I didn’t think that comics were very relevant to the contemporary art scene until I started visiting Manhattan’s galleries. Since then, I’ve seen show after show directly engage in techniques, ideas and presentations that would be familiar to the comics community, and sync well with the theories of Scott McCloud. I’ve become intrigued by the gallery space as an alternative publishing format to the book and strip, and by a possible, invisible class of ‘gallery cartoonists’ experimenting and developing sequential art unsupervised by the mainstream, independent and web- comics markets.
By “gallery cartoonists” I’m referring to artists whose practices and approaches resemble or are in dialogue with the practices and approaches historically associated with cartooning and comic books. I think the present gallery climate is more hospitable to these practices and approaches than its ever been.
Jeff Gabel at Spencer Brownstone Gallery, "I'd rather push my Harley than ride a Honda"
For example, as galleries emphasize curating and installation more than ever before, (a shift that largely occurred in the 90s,) curators are increasingly conscious of the gallery space and exhibit as a phenomenological whole. Curators pay attention to the juxtaposition of objects within the show, of objects and accompanying text, (the wall labels, for example,) and how the show is encountered by attendees in both space and time. Some of these decisions have analogues in comics making, and McCloud’s theories can be easily applied to them.
The prevalence of ‘cartooning’ in the gallery might seem like old hat, especially with the popularity of artists like Takashi Murakami. Caricature is one end of a spectrum of figural representation that has been extensively explored by modern and contemporary, Western artists– and in many more periods and places than that. But as the rules about figural and pictorial representation loosen, particularly about what is too indulgently pretty, exploitatively commercial, and genuinely subversive, the full range of cartooning is welcome as relevant artistic practice.
‘Anything goes’ in the art world right now, and marketing continues to perfect itself, so it is revitalizing to find artists examining what makes an object immediately meaningful– what irresistibly draws people to a face, or, when and where and how do people look for and process narrative where it doesn’t obviously exist. Not only does this exploration restore significance to the art world, ( i.e. art that demands to be looked at, art that is rewarding to be looked at,) but it examines how these attractions impact our lives outside of the gallery space. The comics community has been exploring sequence and caricature from the get-go, but I’m attracted to the automatic sociopolitical implications that occur (or are projected) as soon as these explorations are brought into the gallery.
This is not to say that comics or book-arts haven’t been successfully exhibited before. The Cartoon Art Museum and The Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art do great work. Personally, I’ve helped curate a large book-arts show at Carleton College in Northfield, MN. Additionally, “gallery cartooning” doesn’t exclude hanging pages from an existing book on a wall. Interacting with a mounted page can be elucidating and stirring. The re-contextualization can call attention to details that are easy to miss, or that the printing eradicated. The works can benefit from the small amount of effort it takes to walk between each piece, crane your neck, and subconsciously register that you are experiencing it in a public space.
My favorite page-hanging comes from the Walker Art Museum’s retrospective of the work of Alec Soth. Amongst his massive photographic prints, Soth exhibited his artist book, “The Loneliest Man in Missouri.” Rather than mount the book in its entirety, or as an excerpt, Soth adapted the book to the gallery walls, rearranging a selection of pages to create a new but related reading, and ended the series with the video of what was only a still in the book. The two versions of the work, one for exhibition and one for private reading, compliment and complicate each other.
Still, I’m not a fan of just hanging pages and calling it a day. For example, The Portland Art Museum hung R Crumb’s Book of Genesis in its entirety. The show was an unimaginative leviathan that tangled confusingly through several galleries like a doomed game of Snake. Or, when curators excerpt pages from entire careers, too much of the emphasis is placed on the technical skill or historical value of the page– an uncomfortably “natural history” approach to comics. To be honest, I’m not sympathetic to the use of the gallery context to elevate comic art. Not only are there more efficient and inspiring ways to do this, but art history somewhat regards the gallery context as both a joke and a problem. It makes me uncomfortable when the comics community doesn’t register this.
This is also not to dismiss the historic antagonism between the comics and art industries. The comics world has repeatedly found the art world predatorial and bigoted– mocking and making no concessions to forms of labor and nostalgia it neither appreciates nor participates in. Of course I’m talking about Roy Lichtenstein. The collision course of comics with appropriation art was probably inevitable, fueled by miscommunication, mistaken entitlement and mistaken identities on both sides, and culminated in honest human tragedy. The ghost of Lichtenstein floats over most discussions of comics and fine art. This is partially because people assume that the conversation stops with Lichtenstein.
It doesn’t, at least not in the “art world.” And it doesn’t stop with superheroes either. Or Peanuts. Or Maus. Or New Yorker cartoons. One gallerist rebuffed my initial gallery+comics skepticism when he told me that he represents “a cartoonist.” I have also been referred to the ubiquity of “cartoonists” in other stables. Celebrity gallerist David Zwirner represents Marcel Dzama, Raymond Pettibon and R. Crumb (!) alongside Donald Judd and Dan Flavin. I personally have not detected much irony, condescension or dismissal in people’s attitudes toward comic art, including in book and narrative form. Rather, its been a reliable and rewarding conversation starter.
It might just be in my head, but I’ve encountered an allure that’s vaguely reminiscent of the neo-primitivist longings of the turn of the 20th century, as if cartoons and comic book artists were spared the corruption of the art-market through their isolation, their blissful ignorance, (and troublingly, their associations with childhood.) I find this both problematic and flattering. Its also possible that people are just being nice. Or think I’m talking about New Yorker cartoons. Or aren’t aware that Marvel and DC still make comic books. Whatever the reason, I don’t think the ‘art world’ believes that comics and cartoons are an embarrassing thing (de facto) to make, and finds them a stimulating thing to talk about. And while this enthusiasm might be fueled by a general, effusive nostalgia, (i.e. I remember enjoying reading these as a child,) I find it refreshingly separated from a specific, visual nostalgia. In terms of books, many high-brow consumers are only now discovering comics narratives and styles that appeal to them. They are not invested in invoking or reliving comic’s stylistic past– particularly house styles. What made comics kitsch was how they looked. The variety of styles and approaches comics enjoy now make them an art—or simply, art.
In terms of gallery art, artists, critics and collectors are very interested in the strengths and approaches of cartooning and comic making— including but not limited to the psychologizing of figures and environments, unseen but implied causality, text + image, and spacio-temporal experience. But they do not identify these strengths and approaches as belonging to comic books, and I don’t believe that these approaches are imports from comics into gallery art. They are facets that are common to both, but sometimes have been better studied as ‘caricature,’ ‘cartooning’ and ‘comics.’ The entire history of figural representation is comprised of choices and simplifications that could be referred to as caricature. And a gutter can exist between two paintings.
In a gallery, sequence and character are unmoored from an explicit narrative, but that doesn’t make an application of McCloud’s or any other theorists’ ideas invalid. In any case, I predict that our narrative facility is still engaged without it, and I’d argue that much recent, brilliant work in comics allows its gutters, sequence, and associative qualities to thwart clear storytelling.
This is my current roadmap for wandering through this topic, if that makes any sense. Most immediately, in this column I’ll be covering gallery shows in New York, expanding (or at least extending,) the conversation on Lichtenstein, and applying McCloud’s theories to non-comics art work. I apologize that my definition of “gallery cartooning” is horrifically undefined– all I have right now are a few observations and a hypothesis, and am excited to see my understanding of the situation trumped, trampled and if I’m lucky, ironically supported in these future investigations. I hope you’ll keep reading, and until then, thank you.
This is a subject I have dealt with a lot both as a writer and as a curator. (The first exhibit I was ever involved with, Misfit Lit (1991), was reviewed in Artforum. Not bad!)
