Vivisection ft. Noodlebear by Leon Bauer

Leon’s Vivisection ft. Noodlebear is a photograph of a stuffed bear being operated on.

These are Leon’s thoughts on this piece:

“If you want to be blunt about the meaning behind this friend of a soft sculpture, the fact is, there is none. Noodle bear was conceptualized in a haze of stress and frustration, based on the phrase “Or what have you! Abnormal absurdity!” and a doodle of a stuffed animal with long (and noodly) limbs. That’s it. There’s no deeper meaning behind Noodle Bear or the fact that he doesn’t have a face, or that he’s got fun organs you can see. There’s no secret message. Art doesn’t need a secret message. Sure, there can be times where that’s put in place, and sure that’s what we expect, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a mandatory thing. If you want to look at Noodle Bear and think “Oh, he represents this” or “The meaning behind him is that” then so be it. That’s the beauty of art, isn’t it? The individual interpretations. We always hear about the death of the author, and how we force meaning and context onto an author’s writing based on their real-life, without keeping their work as a separate entity. If you wanted to apply that to something similar—let’s call it the death of the artist—however? Personally, I think it’s much more common. You look at an art piece and you’re almost trained to start analyzing it, saying that these colors mean this, that composition means that. For some works, yes, that’s important. For some works, yes, the author’s context and life and opinions play a large role.

For some works, though, this is no such thing.

For some works, it’s made based on a six-word sentence spewed out after getting angry and frustrated and fed up.

For some works, there is no meaning.

This is one of them.”