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A Short History Of Modernist Painting


by Chris Okum




A man and a woman hold hands and look out the window of their suburban tract house while a mushroom cloud blooms over a desert landscape. A woman wearing an apron stops mixing cake batter so that she can adjust a painting on the wall, a painting of a woman wearing an apron who has stopped mixing cake batter so she can adjust a painting on the wall. A woman touches the cool shards of glass from a window in her living room which has been broken after a rock with a note was thrown through it, the message on the note reading: Welcum To The Nayberhood Niggur Luver. A man hoses down the aluminum siding of his house while wearing a pair of nylon stockings. A woman raises the blinds in her living room and sees three people - two men with bloody noses and a woman with a black eye - staring into her living room. A man wearing a suit and a parachute prepares to jump out of his bedroom window onto the lawn below. A man wearing a yellow cardigan sweater tries to get out of the driver's side of his car, backwards, while the car is in motion. A man places a potted sunflower on top of his the front door of his house and holds a flashlight up to the petals. A man wearing a fireman's hat pole vaults into the second floor window of a house on fire. A man falls backwards down the front steps of his house after opening the door and being surprised by his wife, who is wearing a gorilla mask. A man stands in front of his house with both hands in the pockets of his pants while he urinates himself. A man and a woman look into the darkened bedroom of the child they are unable to conceive. A woman sits in the front seat of the car her father was killed in and poses for a boudoir photo taken by a man dressed in the same outfit her father was wearing when he was killed in the car accident. A woman climbs into the back seat of a car while looking at the grasping hand peeking out from underneath the rear tire. A man wearing a baseball uniform and holding a baseball bat stands in the middle of a wheat field and takes a swing at a wooden staircase the leads to nothing. A man attempts to climb over a seven-foot tall, four-foot wide brick wall. Two groups of four men each, all of the men wearing white three-piece suits, stand on opposite sides of a five-foot high chain link fence and take turns shaking hands with each other until each man has shaken hands with every other man at least once. Two men holding a pane of glass walk away from a house with no windows. A man gets down on one knee to measure the hole he just kicked in a wall. Six men stand around a small sinkhole filled with Christmas ornaments. A man in overalls and a baseball hat unrolls a sample of carpet on the concrete foundation of a home destroyed in a fire he started. Two men lay down red and white tiles until the design of the tiles forms an arrow pointing to the corner of the room. A man lies in a bathtub filled with brown water while he plays with a remote controlled car he drives around and around the bathtub. A man duct tapes a hammer to a redwood tree. A woman in a purple evening gown vacuums the small lawn in front of her house. A man in grey slacks and a black golf shirt sweeps the the space between second and third base on a baseball field. A man unrolls a yard of artificial grass over his lawn. Two men place a door down onto the pavement and then open the door and step inside. A man and a woman in swimwear lie on a checkerboard towel, the woman with her head at the man's feet and the man with his head at the woman's feet. A man throws a pair of dice on the floor of the bedroom he has just destroyed with his bare hands. A woman puts a new sheet on her child's bed while her child is still sleeping in it. A woman shoves a wedding dress into a washing machine. Three women stand on a beach and hold green beach towels over their naked torsos, exposing the lower half of their bodies, including their genitals, which are covered in mustard. A woman opens her jacket and shows the collection of knives she has hanging on the inside. A man opens his trench coat and shows that he's wearing another trench coat underneath. A man standing next to a foosball table throws a dart at a woman standing against a wall on the other side of the room. A man sits in a chair while another man tattoos a nipple on the spot of his chest where a nipple should be, but isn't. A man dressed like a cowboy stands in front of a full-length mirror and shoots at his reflection three times. A man sits on an examination table while a doctor tickles him. A man with a handlebar moustache lifts up his white undershirt, exposing two perfectly symmetrical double-d sized breasts. A man stares at himself in the mirror, his face covered in cold cream, while behind him, as seen in the reflection of the mirror, a woman is attacked by a cephalopod in a tuxedo. A woman stands in front of a jukebox that is filled with cigarettes instead of records. A woman in a white dress puts on a pair of black pants while her two dogs sit with their backs to her. Two men wearing military uniforms usher another man wearing nothing but an olive green blanket down a lonely country road that has on the side of it a billboard for a brand of canned sardines endorsed by Popeye the Sailor Man.  A man wearing a trench coat and sunglasses stands next to a B-27 paper target that has been riddled with bullets and places his hand over the blank, featureless face of the target. Two men stand next to a bullseye and stare at the toilet plunger stuck in the center of the bullseye. A man looks through a telescope while another man stands behind him, holding up a corpse dressed in a suit. A woman in a white one-piece bathing suit lies face down in a raft floating in the middle of a swimming pool and stares at the lifeless body of a fully clothed child lying face down in the water. A man wearing a black suit, white shirt, and black tie stands on a folding chair and looks through a pair of binoculars while another man and a woman stand behind him, biting their nails and crying. A man looks through the peephole of his front door while fondling a pair of breasts that have been drawn in crayon onto the door. A blindfolded man wearing a fedora holds a portable radio while attempting to do the splits over a pothole.


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