But enough about me–there is a book that has been written but not yet published called Comics vs. Art by Bart Beatty. I think the University of Toronto Press is publishing it. I read an earlier draft of it, and let me say that it’s going to be great. Beatty covers the history of this rather fraught relationship between art and comics.
I look forward to reading more from Kent on this subject.
It’s pretty funny that someone curated Crumb’s genesis by just hanging every single damn page. It seems like a quixotic but weirdly sensitive-in-its-insensitivity choice. Obsessive unimaginative completism; if its good enough for artists, it’s good enough for curators.
I really like Lichtenstein. I’ll be curious to hear what you have to say about him.
Hi Robert– Wow! Thank you, and here’s to future conversations. I’d love your perspective on this. Beatty’s book sounds really invaluable; I’m glad its on the horizon.
Hi Noah– I wrote about the show in more detail, right after first seeing it… That essay may reappear here on this column… That show still flusters and frustrates me.
Your being a fan of Lichtenstein reaffirms why HU is the right home for this column.
I was indifferent to Lichtenstein till I saw a massive show of his in Chicago which was amazing. His paintings really lost almost all their impact when they’re reduced; in person the colors and just the size really hits you.
I get the appropriation issues, and have some sympathy with them, but I’d much rather look at his paintings than read (the vast majority of) the pulp comics that were his sources
The size of the Lichtenstein paintings speaks to the issue of comics in art spaces. If you display original comic art, it often appears rather small and unimpressive in a gallery. (This is generally an issue for all small intimate scaled artwork.) I know some cartoonists who have gotten around this by projecting the work onto the wall of the gallery and painting a temporary version of the piece.
This Saturday, the MFA soon-to-be grads at University of Houston are having their thesis show. One of the artists is a comic book artist (don’t ask me why he chose to do his MFA at UH). He agonized over the issues of displaying his art for this important exhibit–the most important art exhibit in his life, so far. He knew there was a basic tension between the conventions of hanging art in an art space and showing his comics, which are 1) created on a Wacom Tablet, so there are no physical “originals” and 2) are meant to be read as a narrative in a comic book. So he had a lot of options about how he could bridge these two worlds, but none of them good.
He decided to go “full comics.” He called up a bunch of fellow cartoonists in Houston and around Texas and is basically putting on a 1-night only comic book con INSIDE the MFA thesis show. (Here’s a link for the thesis show: http://diverseworks.org/2012/34th-school-of-art-masters-thesis-exhibition/ , and here’s one for the con-within-the-exhibit: https://www.facebook.com/events/103148713150955/ )
I’m looking forward to reading your posts Kailyn!
There’s a group of artists who say that what they do is gallery comics. I mean: Christian Hill, Mark Staff Brandl, Howie Shia and many others. I would also look for the work of Laylah Ali.
By the way, I love this one by Christian Hill.
There was also Comic Abstraction, Image-Breaking, Image-Making at the MOMA, of course…
When I had my BFA show, I put comics (printed minicomics) on pedestals (the same ones used for displaying ceramics or small sculpture) along one wall, instructing people to read. I just couldn’t see taking pages out of context to hang them up. In more recent opportunities I’ve tried to stick to single page works and have tried to blow up the size. I managed to get some of my digital originals to a pretty large size (medium-sized painting).
I’m a member of the “gallery comics” group and participated in the CAA session on the subject, was a part of the gallery comics section of “Out of Sequence,” etc. I’m always amused how Domingos leaves out my name each time he mentions it.
Interestingly, I just posted on Abstract Comics yesterday a text on a related subject: http://abstractcomics.blogspot.com/2012/04/my-introduction-to-party-crashers.html
I discuss the interaction with a mounted page there, and in more detail here:
https://hoodedutilitarian.com/2010/10/permanent-ink-by-andrei-molotiu/
I really enjoyed this piece. Can’t wait for more.
Sorry Andrei, but I never associated you with that group, my bad and I stand duly corrected. On the other hand I’m always glad to be amusing.
According to Leo de Sá (Dicionário Universal da Banda Desenhada, 70) the first comics exhibition happened in the United States in 1944. He continues a small list of exhibitions: USA, 1948 (with a 12 pages catalog by Clark Kinnaird, “Setting Straight Some Facts About the Origin of Comic Strips” in which the author rebukes “facts” in Coulton Waugh’s The Comics); France, 1948 (attacking US comics); Italy, 1950 (about Italian comics); Brazil, 1951.
An enjoyable article and lightly informative introduction to a series of columns. Looking forward to reading about those other gallery shows.
Indeed, an art gallery space offers the opportunity for creating comics-reading experiences that range far from the traditional one; can benefit from a social context, music, imaginative use of space, etc.
But some comments jarred, like chicken-bones gone crossways down a throat. (Apologies, I’m the resident nit-picker supremus.)
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Kailyn Kent says:
To be honest, I’m not sympathetic to the use of the gallery context to elevate comic art.
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It’s certainly a more serious, respectful way to display it than in a spinner-rack (are those still used anywhere?). It can focus more attention on individual pages, though the gallery setting (people moving around and talking, other work on display, the pages spread apart) also takes away the focus of the intimate reading experience.
Derik Badman’s “I put…printed minicomics…on pedestals…along one wall, instructing people to read” is close to this ideal, even if the other gallery distractions apply, adding concern that there might be people waiting to read that comic, your date is getting bored, etc.
But I’ve seen too many displays of abysmal garbage in galleries and museums — some of which (something that looked like a lumpy boulder with holes in it, and a light inside; a stick-figure cartoon of a chicken wearing a tutu in a wildlife art show) was chosen, in both cases by college perfessers judging, as Grand Prize Winners — to think that putting the equivalent of a turd on a spotlit pedestal necessarily “elevates” it. More like can make one think of the Emperor’s New Clothes. (Especially if some Artist’s Statement in FineArtSpeak is attached.)
Maybe “you had to be there,” but that photo of the “Jeff Gabel at Spencer Brownstone Gallery” painfully reminds of all too many gallery shows of sloppily-arranged, thumbtacked-up, amateurish crapola by young creators (who surely received “everybody gets a gold star” upbringings) I’ve attended. Hopefully at least white wine and cheese were available to nourish the body, since aesthetic hunger likely went unsatisfied.
Now, that Takashi Murakami show looked a delight, though: paintings and sculptors fully–realized and skilled, displaying a strong vision and powerful physical presence. (Dammit, drawings at least need a frame to help them gain the latter. [Yes, I know frames are expensive…])
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Not only are there more efficient and inspiring ways to do this…
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Hopefully future columns will clue us in to what those are…
Personally, I have found the ideally “elevating” format to be those The Best Comics of the Year-type collections. Beautifully produced and printed, with fine production values and elegant design, thoughtfully edited and introduced. With other creators, usually of high quality, to show the range that the art form is capable of.
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…but art history somewhat regards the gallery context as both a joke and a problem. It makes me uncomfortable when the comics community doesn’t register this.
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Well, in art history — once moved beyond the patronage system, such as in medieval and renaissance times — showings in galleries (and the similarly-displayed exhibitions and salons) were also utterly indispensable for artists to display and sell their work. Not every artist had enough of a “name” that would-be collectors would ask to visit their studios, checkbook in hand.
(Visiting the typical young alt-comics creator’s studio would probably be an off-putting experience, if anything.)
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This is also not to dismiss the historic antagonism between the comics and art industries. The comics world has repeatedly found the art world predatorial and bigoted– mocking and making no concessions to forms of labor and nostalgia it neither appreciates nor participates in.
