There’s romance in the air, and we’re kissing up to Valentine’s Day.
It’s a given smooching is on everyone’s lips today.
But why do people kiss?
It’s love’s eternal paradox says New York writer Kevin Dwyer in his excellent little tome, Kiss and Tell, A Trivial Study of Smooching (Quirk). Although written a few years back, the book’s messaging is still current — much like remembering that first kiss.
“Kisses are the sweetest element of our cultural tapestry,” writes Dwyer, adding “a kiss is innocent here, erotic there.”
And, of course, a kiss is a wordless way of simply saying “I love you.”
Kissing conjures up profound feelings — of passion, heartache, love, despair. All in one kiss.
Sleeping Beauty cheated death with a kiss; Judas ruined everything with a kiss.
Kissing has been studied by scholars and writers and those just interested in knowing what makes for a good pucker. They say your eyes are the window to your soul, but your lips are the window to your heart — research shows lips are made up of 10,000 nerve endings, making them 100 times more sensitive than finger tips.
Plus a deep, passionate kiss releases endorphins to make one feel good all over.
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It is said the average person will spend 20,160 minutes kissing in their lifetime — French kissing can burn up to five calories in only a few seconds, so do the math and get in shape!
Plus French kissing can accelerate excitement by elevating blood pressure and increasing heart rate — truly making one weak in the knees!
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How important is a good kiss in a relationship?
According to biologist Sheril Kirshenbaum in The Science of Kissing, a couple who enjoys kissing “tends to have a more intense, healthier connection.” Studies show couples who kiss tend to live longer, too.
Why do we kiss at the end of a wedding ceremony? The custom can be traced to an ancient Roman tradition where a kiss was used to sign a contract.
Animals kiss. Even bread will kiss: Sometimes two loaves of bread will approach each other when baking and kiss. The spot where they unite is called the “kissing crust.”
Of course when you think of sweet kisses, you think of Hershey’s chocolate kisses — it takes 95 Hershey’s Kisses to equal one pound (500 grams) of chocolate!
Robert Doisneau’s famous Kiss by the Hotel de VillePhoto by Robert Doisneau /Robert Doisneau
KISS THIS!
Most eye-popping pop kiss: Madonna locking lips with Brittney Spears during 2003 MTV Video Music Awards.
Most uncomfortable spontaneous kiss captured on camera: Actor Adrien Brody holding the award-winning Halle Berry’s lips hostage in a truly cringe-worthy moment at the 2003 Oscars.
Most heart-melting kiss of pure passion: Famed French photographer Robert Doisneau’s famous Kiss by the Hotel de Ville showing two people embraced in a timeless moment, while strangers walk by. The photo is aptly named, The Lovers of Paris.
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Most heartbreaking kiss: Famed photographer Annie Leibovitz’s stunning portrait of a naked John Lennon embracing a clothed Yoko Ono for the cover of Rolling Stone magazine — a few short hours before he was assassinated.
A kiss before killing: The terrible betrayal of mob boss Michael Corleone (played by Al Pacino) by his brother Fredo (played by John Cazale) is revealed in a brutal kiss witnessed in the film, Godfather Part II.
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FAMOUS MOVIE KISSES
Gone With The Wind (1939): Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh’s lip-lock is probably the most merchandised kiss in Hollywood history.
From Here to Eternity (1953): One of the most iconic kissing moments in movie history between Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr, sprawled on a messy beach while the surf rolls over them!
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961): Animal lovers everywhere cherish this spectacular kiss between Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard while a totally disinterested cat is nestled between them.
Lady and the Tramp: Pasta never tasted so good between these two endearing pooches.
Moonlight (2017) The unbelievably sensual kiss between actors Ashton Sanders (Chiron) and Jharrel Jerome (Kevin) certainly helped the movie achieve Best Picture status.
Splendor in the Grass (1961): The Oscar-winning film, starring Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty, made cinematic history with Hollywood’s first French kiss.
LONGEST KISS
According to www.guinnessworldrecords.com, “the longest kiss lasted 58 hours, 35 minutes and 58 seconds, achieved by Ekkachai Tiranarat and Laksana Tiranarat at an event organized by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! in Pattaya, Thailand, on Feb. 12-14, 2013.
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BRACING FOR BAD BREATH
Give us a kiss! It’s Valentine’s day!
But — take that mask off first. It’ll just get in the way of a good time.
The masks everyone is wearing may be the main culprit for bad breath – the kiss of death for any romantic encounter.
So says Dr. Harold Katz – aka the Bad Breath Doctor: “Face coverings increase dryness in the mouth that encourages nasty bacteria to flourish in the tongue and throat. A dehydrated mouth can result in tooth decay, dry mouth, receding gum and bad breath.”
A definite romance wrecker. And, if you can smell bad breath while wearing your mask — you need to do something fast.
“When wearing masks, people tend to breathe through their mouths instead of their noses, and this also makes the mouth dry and decreases saliva. Also, when masked up, people tend to drink less water because of their reluctance to remove their masks in certain environments.”
