Ape or Chicken

Stuck in Halifax. Reading: WHY US and wondering, frighteningly so... one more tiny little genetic, evolutionary accident and I could have been an 'ape' or a 'chicken, in a little cage obliviously waiting to be sucked alive up into the de-feathering machine '. As it is, I am a 'Rhetoric' and that is bad enough. I was born a Rhetoric.

I simply have to accept... I am a Rhetoric. I did not always know I was a Rhetoric. I thought I was unique and art was the most fascinating raison d'etre. So I have been spending my life creating images and constructing textual ideologies to challenge destructive social constructs.

I built myself a military tank, loaded with metaphors, as the ammunition and rumbled across the cities of Canada. The metaphors were: large cock in vagina; children playing sex games; a family of rats watching garbage on TV; a black super hero in a large wind blowing red cape and having no brain; a horny muscled sports jock with his sexy cheer leader girl wrapped in his arm with a brain-like looking football in his hand; a game board with body parts; an assembly line of grey figures disappearing into a vacuum pack machine; a Holstein cow sitting on a park bench with her utters shamefully hanging low and very public. My response to the 30,000 visitor's question, ("What does it all mean") was "The story of life from conception to the cow". It always got a laugh., as did I in the telling.

                                         “MAGICAL MYSTERY TANK”


1978 I designed and built the Ped-l-on to solve the world energy crises and obesity…
 

 

 

 

I created a whole silk-screen series on the poignant, satirical metaphors of life…
 

 

 

 

I rented a horse and fantasised myself a Don Quixote Cowboy from Shangri-La

 

 

 

Urban Cowboy

Rod Malay’s The Cowboy From Shangrila was more media event

than art when the Malay Falls artist and the horse Jack Frost road into the

Grand Parade Tuesday at lunchtime.

Malay, anxious to discover the identity of the cowboy, who he is and what

he means to Malay and to society, has a costume complete with symbols. He

carries a gun, a gourd for gunpowder, flowers under his saddle, a wooden

statue of the god Poseidon (since mystically speaking horses come from

the sea), a Japanese jacket, an Indian spear and shield with symbols and

Spanish spurs. He looked the gentle pastoral cowboy not the rough,

tobacco-chewing meanies the sheriff is always after. The Cowboy from

Shangrila is participation art.... Elissa Barnard

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I designed and built an environmentally friendly apartment/commercial structure and applied two functional breasts on the roof (now affectionately referred to as “The Boob House”… a city landmark). I officially named it the “Nile House” as the Nile being a metaphor for the continuity of life. Of course the Boobs represents mother nature’s nurture...

 

 

 

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I outfitted my truck, Safari style, and headed out across the plains and snow capped mountains of North America, from the Arctic Circle to the Gulf of Mexico to see what I could find, if I could find some clues to my human existence.

 

 

 

Standing at the door

 

 

Didn`t expect much of this day

Was cold waking up crumpled on that cold seat

The big night machines were still wheeling by

Singing their song

Along that asphalt line

I am the drunk, the beggar, the prostitute,

I am the thief, the cripple, the soldier, the dreamer

Standing at the door

My feet were cold

Started the truck

Headed to the next town

found another dead soldier

In Highway Fields Forever

And stopped to record the site

He was loved

Like them all but different

There was a box of treasures

Inviting participation.

A handsome photo of him a rigger cowboy

A pen and a comments book

Messages of love

From mom, dad, sister, uncles, cousins

I wrote a message to his family

About the connectedness of all life

And thanked them for the invitation

And headed on down the line

I am the drunk, the beggar, the prostitute,

I am the thief, the cripple, the soldier, the dreamer

Standing at the door

I parked down town in that next town

The dirty side of town

In front of a door shadowed from above

By a Christian salvation sign

A drunk was cursing to the high heavens

‘I’m gonna kill em, I‘m gonna kill em!”

A pale young blond girl sidled on by

With a gait as on a fashion runway

Flaunting her wares to the wanton

A young man with a worn out face

A hunch back, begging eyes

An unlit cigarette hanging between his fingers

Paced packed with insane agitation

Back and forth in front of God’s door.

A tired old woman came to me

Curiously with two cooked lobsters $40 dollars

And walked off ghostly into salvation’s shadow

The pale young blond asked me for a cigarette

I did not have… she wanted some money time with me

A tattooed man stood aimlessly at the door

Watching the tipsy drunk trying to tie his shoe

As a woman with a droopy smiling face held him in place

Another woman with one leg hobbled along on crutches

And talked with friends in hopeful gestures

`How ya doing girl?” another voice called out to her

I watched it all, I had seen before in other towns

I wrote emails to my friends

talked about the collective unconscious

And the connectedness of us all

I am the drunk, the beggar, the prostitute,

I am the thief, the cripple, the soldier, the dreamer

Standing at the door


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I wrote a 1000 page book about it all… The Book Of Monad. I cursed, I scribbled fuck language, I smashed my chainsaw into the earth and wrote songs and made movies about my bad habits, the bad men, politicians, church and state and corporations in life.

And I gave it to the public… no holds barred!
 

 

“Artist Rod Malay stands inside Galleria Unplugged, 2166 Gottingen St. Halifax where his exhibit, As A Man Thinketh (Inside This Plastic Prism) is on view to September 16. The exhibit includes one of his peddling machines, a chessboard of clay pieces that are body parts and an installation of iconic American cowboy gear”.


NOW…

Taking it all to a higher intimidating level, I am developing a theatrical performance work, somewhat improvisational … on stage in front of an audience. Working title: The Metaphoric Man.

I created new art for this production….

 

 

  
And now I am on tour… www.shakethedevilofftour.blogspot.com heading to Miami and to any points beyond… looking for venues/invitations for the Metaphoric Man (working title).
I will even do house parties... any where!

All for the fun of it...

rod_malay@hotmail.com
jasperbog@gmail.com


1 902 830 6351 (Text or Viber only)

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