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Uh, and the comics world is not “predatorial and bigoted”? If Jack Kirby had suffered art-world-level “predatory treatment,” he’d have lived and died a multimillionaire.
Lichtenstein has been mentioned here; couldn’t find out how rich he was, but he was wealthy enough to establish a foundation in his name ( http://www.lichtensteinfoundation.org/frames.htm ), and even taking for granted his paintings sold for a fraction of the following when he was alive, he’d have been well-off indeed.
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His painting Torpedo…Los! sold at Christie’s for $5.5 million in 1989, a record sum at the time, making him one of only three living artists to have attracted such huge sums.
Posthumous sales
In 2005, In the Car was sold for a then record $16.2m (£10m).
His cartoon-style 1964 painting “Ohhh . . . Alright . . .” was sold at a record US $42.6m (£26.7m) at a sale at Christies in New York, on November 11, 2010.
Lichtenstein’s “I Can See the Whole Room! … and There’s Nobody in It!” depicts a man looking through a hole in a door. Based on an image from the comic strip Steve Roper by William Overgard. it was painted in 1961 and sold for $43 million at a Christie’s art auction in New York City on November 8, 2011. The painting measures four-foot by four-foot and is in graphite and oil.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Lichtenstein
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Robert Boyd says:
…If you display original comic art, it often appears rather small and unimpressive in a gallery.
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…Except to comics readers, for whom it’s usually a revelation; of greater nuance, non-repro-pencilled preliminary approaches, notes to colorists or inkers.
Lichtenstein was a conceptually sophisticated painter who was part of a tradition dating back to many centuries if one chooses to do so, but mainly dating back to Marcel Duchamp and Dadaism. He also explored Freudian themes related to Eros and Thanatos. Add to that the usual Pop Art tropes (what I call: the myopic eye: i. e.: the need to look closer – at Ben Day Dots, in this case – in places devoid of large horizons: the 20th century urban environment). He was interested in paratextual aspects of art presentation: printing, sure, but also framing and glass reflection. That’s my take on him, anyway… I don’t think that he has much to do with comics.
I’m cowed and excited about everyone’s comments, and apologize for not writing back. I’m returning from a trip tonight and look forward to joining in.
Domingos, I don’t dispute any of that…but he used comics as an inspiration and a source…he was in dialogue with them (or perhaps against them.) I don’t think it’s crazy to consider him in that context.
Is it really a dialogue? More like a monologue, it’s not like comics have really gone back and forth with him (other than haters who wanna hate).
I’m not totally a fan of Lichtenstein, but it does make a big difference in appreciating it to see his work in person (as with many painters) .
Derik,
A dialogue doesn’t require participants to make statements in linear time. The work Lichtenstein sampled entered into dialogue with his work by virtue of existing inside of it and being reconsidered as an influence/source. (Man, I’m really on an atemporality kick…)
I’d also argue that recent movements in comics archival reprinting (specifically thinking of Dan Nadel’s Art Out of Time and Karasik’s Fletcher Hanks books) respond to Lichtenstein on some level.
“A dialogue doesn’t require participants to make statements in linear time.”
But it does require some kind of back and forth. I know very little about Lichtenstein, but I don’t see how the dialogue works with Lichtenstein/comics. He used comics as a source, but is his work really making any comment about comics other than “hey, I’m using these in my paintings.” How does the sampled work enter the dialogue?
A lot of this fine art from comics seems to be about using some tropes of comics, but doesn’t feel like it’s engaging with comics. That is, I see it as “source” more than “influence” or “dialogue”.
Well, I don’t think it’s engaging with comics as comics; that is, Lichtenstein doesn’t reify comics as an art form. The genre comics he’s working with are accessed as pulp.
But…there’s an appreciation of the formal qualities, I think, especially of color, and of pattern (especially the ben day dots.) And taking these melodramatic panels and blowing them up — that’s a response to the hyperbole and large gestures of the comics themselves, I’d think.
I mean, he was obviously fascinated with them. It just seems crazy to say he wasn’t engaged with them, or talking to and about them.
On another tack…it’s interesting that he was most interested in romance comics and tropes given the way that that tradition is largely irrelevant or sidelines in american comics these days.
Lichtenstein was interested in romance comics and war comics. That’s why I mentioned the eros and thanatos thing.
In one way or other comics are present in his paintings, that’s obvious. So are trees in a painting by, say, Constable…
Noah: “taking these melodramatic panels and blowing them up — that’s a response to the hyperbole and large gestures of the comics themselves, I’d think.”
Add to that a cold, distant, clinic,(in)expressive, visual language. It’s an interesting tension.
Reproducing images from a comic is also definitely riffing on the way comics themselves work. Repeating a comic image in a different context is making it not a comic…but it’s also making it a comic, because comics work by repeating images in different contexts…
Domingos– I’m thrilled about all these directions to research– thank you! I’m very excited to hear your perspective on future posts. The MoMA exhibit is especially intriguing… I’m ecstatic to hear that there are artists who are not only identifying themselves as gallery cartoonists, as the term was makeshift, and based on a hunch.
Robert and Derik– I love both of your reflections on the exhibiting comics, and reminded me of the issues I and other cartoonists faced when presenting our undergraduate theses at Carleton. I ended up using pedestals too, but sort of irreverently as bookstands with stacks of minicomics on them. And I’m going to get in contact with Ted Clossen, who is hosting the con-in-the-gallery show at UH.
I was struck by how you both bring up student showcases. The difficulties of exhibiting comics are especially relavant to students who study comics and related fields in art school– artists who don’t expect gallery shows to be a large part of their career, but need a way to showcase their work in the school’s show. Its an interesting moment that probably occurs in every art program, every year, with at least one student.
Andrei– It’s great to see you posting here! I loved Abstract Comics: The Anthology, and will be drawing on your blog for this column. (I also met you at the 2010 Eisner Awards– I was the random Fantagraphics intern that crashed the table. Hi!)
Mike– Nitpicking is welcome, especially as I already agree with some of these points… I do believe that hanging pages on a wall can be a really illuminating and rewarding re-contextualization. The Sunday pages hung at the Whitney’s Lyonel Feininger retrospective generated a lot of engagement and curiosity. But I think your evaluation of contemporary art is unfair, and based around a framework of technical skill, which ignores the very important post-war movements of ‘deskilling’ and institutional critique. I think this obscures why, from the perspective of contemporary artmaking, it is no longer adequate for a drawing to be put in a frame and hung, so that its technical features can be prized and examined– except in a historical context. Interestingly, that’s the context in which I’m seeing most pages hung, and most pages auctioned off. This does nothing for young cartoonists, who if they wish to use the gallery as a space to garner attention, make $$$, (or just, I hope, to explore and utilize it,) should be aware of the implications and expectations for playing in there. And I agree, hurray for Takashi Murakami– he’s very likable, very technically slick! I find that candy-coated grossness to be part of the point.
I absolutely agree with you that Jack Kirby was more mistreated by the comics industry than he was by Lichtenstein. Thank you for the research here– I’m excited to explore these angles in a future post.
As for Jeff Gabel’s work, graphite doesn’t photograph well, and I’d agree that his work has to be experienced firsthand to be understood. This is an idea that applies generally to fine art, and that contemporary art enjoys exploring and complicating. Gabel handles narrative and translation (between languages, between image and text) both wistfully and immersively,and his drawings are technically fascinating up close. His current mural-in-progress at Spencer Brownstone Gallery is the subject of my next column.
Robert– A big thank you!
I can’t wait to jump into this Lichtenstein debate. Thank you everyone for posting.
