When Austrian Symbolist painter Gustav Klimt painted his iconic work, “The Kiss” in the Vienna Art Nouveau movement, I’d chance it to guess that he wasn’t anticipating that Oddica artist Simon Noynay would re-design the handsome male kisser from “The Kiss” into an altogether more alien and Mr. Spock eared creature of “The Bite” to be printed onto a t-shirt. In fairness, Klimt’s smooching masterpiece is a work that has been subject to great theoretical interpretation – the man’s faceless face indicating that he’s lost in the kiss? – The golden background paralleling the timelessness and spacelessness of a first kiss? Or in this case, the man as a vampire like biting monster – well art is all about interpretation and re-interpretation and this shirt shows just how it’s done. Although I’d rather send my Granny a postcard of Klimt’s original, the way this design makes you look twice at something you’ve seen endlessly before is quite addictive, and I’m sure you could come up with twenty times twenty number of obscure artistic interpretations as to the meaning of this re-design, or alternatively, you could just think it looks pretty cool and has nice shapes. Whether Gustav would be seen reclining in this shirt, we’ll never know, but Mr. Spock? Well that’s still doable, there’s a Star Trek movie coming out next year after all!
Klimt's Kiss
The biting alien t-shirt design