Les Pieds du Canard
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Commentary
Les Pieds du Canard, French for "The Feet of the Duck," is a return to more irreverent subject matter for AK. The duck certainly has some enormous feet, and is clearly quite pleased with them. The people in back are equally overjoyed to be seeing this duck's feet, and show their adoration with scores of "10" across the board. The only dissenting vote is from a polite, and still eerily cheery duck with apparently tiny feet. This sole-impared drake doesn't seem to want to ruin the party, but, as a duck, honesty dictates that since he sees duck feet all the time, he would not be as impressed as the nuclear family to his left.
This deceptively simple image actually touches on several aspects of how we see ourselves, and how we react to others. AK's large-footed duck glories in himself, and the thing that makes him different (at least from the other duck). We are taught in innumerable ways to consider beauty to be the icons of the media: Julia Roberts or Brad Pitt, etc. This unrealistic, typically surgically-enhanced, airbrushed, specially lighted and lensed (or all four) standard does irreperable damage to the psyches of the rest of us normal people. This duck wants to change all that. For he's not showing his feet to the judges; no, he points those things straight at us, the viewers. AK uses perspective to shove these orange beauties right under our noses. The point is clear: love thyself. (or at least thy feet)
The darker side of this process of self-image is portrayed by the nay-saying duck in the back. He is putting a happy face on, but clearly is uncomfortable with such unbridled self-expression. He is the most dangerous character in this little game of conventionalized self-image, for he doesn't shout you down, or make you feel bad if you don't aspire to be Brad, or fretter yourself away if you don't like Julia. He plants little seeds of doubt, upbrades you smilingly, and when he's done, he makes sure you know how ugly you are, but since he's stayed so polite, there's no conventional way for you to retaliate, you simply take it with a smile. Or shove your feet in his face! This image seems to be spiritually akin to Rene Magritte's Ceci ne pas un Pipe (This is not a Pipe), which shares AK's word play, but lacks some of AK's images' depth.
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Image and title "Les Pieds du Canard" copyright 2000 by the artist