SmashMouth

Sean Payton, the much beloved head coach of the New Orleans Saints, and Phil Robertson, an equally revered star of the reality television show "Duck Dynasty," have joined forces with popular New Orleans artist Michael Hunt to produce a pair of posters that bear the slogan: “Faith, Family, Football and Duck Hunting.”

There may be pretentious art critics out there in the harsh world of the Internet who will decry these stirring artworks as a transparent celebrity marketing ploy. But I remind them that some misguided people in 16th-century Florence are said to have thrown tomatoes at Michelangelo’s statue of David when it was revealed. And heaven knows, reactionary academics made sport of Monet and Picasso at the starts of their careers. Critics can be so off base.



The truth is, Hunt, Payton and Robertson have carefully blended symbolic elements including a camouflaged football helmet, a fleur-de-lis, French Quarter wrought iron and ascending mallards into a heart-warming gumbo of Louisiana inspiration. But the artwork’s appeal is not merely emotional. The taut psychological incongruence of the posters is so acute that surrealist Salvador Dali would have been proud.

Note: I realize that the use of the word gumbo as a metaphor is a cliche, but the above paragraph seemed to demand it.

Hunt appears to have done the actual work in designing and producing the handsome (honestly, I've seen a whole lot worse) artwork. Payton and Robertson mostly just sign the posters, thereby boosting their value. Payton and Robertson also have been invited to sign the new Roy Lichtenstein sculpture that will be installed at the New Orleans Museum of Art this fall, the future Cesar Pelli-designed wing of Armstrong International Airport and all the graffiti tags visible from St. Claude Avenue.

OK, that last part was a joke.

Signed posters are available online, starting at $250. I predict a huge success.


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