Just got this from the comics scholars list, coincidentally. Apparently Lichtenstein did some, or at least looked for some comics work. or so it sounds like from this Kirby interview.
“In one way or other comics are present in his paintings, that’s obvious. So are trees in a painting by, say, Constable…”
I don’t really think that’s a fair argument. For one thing, Lichtenstein generally copied directly from comics panels, which didn’t just spring out of the ground. The thing that gets me about Lichtenstein, and this likely has more to do with the criticism surrounding his work than Lichtenstein himself*, is the sense that he took these comics and ‘elevated them to the level of art.’ I have heard that phrase many times in reference to his work, and it upsets me every time; however much you may prefer the Lichtenstein paintings to the original panels he referenced, some artist still sat down in front of a board and made conscious artistic decisions. It doesn’t matter to me how bad a comic is, it’s still just as legitimately art. So, comparing it to a tree is unfair, in my opinion.
*(I love the sculptures of his that I’ve seen, though. I don’t want to discount him as a whole.)
And Patrick Ford on the comics scholars list is just a gold mine of information. He says there’s a book “Brad ’61” by Tony Hendra of National Lampoon which takes Lichtenstein paintings and turns them into a comic book narrative. Published 1993 by Pantheon.
Hey Jacob. Sure, bad art is still art — and I don’t even know that the panels Lichtenstein copied are bad art. He defininitely makes the case for their energy and formal chops, in any case.
I really want to get into the Lichtenstein discussion–I’ve given a talk a couple of times in the last couple of years called “Kirby after Lichtenstein”–but I’m actually writing it up into an honest-to-goodness scholarly article (I’ve gotta put out one of those every once in a while!) and I wouldn’t want to spoil it all here… But here are a few hints.
First of all, here is Lichtenstein on using comic imagery, from an January 1966 interview with David Sylvester:
“DS: All the same, the love of the cartoons took you over quite quickly, if one thinks of your output between the beginning and end of 1961. Was the main attraction the kind of visual language orwas it the kind of imagery?
R L: Well, I think that it was the startlinq quality of the visual shorthand and the sense of cliche – the fact that an eye would be drawn a certain way and that one would learn how to draw this eye that way regardiess of the consequences, these ideas being completely antithetical to the ones I felt had to do with art at the time. And I began really to get excited about this. The cliche is a cliche if you don’t know anything else, but, if you can alter this cliche slightly, to make it do something else in the painting, it still seems to retain its cliche quality to people looking at it. In painting, more than in some of the other arts, I think, one assumes that because it looks like a cartoon its really just the same. Whereas in music, I think, if you alter a popular tune just slightly, the alteration would be immediately perceptible and it would look artistic. In painting you can alter the image of an eye or nose, a shadow or something from a complete cliche, without its ever being understood that anything is happening artisticaliy.
DS: In what direction do you try to alter the cliche?
R L: Actually, in a number of ways. Sometimes I try to make it appear to be more of a cliche, to kind of emphasise the cliche aspect of it, but at the same time to get a sense of its size, position, brightness and so forth as an aesthetic element of the painting. And they can both be done at once, as you can certainly do a portrait of someone and also make it art.
DS: What is the kind of thing that you might do in using cliches from cartoons in making a painting? I mean: what would be lacking in the cliche that you would want to give it?
R L: There’s a sense of order that is lacking. There is a kind of order in the cartoons, there’s a sort of composition, but it’s a kind of a learned composition. It’s a composition more to make it clear, to make it read and communicate, rather than a composition for the sake of unifying the elements. In other words, the normal aesthetic sensibility is usually lacking, and I think many people would think it was also lacking in my work. But this is a quality, of course, that I want to get into it.
DS: But often the adjustments that you make are very small.
R L: Yes, and I think that that’s it. I try in a way to make a minimum amount of adjustment. Sometimes you get a very interesting image that would almost be good by itself except that this was not the artist’s intention. I think that one needs more than pure intention to make a work of art: in other words, my intention to exhibit doesn’t automatically make it a work of art. But the original cartoonist has a job to do. He gets a story out and he’s very good at his craft and puts it together and it’s very interesting, but it isn’t really inventive and it isn’t really formed. I think it’s inventive only in a mass way, that it has become inventive if you suddenly sit back and look at it and say: “My God, look what’s happened to this image. We take this for an eye and this for a shadow under a chin and look what it really looks like.” But this has gone on from generation to generation of illustrators, each one adding a little bit to the last, and it’s become a kind of universal language. So I’m interested in what would normally be considered the worst aspects of commercial art. I think it’s the tension between what seems to be so rigid and cliched and the fact that art really can’t be this way. I think it’s maybe the same kind of thing that you find in Stella or in Noland where the image is very restricted. And I think that is what’s interesting people these days that before you start painting the painting, you know exactly what it’s going to look like – this kind of an image, which is completely different from what we’ve been schooled in, where we just let ourselves interact with the elements as they happen. This highly restrictive quality in art is what I’m interested in. And the cliche – the fact that an eye, an eyebrow, a nose, is drawn a certain way – is really the same kind of restriction that adds a tension to the painting.
DS: You were saying that sometimes you actually want to emphasise the cliche. Now this, I take it, would have to do not so much with its formal properties as with its meaning and its place in people’s perceptions?
R L: Yes, I think so.
DS: But what is it that interests you about emphasising the cliche? You obviously enjoy the cliches of the romantic or adventure style strip cartoon. You like calling attention to these cliches. You like pointing them up. You like in a sense making them more like themselves than they really are.
R L: I have a feeling that in many ways I don’t do as well as the original cartoons in this way. By the time the painting is put together, a lot of the impact of the original cartoon is really lost.”
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Secondly, I wrote recently about Kirby’s response to Lichtenstein in my entry on Kirby for the forthcoming “Icons of the American Comic-Book” encyclopaedia. Here are the relevant passages (I think it’ll be ok with the editors to share them):
“Around 1965 or so Kirby’s art took another quantum leap forward, which was to yield perhaps the most defining stylistic traits of his career. The transformation can be seen when comparing, for example, any early Fantastic Four page to one from the later part of the decade. The later pages place much greater emphasis on the graphic presence of the drawings, with their dramatically spotted blacks. The panel frames seem no longer to function simply as enclosures for rendered diegetic moments, but clearly bound well-defined compositions that energize every square inch of the panel surface. Furthermore, in the late sixties and after, Kirby re-emphasized, as he had done in the early 1940s, the unity of the page layout, this time no longer with shaped frames and slanted gutters (most of his panels from the 1960s to the end of his creative career remain rectangular), but by careful consideration of how the dominant lines and vectors of force in each panel interact and harmonize within the larger page-composition; compared with such effects, many early Fantastic Four pages still read like convenient accumulation of panels, brought together to illustrate a sequential narrative but not with an eye toward the greater unity of the layout. […]
1965-1966 also happens to be the period during which Marvel briefly changed its name (at least on comic-book covers) to Marvel Pop Art Productions. Kirby’s later graphic style is often discussed among fans in terms of the new monumentality he brings to his personages, but the change is much more complex and more subtle than that. Indeed the new style, surprisingly, has much in common with Pop Art, and specifically with the work of Roy Lichtenstein. Kirby’s work now flattens shadows, which, as in Lichtenstein, function primarily as two-dimensional graphic elements rather than wrapping around objects and suggesting volume. Kirby performs the same kind of transformation as the Pop artists: revealing the elements of his drawing as more than rendering conventions, he foregrounds them as potent shapes in their own right. Graphic excitement often results from the intricate black spotting, resulting in complex cross rhythms of black and white across the surface of the page, bringing much of the imagery to the brink of abstraction.
