The Butt of All jokes

This strange piece of modern art was an ultra-realistic life-like reproduction of a pair of  well-tanned and clean-shaven human buttocks mounted on a piece of wood that looked very much like the base for a hunting trophy. A bronze plaque just below the aforementioned asscheeks read “Bum Doe”, which was the name usually given to the work when it was exposed in art galleries all over the world. The material used to create the perky but androgynous artificial derriere was believed to be based on medical polymers, since both the way it allegedly felt to the touch and the suppleness of the piece were almost identical to human skin and flesh.

The anonymous artist responsible for this peculiar creation donated the piece to a modest public museum in a small British town, where it was displayed for months before a visitor from London convinced the management to sell “Bum Doe” to her in November of 2000. From then on, the artwork changed hands rather quickly and was prominently displayed in all kinds of expositions at several increasingly important galleries, auction houses and museums.

Besides its perfect manufacture and the socio-political criticisms some people alleged it represented, the artwork gained some notoriety due to an unexpected and unexplained effect its presence had on people. Every person who ever stood near this particular piece had a sudden urge to make fun of it, explicitly and often loudly, even in front of complete strangers, independently of the seriousness of the event in which it was being displayed or the usual sobriety of the people making the jokes. This strange influence seemed to increase in power and range as the crowd watching the piece got larger, as if it had some sort of sympathetic contagious quality.

This mysterious power made the piece even more infamous and gave it the unofficial, but popular, moniker of “the butt of all jokes”. The artwork turned into a popular attraction and was sought after by curators and collectors, ready to pay thousands of dollars for the piece, until the disaster that took place on the 24th of January of 2003. During an exclusive art exposition in the Chateau Mcely near Prague, one of the guests, an important media mogul, died from laughter after an apparently hilarious but inappropriate suggestion about the possible uses of the artwork spouted by the last known owner of the piece. The widow of the defunct billionaire, a very successful investor before her marriage, acted with unusual celerity and vitriol, managing to break the author of the killing joke both financially and psychologically, sabotaging personal and professional relationships until all he had left was a small portion of his fortune, a relatively luxurious flat in the capital of the Czech Republic and the aforementioned art piece, now effectively unsellable.

The former businessman disappeared from the public eye until an English reporter recently discovered him in the mental health ward of a private clinic, wearing a straightjacket and mumbling to himself in the corner of a padded cell. The reporter was researching the once successful figure and the artwork responsible for his eventual fall from grace. The reporter learned that the man had been found on his home. howling like a maniac and missing his genitals, that had been forcibly removed and mauled. The medical team agreed that the wounds were probably self-inflicted and decided to intern him indefinitely to avoid further mutilations. Since then his mental status had only deteriorated.

When the writer managed to finally see the patient, he refused to answer any questions, lolling in place and drooling absentmindedly like an old dog on a rocking chair. The only thing the researcher managed to make him say, after asking about the enigmatic lost artwork, was “souhlas není vtip!”, which he loudly repeated between bouts of hysterical laughter until the nurses sedated him. The sentence, as the reporter learned from several sources, could only be translated as “consent is not a joke”.

Despite the time devoted to the research, the investigator was unable to locate “Bum Doe” among the remaining possessions of the crazed man or find any record of its sale. Some believe the anonymous author of the artwork is the one responsible for the state of its last owner, while other experts believe in less mundane explanations related directly to the alleged behavioural influence of the missing artifact.