Katz recommends avoiding foods and drinks that cause dry mouth, including alcoholic beverages, sugar, candies, onion, garlic, milk chocolate, dairy for lactose intolerance and coffee. Use a tongue scraper as well.
He also recommends drinking lots of water, eight glasses daily, to replenish lost saliva.
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This afternoon in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood, people walking along Mercer Street were surprised to find a trove of materials that once belonged to the late feminist artist Mary Beth Edelson, all free for the taking.
Outside of Edelson’s old studio at 110 Mercer Street, drawings, prints, and cut-out figures were sitting in cardboard boxes alongside posters from her exhibitions, monographs, and other ephemera. One box included cards that the artist’s children had given her for birthdays and mother’s days. Passersby competed with trash collectors who were loading the items into bags and throwing them into a U-Haul.
“It’s her last show,” joked her son, Nick Edelson, who had arranged for the junk guys to come and pick up what was on the street. He has been living in her former studio since the artist died in 2021 at the age of 88.
Naturally, neighbors speculated that he was clearing out his mother’s belongings in order to sell her old loft. “As you can see, we’re just clearing the basement” is all he would say.
Photo by Annie Armstrong.
Some in the crowd criticized the disposal of the material. Alessandra Pohlmann, an artist who works next door at the Judd Foundation, pulled out a drawing from the scraps that she plans to frame. “It’s deeply disrespectful,” she said. “This should not be happening.” A colleague from the foundation who was rifling through a nearby pile said, “We have to save them. If I had more space, I’d take more.”
Edelson’s estate, which is controlled by her son and represented by New York’s David Lewis Gallery, holds a significant portion of her artwork. “I’m shocked and surprised by the sudden discovery,” Lewis said over the phone. “The gallery has, of course, taken great care to preserve and champion Mary Beth’s legacy for nearly a decade now. We immediately sent a team up there to try to locate the work, but it was gone.”
Sources close to the family said that other artwork remains in storage. Museums such as the Guggenheim, Tate Modern, the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Whitney currently hold her work in their private collections. New York University’s Fales Library has her papers.
Edelson rose to prominence in the 1970s as one of the early voices in the feminist art movement. She is most known for her collaged works, which reimagine famed tableaux to narrate women’s history. For instance, her piece Some Living American Women Artists (1972) appropriates Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper (1494–98) to include the faces of Faith Ringgold, Agnes Martin, Yoko Ono, and Alice Neel, and others as the apostles; Georgia O’Keeffe’s face covers that of Jesus.
A lucky passerby collecting a couple of figurative cut-outs by Mary Beth Edelson. Photo by Annie Armstrong.
In all, it took about 45 minutes for the pioneering artist’s material to be removed by the trash collectors and those lucky enough to hear about what was happening.
Dealer Jordan Barse, who runs Theta Gallery, biked by and took a poster from Edelson’s 1977 show at A.I.R. gallery, “Memorials to the 9,000,000 Women Burned as Witches in the Christian Era.” Artist Keely Angel picked up handwritten notes, and said, “They smell like mouse poop. I’m glad someone got these before they did,” gesturing to the men pushing papers into trash bags.
A neighbor told one person who picked up some cut-out pieces, “Those could be worth a fortune. Don’t put it on eBay! Look into her work, and you’ll be into it.”
Welcome to the Art Angle, a podcast from Artnet News that delves into the places where the art world meets the real world, bringing each week’s biggest story down to earth. Join us every week for an in-depth look at what matters most in museums, the art market, and much more, with input from our own writers and editors, as well as artists, curators, and other top experts in the field.
The art press is filled with headlines about trophy works trading for huge sums: $195 million for an Andy Warhol, $110 million for a Jean-Michel Basquiat, $91 million for a Jeff Koons. In the popular imagination, pricy art just keeps climbing in value—up, up, and up. The truth is more complicated, as those in the industry know. Tastes change, and demand shifts. The reputations of artists rise and fall, as do their prices. Reselling art for profit is often quite difficult—it’s the exception rather than the norm. This is “the art market’s dirty secret,” Artnet senior reporter Katya Kazakina wrote last month in her weekly Art Detective column.
In her recent columns, Katya has been reporting on that very thorny topic, which has grown even thornier amid what appears to be a severe market correction. As one collector told her: “There’s a bit of a carnage in the market at the moment. Many things are not selling at all or selling for a fraction of what they used to.”
For instance, a painting by Dan Colen that was purchased fresh from a gallery a decade ago for probably around $450,000 went for only about $15,000 at auction. And Colen is not the only once-hot figure floundering. As Katya wrote: “Right now, you can often find a painting, a drawing, or a sculpture at auction for a fraction of what it would cost at a gallery. Still, art dealers keep asking—and buyers keep paying—steep prices for new works.” In the parlance of the art world, primary prices are outstripping secondary ones.
Why is this happening? And why do seemingly sophisticated collectors continue to pay immense sums for art from galleries, knowing full well that they may never recoup their investment? This week, Katya joins Artnet Pro editor Andrew Russeth on the podcast to make sense of these questions—and to cover a whole lot more.
