Self Portrait #1

Self Portrait by Martin Kippenberger;
oil on canvas, 1988

His hair is wet, slopped down over his forehead like a used mop. The eyebrows are not much, and detract nothing from eyes, which are shadowed and left dim around the edges. The right arm doesn’t seem to belong, perfectly left dangling, but separated from the rest of him, and the muscles in the arm too, are defined by the contrast in the lighted bathroom of beige. The beard is newly thick, and the eyes again, look up above waiting for something to surprise him. The figure as a whole is bulky, mal-formed, hips wide, and everything is big including his nipples and thighs. The belly button is not perfect, but spread across like lips, and his chest hair reach down to it starting from his chest down his bulging stomach. The right leg, like his right arm, are not of him, bent slightly as if he were stepping on something small, and the thighs are white as snow, and his legs, both of them are detached from his upper body in a nuance of shading. His pubes are crowded and dark as a glimpse of his balls are possible, and hanging just a tad bit lower than his shriveled and wet penis. The head is pink, and shaft the same color as his upper half. The man looks uneven, ready to fall, slip, and his upper body tyrants over everything else, even his head, his wet mind. The towel is draped over the door behind him, closed in a private attempt of floating, but his weight won’t let him. The pose seems forced, but he is naturally forced, inept at being calm, and subsumed by with the scene. He thinks, even the idea of being subjected to nothing, is still being subjected to something.