Friday, May 13, 2011

Penis Landscape

Work 219: Landscape XX, affectionately known as Penis Landscape, is a painting by H. R. Giger. Created in 1973. It was made by airbrushing acrylic paint on paper-covered wood, and measures 70 x 100 centimetres. It depicts a number of penises entering a series of vaginas (or perhaps anuses? {it's a bit ambiguous}). One is wearing a condom.

It came to fame for the part it played in the trial of Jello Biafra after his hardcore punk band Dead Kennedys featured it as a poster included with their 1985 release Frankenchrist.

In April 1986, police officers raided Biafra's house in response to complaints by the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) headed by Tipper Gore. In June 1986, L.A. deputy city attorney Michael Guarino, brought Biafra to trial in Los Angeles for distributing "harmful material to minors" in the Dead Kennedys album Frankenchrist. In actuality, the dispute was about neither the music nor the lyrics from the album, but rather the print of the H. R. Giger poster Landscape XX (Penis Landscape) included with the album. Biafra believes the trial was politically motivated; it was often reported that the PMRC took Biafra to court as a cost-effective way of sending a message out to other musicians with content considered offensive in their music.

Poster insert
When Dead Kennedys front man Jello Biafra first saw Giger’s graphically but mechanically sexual Work 219: Landscape XX, he had the kind of epiphany reserved for punk smartasses decrying conformity and consumption.

“I was totally blown away the minute I saw it,” Biafra said. "That is the Reagan era on parade. Right there! That shows how Americans treat each other now. He captured it in a nutshell.”

He instantly decided to make Giger’s artwork the cover of Dead Kennedys’ next album (Frankenchrist), to the chagrin of, well, pretty much everyone. That includes Biafra’s bandmates, biz partners and more. But after Biafra compromised and inserted — pun intended — the piece (known more colloquially as Penis Landscape) into Frankenchrist, he and Michael Bonanno, the former manager of Biafra’s San Francisco-based label Alternative Tentacles, were quickly charged with distributing obscenity to minors.

The absurd ensuing trial nearly bankrupted his label, but Biafra would probably do it all over again, he has explained.

“I first saw it in late summer or early fall of 1985 when a friend showed me Giger’s work in a magazine and said, ‘You really gotta look at this guy. Look at this work!’” Biafra said.

“It occurred to me that I hadn’t finished recording all the vocals for Frankenchrist, and if I tweaked the lyrics here and there, its songs might fit more together as a concept album. I’m not sure that would have clicked in my mind if I hadn’t had that spark of inspiration from seeing Giger’s work for the first time.”

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