The beginnings of Kirby’s new graphic style also mark the appearance of so-called “Kirby Krackle” in his work. This new treatment of shading as a ragged accumulation of dots of varied size was used variously to represent cosmic space, fires, explosions, nuclear reactions or roiling waters. While earlier appearances of “proto-krackle” have been traced to occasional panels as early as the 1950s, the new technique’s clear debut can be traced, intriguingly, to the very same panel that introduced the Silver Surfer, in Fantastic Four #48 (1966)—thereby marking the rise of a new grand, cosmic quality in Kirby’s work in terms of both form and content.
Kirby Krackle is the dark matter of Kirby’s universe. The dots function not only as abstract elements representing amorphous phenomena; more importantly, they fill up the surface of the panel, not simply serving to render energy or fluid matter, but graphically energizing the space of the composition, no longer allowing the surroundings of the figures to recede into the background, into neutral, dead space. As such, Kirby Krackle can also be seen to function as Kirby’s own, “vernacular” response to the all-over compositions of abstract expressionism, bringing some of their formal strategies into the supposedly lowly format of the comic-book, and thereby emphasizing the graphic presence of comic-book art, and its objectness beyond its simple representational function.”
The more complex form of my argument is that Lichtenstein, as can be seen in his interview, is still basing his transformations of comic-book “cliches” on the aesthetics of Greenbergian abstraction; and, in attempting to compete with him, Kirby is both influenced by Lichtenstein’s transformation of comic-book art, and thereby absorbs (or further absorbs) that aesthetics of abstraction.
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Thirdly–here are some illustrations, and further discussion of the topic:
http://comicsasartistsbooks.blogspot.com/2008/11/kirbylichtensteinkirby.html
As I wrote there: “By this point Kirby was doing comics-as-pop-art-as-comics, having completely absorbed what Lichtenstein (functioning perhaps more as a critic than as an artist) had revealed about comics–and, to Kirby, about himself. Pop Art had brought comics to self-awareness; while for others, this meant to camp it up, the self-awareness took on a completely different meaning for Kirby, who took to heart Lichtenstein’s revelation that cartooning’s shorthand could result in graphic traces having as much formal presence as the brushstrokes of a Franz Kline.”
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Fourthly–see more here:
http://abstractcomics.blogspot.com/2012/04/kirby-slash.html
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And, finally, fifthly–of course it was a dialogue! Comics throughout the sixties absorbed and were transformed by Pop aesthetics. “Marvel Pop Art productions” is just a tiny example. I’ve found numerous mentions of Pop Art in letter columns from the period. There are plenty of jokes (especially on some Archie covers) about Pop. Here is a lesser-known Josie pin-up:
http://comicsasartistsbooks.blogspot.com/2009/02/josie-meets-andy.html
More importantly, under the influence of Pop, comics become increasingly self-referential, self-consciously campy, and so on. Excellent examples can be found in a number of “Archies” stories ca. 1967-1968; in several “Little Annie Fanny” stories; in “Bunny Queen of the In-Crowd;” etc. On a very different note–in Steranko. Here is my favorite self-referential story of the period:
http://comicsasartistsbooks.blogspot.com/2008/11/greatest-story-archie-publications-ever.html
And yes, self-reference and camp were often seen as continuous with, or part of the same phenomenon as, Pop during this period. For all the references you’ll have to read my finished article…
I should add–yes, Lichtenstein in that interview is definitely obnoxious about comics. That does not diminish his contribution, though–either the quality of his resulting paintings, or the further influence he had, directly or indirectly, on the medium of comics itself.
Oh, and hi Kailyn! Nice talking to you again! That was a fun table at the cut-rate Osc… umm, I mean the Eisners. Drunken Millionaire and his film crew on one side, Bagge on the other…
Well, someone planted the tree. Maybe it wasn’t a landscape architect, but even so, the planter may have ideas about the creation of a landscape. The point is that we don’t get access to said landscape looking at a Constable painting on a wall. There’s a Saussurian disconnect, if you will…
When I dissociate Lichtenstein from comics I’m precisely saying that he didn’t elevate anything because his work has little to do with the original comic. If we do a bit or archeology though I understand why people say that. Détournement is associated with Duchamp’s ready-made: the social elevation of a banal object by changing the object’s context (putting it in a museum). The problem is that a détournement is not exactly a ready-made. What Lichtenstein did may be Neo-dadaism, but the “neo” means something, I guess…
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Derik Badman says:
…I’m not totally a fan of Lichtenstein, but it does make a big difference in appreciating it to see his work in person (as with many painters) .
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Oh, I don’t need to see the originals to appreciate his comics-inspired paintings; even if his lettering was mediocre (too skinny and devoid of personality), he deftly, significantly improved compositions over the source material (necessary, where an image that started as part of a sequence became an isolated one). He picked out and emphasized the visual graphic (outlining, ben-day dots, word and thought balloons) and narrative (melodrama caught at the peak of emotion) elements of the original art form, creating iconically “comic-booky” moments.
I imagine the “art comics” folks aren’t exactly thrilled about how Lichtenstein further popularized the view of comics as lurid, pulpy crapola…
(At least one R.C. Harvey column at the Comics Journal told of a Roy Lichtenstein visit to the National Cartoonists Society, where he came across as humble and genuinely admiring of the cartoonists/comics artists…)
Reading on — I’ve the bad habit of typing up my responses without seeing what others have written farther down — I see Andrei quoted from an interview with Lichtenstein where the artist was most illuminating (and splendidly devoid of art world jargon!) re his methods and aesthetic goals. Thanks, Andrei!
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Jacob Canfield says:
…The thing that gets me about Lichtenstein, and this likely has more to do with the criticism surrounding his work than Lichtenstein himself, is the sense that he took these comics and ‘elevated them to the level of art.’…
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I agree that’s unfair to the original comics creators, whose work was indeed art in its own right.
But, where “Art” (as understood and appreciated in the larger arts world, rather than just the comicscenti) in Lichtenstein’s comics-inspired paintings comes in is in the commentaries they make about comics; their transformation into art-gallery-type work a crucial factor.
Also, as in Marcel Duchamp turning a urinal into a sculpture by “recontextualizing” it, Warhol doing to the graphic design of Campbell’s soup cans what Lichtenstein did to those comics panels, only — in typically Warholian fashion — with even less involvement and alteration of the original.
(Reading down, I see Domingos had mentioned Duchamp already…)
Here’s a picture of how “lowbrow cartoonist” Coop, of “devil girl” fame, “recontextualized” his images (as he himself put it, in a TCJ message board thread) for an art show: http://cache.jalopnik.com/assets/images/12/2007/05/coop_parts.jpg
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Kailyn says:
Mike– Nitpicking is welcome, especially as I already agree with some of these points…
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Glad I’m not being discouraging…
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But I think your evaluation of contemporary art is unfair, and based around a framework of technical skill…
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Didn’t mean it to be a sweeping “evaluation of contemporary art.” And while technical skill can be an important factor in the effectiveness of a work, I don’t value it as highly as others do. The thought behind the work, emotional evocativeness, intellectual/philosophical sophistication and ability to communicate that, I consider far more important.
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…which ignores the very important post-war movements of ‘deskilling’ and institutional critique.
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“Deskilling”! How can anyone possibly satirize the Fine Art world, when reality comes up with such absurdities?
