I decided to post the email I sent to my friend explaining three of the more prevalent themes:

Justin,

This isn't so much an explanation as it is a schema, a guide. Remember when you see art,think language, not art.

One of the themes, and probably the most central, is that language denies reality and ugliness. Remember that in LITERARY terms, "reality" means ugliness, horror, waste, and generally disagreeable things that are still part of life. The main images under that theme are the plaster statue, the lack of an anus in classical sculpting, the "marble" floor and pillars revealed as limestone, and the fact that the curator and this secretary are having sex hidden behind a wall.

Inadvertently limiting progress by confining oneself to both preconceived notions and the past is another major theme. Ancient art, the old architecture of pillars, Vanessa (who, to beat in the somewhat clear similarity, parallels the Venus de Milo), and both Thomas and the curator's scheduled repetitions all conform to an idea of a linear time frame. A sense of time that can be controlled and manipulated, but always locked in past action, habit, and routine. The frame of the Monet, the "plastershell" statue, and the reference to "Procrustes" all define self-imposed limitations and borders that ultimately lead to imprisonment and decay.

The final theme that I'll mention is infertility, the inability of this elevated,
supposedly superior art (language) to produce viable offspring. David, decaying in plaster, brings in the first example with his genitalia sculpted as they are--flaccid. Venus de Milo, of course, is without a vagina as well as without a rectum (the denial of the vulgar or waste). Though she does have breasts, and can feed her young, she cannot birth them. So here we see the necessity of that "higher" language, though it cannot survive on its own. Thomas ejaculates in his pants, an obviously infertile sexual experience, and the curator is "Protected, a Son of Troy" (aka wearing a condom). Hiding
this sexuality has lead to infertility, as living in the past also leads to an inability to create for the future.

Hope that clears up anything about which you may have had questions,
-Evan