain.  The fat walls of the fat house get between us and the elements; isn’t that nice?  But it does occur to me that maybe the Fat House protects just a little to much, it occurs to me now, as I think about owning a nice fat house that it’s there’s a bit more cushioning there than is strictly necessary.

It’s got me thinking about other fat things that we’re told are there to save us from all the nasties.  That Great Wall of China is pretty big, you’d have to say it’s bigger than strictly necessary; rabbits, after all, aren’t that militant.

The Berlin Wall was way too fat, much fatter than was comfortable for anyone.  All those people in thin cars trying to get from one side to the other, from the thin side —I’m told­— to the fat side.  So much fat there it held the world apart.  That’s just fat architecture that got out of hand.

That fence in Israel, that fence needs more fat —just enough to make it soft and friendly­— that fence is too thin, I’m sure that’s why it’s a fence and not a wall.