Artists widely agree that it’s far preferable to have a solid grounding in traditional rendering skills (i.e., Picasso) before you then deliberately choose to de-emphasize them. “Deskilling” sounds to me like Ebonics; a way to make it seem that, for those who are lacking in a valuable knowledge, that lack is itself a strength. (As with my earlier mention of “everybody gets a gold star” upbringings.)
Surely I’m being unfair to “deskilling,” which I’d somehow missed hearing of before. Lemme Google “art movement deskilling”…
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Deskilling is the process by which skilled labor within an industry or economy is eliminated by the introduction of technologies operated by semiskilled or unskilled workers. This results in cost savings due to lower investment in human capital, and reduces barriers to entry, weakening the bargaining power of the human capital.
It is criticized for decreasing quality, demeaning labor (rendering work mechanical, rather than thoughtful and making workers automatons rather than artisans), and undermining community…
In an application to the arts, Benjamin Buchloh defines deskilling as “a concept of considerable importance in describing numerous artistic endeavors throughout the twentieth century with relative precision. All of these are linked in their persistent effort to eliminate artisanal competence and other forms of manual virtuosity from the horizon of both artist competence and aesthetic valuation.”
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deskilling
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“de-skilling,” a term from economics to describe the way in which skilled labor is replaced by new technologies operated by semi-skilled workers, resulting in a lower investment in human capital…De-skilling entered art discourse in the 1980s, in the context of writing on conceptual art: It denoted the tendency to outsource the production of works of art to workers in “other-than-art fields,” thereby placing the artist in a managerial position…
In his recent book The Intangibilities of Form, art theorist John Roberts…refers to this process as a “spectralization” of the artist: When everyone can be an artist, what need is there for a specialized body of knowledge? The avant-garde’s desire for spectralization has been the tacit, paradoxical engine behind innumerable attempts to make art more democratic and accessible, and de-skilling has long been the preferred strategy for accomplishing this self-extinction.
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http://www.brooklynrail.org/2011/12/art/unhappy-days-in-the-art-worldde-skilling-theater-re-skilling-performance
Yeah, “everyone can be an artist,” if you set the bar low enough. “Everyone gets an ‘Artist’ gold star!”
And lack of skills is supposed to “make art more democratic and accessible”? A study cited by Domingos in another HU thread mentioned how the public far prefers art which is traditionally-accomplished and skilled: http://awp.diaart.org/km/usa/usa.html . Mentioning it’s us un-democratically sophisticated folk who “welcome a greater diversity of artistic styles. As a general rule, Americans who might be expected to have a more detailed knowledge of art – those who visit an art museum with some regularity, as well as those with a higher level of academic attainment and those who are more affluent – appear to be less set in their views about what constitutes ‘good art.’ ”
What does Joe Average American think of “de-skilled” art? Does he appreciate its accessibility? No, the reaction would be more like, “What does it mean?” and, “My kid can draw better than that!”
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Kailyn says:
I think this obscures why, from the perspective of contemporary artmaking, it is no longer adequate for a drawing to be put in a frame and hung, so that its technical features can be prized and examined– except in a historical context.
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So if a relatively flimsy and fragile drawing on a sheet of paper is matted and protectively framed, which also adds visual weight, elegance and gravitas to the work, that is merely a “historical” gesture? “No longer adequate…from the perspective of contemporary artmaking”?
It’s a truism in the gallery world that even painters (who frame their pictures) are advised to “work large”; that big works makes a more powerful impact, and is far more salable, than modestly-scaled art. (I agree that it’s stupid, but there it is.)
Thus, Gabel’s drawings ( https://hoodedutilitarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/gabel_idratherpushmyharleythanrideahonda.jpg ), mediocre in every fashion, only have their failings emphasized by being displayed as in some thrown-together-at-the-last-minute student art show. “Presentation” matters!
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Interestingly, that’s the context in which I’m seeing most pages hung, and most pages auctioned off. This does nothing for young cartoonists, who if they wish to use the gallery as a space to garner attention, make $$$, (or just, I hope, to explore and utilize it,) should be aware of the implications and expectations for playing in there.
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Sure; just as if you want to sell your artisanal foodstuffs at the supermarket, you can’t just dump them on the middle of the floor (as I’ve actually seen some art exhibited). You need to have them attractively packaged, in a fashion that can be arranged for display.
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And I agree, hurray for Takashi Murakami– he’s very likable, very technically slick! I find that candy-coated grossness to be part of the point.
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Not to my tastes, but It’s not its likability or technical slickness that made it stand out. (I mentioned his skill, but that does not necessarily equal technical slickness).
Contrasted to Jeff Gabel and the presentation of his work, where it practically faded into the wall, I wrote how Murakami’s art “display[ed] a strong vision (while Gabel’s scribblings could pass for those of many a mediocre art student’s) and powerful physical presence.”
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I absolutely agree with you that Jack Kirby was more mistreated by the comics industry than he was by Lichtenstein.
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To pick more nits, that’s not what I said; rather, that the “predatoriness” of the comics industry is ‘way worse, far more exploitative and disrespectful of its creators (even nowadays, when it’s not as bad as it used to be) than that of the “fine arts” world.
(The only Kirby art I can think of that Lichtenstein used as a source was a cropped and “turned facing forward” image of Magneto, for “Image Duplicator”…)
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As for Jeff Gabel’s work, graphite doesn’t photograph well, and I’d agree that his work has to be experienced firsthand to be understood. This is an idea that applies generally to fine art…
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No, the vast majority of fine art can be understood fairly well via any halfway decent reproduction. How many people have ever seen an actual Van Gogh, Old Master painting, the Pietá, Dali, Picasso, Joseph Cornell box? Has their failure to see the originals prevented hundreds of millions from understanding and greatly appreciating the work?
And a visual artist (even a sculptor or architect) whose work is incomprehensible unless experienced “in the flesh” is dooming themselves to a lifetime of paying their bills via a career in the fast-food industry.
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…and that contemporary art enjoys exploring and complicating. Gabel handles narrative and translation (between languages, between image and text) both wistfully and immersively,and his drawings are technically fascinating up close. His current mural-in-progress at Spencer Brownstone Gallery is the subject of my next column.
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Looking forward to it!
Hmmm…sounds like people are very skeptical about Lichtenstein actually looking for comics work; Kirby may be misremembering or the interview could be garbled, seems to be the consensus….
I think Kirby was misremembering. His memory was notoriously erratic.
Curious coincidence: one of the cartoonists whose work Lichtenstein appropriated was Irv Novick. Turns out Novick was Lichtenstein’s commanding officer in the army.
I don’t think Kirby’s recollection was accurate, either. Lichtenstein was in Ohio during most of the period in question, generally attending school or teaching. The outside work he did was as an architectural draftsman and a store-window decorator. As far as I know, he never pursued employment in New York in any commercial art field, much less comics. He has no known published comics work.
The Novick-Lichtenstein connection was discovered at the first gallery show. Lichtentstein sent an invite to Robert Kanigher, who edited the original war comics Lichtenstein sourced, and asked him to bring along his artist pool. Joe Kubert has said Lichtenstein and Novick’s jaws hit the floor when they saw each other.
Regarding Gabel’s work: though this likely has little bearing on the “presentation matters” issue (Gabel has been known to sometimes view presentation as an afterthought – even in his small non-installation drawings, the visual sometimes appears to be an afterthought lightly supporting a story), it still might be useful to note the full title of that large wall drawing from 2004: “Some woman while she’s calling her relatives a bunch of fuckers after they got mad at her because she wore a T-shirt that says “I’D RATHER PUSH MY HARLEY THAN DRIVE A HONDA” to her niece’s wedding reception”
Kirby’s memory was no more erratic than the usually self-servingly dithering Stan Lee’s was, yet Lee’s “miraculously recovered” recollections were accepted by the judge in the recent pro-Marvel decision as sufficiently credible to destroy the Kirby family’s case.
I can easily believe that Roy L. wanted to be a cartoonist but simply was not competent enough to be hired….and while I can accept the place of Pop in art history, I don’t buy into the idea that he improved any of the compositions he appropriated.
Mike: “(Reading down, I see Domingos had mentioned Duchamp already…)”
Since we’re in nitpicking mode: I mentioned Duchamp to underline the difference between the ready-made and détournement, not to stress the similarities.
Ok, that’s fair enough. I hadn’t appreciated how much of a dialogue Lichtenstein was having with comics contemporaries. I will, though, stand by one of my central points of discomfort, which is that Lichtenstein’s paintings, however high-brow their intent, did very much contribute to the cultural conception of “Comics,” and the “Bam!” “Pow!” reporting on comics always seems to include a Lichtenstein-inspired illustration. By focusing on what he considered to be the most banal and uninspired illustration and making those images famous, it seems like Lichtenstein actively contributed to a public sense that the medium of comics itself is very trashy.
Andrei– I can’t wait for your piece on Lichtenstein, and really loved the interview you posted here. There’s a lot to say about it.
Mike– I’m glad you hooked onto deskilling, and the sources you’ve brought into this conversation. Thank you for tying in the economic definition, which is inextricable from the artistic definition (and why deskilling became so crucial to modern and contemporary art practice.) And I couldn’t have asked for anything better than Buchloh.
And while technical skill can be an important factor in the effectiveness of a work, I don’t value it as highly as others do. The thought behind the work, emotional evocativeness, intellectual/philosophical sophistication and ability to communicate that, I consider far more important.
“Deskilling”! How can anyone possibly satirize the Fine Art world, when reality comes up with such absurdities?
I find it disheartening that after bringing so many great references to the table, and emphasizing the conceptual importance in fine art, that the thought, emotional effectiveness, intellectual sophistication and communicative power of not only deskilling per se, but the fact of deskilling isn’t apparent in your argument. More than that, deskilling is a reply to and a participation in the changing understanding of work and labor– who performs it, what does it look like, what have we lost or gained? Thisdovetails with Walter Benjamin’s previous address of the ‘multiple’, particularly in The Work of Art In the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Benjamin’s essay was published a few years before the publication of the first comic book, and these same forces cut through, sparked and determined much of comics history too.
Now lets step forward– does punk and its influence make music, and music history, laughable? Aren’t there similar forces, philosophies, commentaries at play? Don’t they walk the same tight rope of subversion, democratization and inaccessability?
The democratization at play is the democratization of doing– anyone can be an artist. And as with a lot of good art, there is an ironizing humor at play in that statement. But ‘deskilled’ art can be difficult or inaccessible to people who expect ‘painting’ or ‘bust’ when they think art. Deskilled art is so visibly honest about the changed means of production, that it can be difficult to recognize. This is a commentary on how modern means of production have made the ‘act’ of production unrecognizable. Making art that engages and comments on these changes is one way of dealing with this– the other is to escapism, nostalgia, and at its worst, a refusal to deal with the terms of the times. Or, a mass produced simulation of the hand-made. But we’ve come a long way since 1962. At this point, it might be more emotionally, philosophically and conceptually revealing to explore and deconstruct nostalgia…
Finally, if concept is ‘king,’ is there nothing to be said for having one’s drawings fade into, blur into, emerge gradually from a gallery wall? Of making work that engages reproduction and graphicality (cartooning,) but resists it? I’m confused by where you are going with your argument. I’m confused why you talk about Lichtenstein’s “lettering” (he wasn’t. He was painting. That flattening through paint of the different ‘layers’ of production is part of the point.) I’m similarly befuddled by your intentions on bringing in ‘average Joe,’ — why not examine our education system’s failings to teach students how to engage and challenge the historical forces they participate in. I’m distraught over your bringing up of Ebonics, but won’t go there. Its hard to address all these reactions– but all in all, it’s fun to see the emotional challenge of deskilling in action, and I’m enthused that you are engaged with it.
Jacob- Nice to see you here!
G– Very happy that you posted, and I’m excited to find someone familiar with Gabel’s work. Thank you thank you for the titling correction. I’ll change the caption…
“it seems like Lichtenstein actively contributed to a public sense that the medium of comics itself is very trashy.”
In 1961, I hardly think the public needed Roy Lichtenstein to convince that comics were a trashy medium. It was only six years earlier that the trashiness of comics was an issue of such great public concern that there were Congressional hearings on the subject.
By the way, why are we talking about Roy Lichtenstein? It seems to me that the relationship of the comics scene to the art scene has evolved a lot in the last 50 years. I understand the historical importance, but it seems to me that a lot of conversations about this subject end up getting stuck on Lichtenstein. I’m more interested in what is happening now–or even in what has been happening in the past 20 years–than some paintings from 1960-65.
Robert:
Haha, that’s a good point. I need to consider the context more before getting so worked up.
James: “I don’t buy into the idea that he improved any of the compositions he appropriated.”
“Improving” is not the word. I would say that he flattened and stiffened them on purpose. A tech judgement is irrelevant though. The images ãre important as indexes, nothing more.
I agree with Jacob: Lichtenstein’s manipulations made comics seem worst than they were, but I wouldn’t say that the view of comics as trashy was completely unfair at the time…
Good article. Two years ago I visited an exhibition at the Kunsthalle in Hamburg where Marcel van Eeden´s “Witness for the prosecution” was shown:
http://www.artisanalhouse.com/2010/12/marcel-van-eeden.html
Very interesting approach of the hanging was that you´d have to follow through different areas to catch up on the development of van Eeden´s story. A sort of ‘cliff-hanging’.
On comics he once made the following statement:
“Comics are interesting too. But I don´t read them either. Anyway I ´d appreciate the possibility of buying my new cycle of paintings as a comic at the (railway) station kiosk a lot.”
http://www.art-magazin.de/kunst/19341/marcel_van_eeden_interview
(Interview in German language)
I just wrote a post on my blog that deals with this subject. Here’s the link: http://thegreatgodpanisdead.blogspot.com/2012/04/uh-mfa-thesis-exhibition-part-1-comic.html
However, I want to give you fair warning–Roy Lichtenstein is not mentioned anywhere in this post.
Thanks for the link Robert!
I refuse to feel guilty for talking about Roy Lichtenstein, though. He’s an interesting artist; I like his work. He’s old sure, but who wants to be cutting edge all the time?
No reason to feel guilty! I just wonder how relevant he is to current issues regarding comics/art. Plus, I hate the way discussions on these issues tend to devolve to arguing about Lichtenstein. Not just here, but everywhere in the comics world.
What about contemporary artists like Tina Lugo, who do some things that are sort of KC Green-ish, and some things that are unquestionably direct swipes?
http://www.tinalugo.com/uploads/5/7/5/7/5757373/9566337_orig.jpg
http://www.tinalugo.com/uploads/5/7/5/7/5757373/6414769_orig.jpg
In her case I just find these uninteresting, overall, but I have a similar problem with the work. She’s acting like nobody has addressed “the social and sexual undertones of these cartoons” or “the subversive and controversial qualities in the pop culture of yesteryear”.
(Here’s her portfolio site as a whole: http://www.tinalugo.com/)
To clarify, I think a lot of my frustration with this kind of art is the cross-medium assumption that a painter could suddenly realize something fundamental about the comics medium that hasn’t been meaningfully addressed by comics artists already. I know there are innumerable bad comics that try to address the same topics as Tina Lugo, but they don’t get the same press that Lugo did recently for her paintings. Maybe I’m just being curmudgeonly, but I don’t see anything meaningful in Lugo’s work that hasn’t been addressed by the Kim Dietches or Wally Woods of the world long ago.
Well, here’s a piece I wrote on Mark Newport from a while back which addresses some of the same issues.
I have seen some great things done with appropriated comics. There was a massive outsider art exhibit at the Chicago Cultural Center a while back, and one of the pieces was basically a wall of cut outs from superman comics altered so that superman was the devil/savior. It was pretty fantastic and weird and entertaining; Henry Darger meets DC. Worked for me.
That cut-out piece sounds pretty fantastic, Noah. But that’s dealing with comics through comics, essentially, I view that as much different than re-drawing a single panel or character and holding it up as incredibly significant or deviant.
I have to say that those Tina Lugo paintings/prints are absolutely awful in almost every way. On the other hand, I see as much reason to feel frustrated with this kind of art as the latest box office busting Transformers movie. I think it’s useful to see the fine art market as a degraded institution (poverty of ideas, money grubbing etc.) rather than some high brow center of excellence.
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James Romberger says:
…while I can accept the place of Pop in art history, I don’t buy into the idea that [Lichtenstein] improved any of the compositions he appropriated.
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I stand corrected; looking at this huge set of comparisons — http://davidbarsalou.homestead.com/LICHTENSTEINPROJECT.html — of the paintings and the original comics, while in the paintings I had in mind (the face-front “Image Duplicator” one; the scenes of aerial combat) the compositions were tightened, are more vibrant, tightened, everywhere else the copies (compositions rarely reworked) are inferior.
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Kailyn says:
…Mike– I’m glad you hooked onto deskilling, and the sources you’ve brought into this conversation.
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I often find myself learning things from researching subjects to discuss on these threads; thanks for tipping me off about “deskilling,” though my attitude could not be more different.
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Thank you for tying in the economic definition, which is inextricable from the artistic definition (and why deskilling became so crucial to modern and contemporary art practice.)…
[Mike Hunter says] “Deskilling”! How can anyone possibly satirize the Fine Art world, when reality comes up with such absurdities?
I find it disheartening that after bringing so many great references to the table, and emphasizing the conceptual importance in fine art, that the thought, emotional effectiveness, intellectual sophistication and communicative power of not only deskilling per se, but the fact of deskilling isn’t apparent in your argument. More than that, deskilling is a reply to and a participation in the changing understanding of work and labor– who performs it, what does it look like, what have we lost or gained?
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Not to derail this discussion, but…
Isn’t it blatantly obvious that deskilling in the economic/workplace setting, rather than blithely being described as “a reply to and a participation in the changing understanding of work and labor– who performs it, what does it look like, what have we lost or gained” (one could gloss over slavery, the outsourcing of fairly-paid jobs with benefits to Third-World sweatshops, or the importing of “coolie” labor in the same fashion) was an exploitative scam? That destroyed the value of the skilled craftsperson by reducing labor to a set of simplistic tasks, broken up among many individuals, who thereby became that much less valuable, more disposable, and therefore more exploitable?
So, we’d “progress” from this: http://www.jimandellen.org/trollope/HollSeamstresses.jpg
http://media.web.britannica.com/eb-media/58/95658-004-11CD6DEA.jpg
To this: http://www2.needham.k12.ma.us/nhs/cur/Baker_00/2002_p7/ak_p7/girlinfactory.jpg
http://www1.curriculum.edu.au/ddunits/images/ls3fq2_2.gif
And plenty of “thought, emotional effectiveness, intellectual sophistication and communicative power” went into Marxism too. The results, unfortunately, speak for themselves.
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Now lets step forward– does punk and its influence make music, and music history, laughable?
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Why should the brief popularity of a movement that emphasized lack of skill explode the generations before and after, and continued appreciation by musicians and the public of skill? Even — how shockingly undemocratic — talent?
“Why should the brief popularity of a movement that emphasized lack of skill explode the generations before and after, and continued appreciation by musicians and the public of skill?”
I’ve got problems with punk…but it was a lot more than briefly popular. It was extremely influential, and remains a major touchstone of lots of artistic movements, not least alternative comics.
Suat: “I think it’s useful to see the fine art market as a degraded institution (poverty of ideas, money grubbing etc.) rather than some high brow center of excellence.”
I can’t really comment what you say above because I’ve been far too removed from the art world, but I’ll say just this: maybe that’s why the Western art market turned its attention to China in search of superstars.
Mike: you sound like Herbert Marcuse.
Ng wrote: “I have to say that those Tina Lugo paintings/prints are absolutely awful in almost every way. On the other hand, I see as much reason to feel frustrated with this kind of art as the latest box office busting Transformers movie. I think it’s useful to see the fine art market as a degraded institution (poverty of ideas, money grubbing etc.) rather than some high brow center of excellence.”
You were frustrated with the latest Transformers movie? I wasn’t. I wasn’t because I never saw it and never will. To take the most popular/awful movie or the most expensive/absurd artwork as some kind of metonym for “cinema” or “art” is ridiculous.
However, there are much better reasons to think of contemporary comics in the context of contemporary art. The main one is that cartoonists themselves are doing so more and more. I think to understand their work, one must be conversant with the environment from which they emerged (i.e., art schools and, increasingly, the art world). (This said, there has often been a conflict between art students who want to do comics and the schools where they study, and there probably still is here and there. I think that’s largely generational and disappearing, though.)
But on a practical level, the world of commercial galleries and the world of art schools are each one more place where a comics artist can make money. The ideal situation for a cartoonist is to be able to earn enough money to have a career based solely on his or her comics. This ideal is met by very few non-mainstream cartoonists, and the more difficult and ambitious your comics are, probably the harder it is to sell enough of them to live on. But a cartoonist presumably would like to earn a living and provide for her family and maybe even own a home one day. The art world offers some help–galleries for selling original artwork and art schools where teaching positions can be obtained. I realize that this brings the conversation down to the lowest two levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but those needs are part of the artist’s/cartoonists’s life.
In any case, just because some aspects of the art world are disagreeable is no reason to dismiss the whole thing. It turns out that some aspects of the comics world are pretty disagreeable, too. But I keep on liking comics…
Robert: “You were frustrated with the latest Transformers movie? I wasn’t.”
No, that’s precisely the opposite of what I’m saying. I wasn’t frustrated by the latest Transformers movie in the least. In fact, it was probably an improvement over the second Transformers movie! In the same way, there’s no reason to be frustrated with horrible art like that by Tina Lugo (unless you’re heavily invested spiritually and commercially). It’s entirely to be expected. Most people know how to expect something mediocre or bad when encountering comics, books, music, plays, and movies, so why should the experience be any different when it comes to gallery/fine art?
And I have absolutely no argument with the idea of cartoonists earning a living from gallery shows and selling their original art. It’s just another way to make ends meet and should be thoroughly explored. That and a book deal, teaching position etc..
Robert:”…just because some aspects of the art world are disagreeable is no reason to dismiss the whole thing.”
Of course, I agree. I read and collect comics like you! And god knows there’s more shit in that art form than most others (TV probably has comics beat as far as rubbish art is concerned. I mean if one of the top 10 things on TV now is Game of Thrones…).
You go away for a day or two… I guess I stand corrected on my last comment. Maybe I should read more about Lichtenstein one of these days.
Thanks for sharing those excerpt, Andrei. I’ll have to keep an eye out for that article you’re working on for when it gets published.
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