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Post by Hagbard on Jan 9, 2024 22:31:48 GMT
It would be a shame not to give David Wojnarowicz, James Romberger, and Marguerite Van Cook’s 7 Miles a Second its due. Sure, David Wojnarowicz didn’t illustrate it, but he was a major force in the contemporary art world, especially in how it dealt with the aftermath of the HIV/AIDS crisis and the Reagan era. Pretty amazing 7 Miles a Second was initially printed by DC’s Vertigo line. www.printmag.com/comics-animation-design/wojnarowicz-and-seven-miles-a-second/. It’s a good comic. I’ve only read it with the remastered colors, but damn is it visually intoxicating. Anyway, I read stuff about it in relation to Wojnarowicz’s oeuvre of memoirs and the HIV epidemic’s impact on the NY art scene of the mid to late 80s, but I almost never see comics people talk about it.
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Post by mikesheawright on Jan 9, 2024 23:25:20 GMT
art21 is so awesome
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Post by natedoyle on Jan 10, 2024 1:15:03 GMT
I work as a fitter at a frame shop here in NY. Work and clients range from personal collections, blue chip galleries, print houses, museums (framed some of the Cecily Brown pieces at that Met show mentioned earlier in this thread), and artists' studios. I work on some really high profiles stuff that ranges from amazing to straight up horse shit.
Some of the people I work with have zero connection to the art world or art in general and are just laborers while others have a finger on the pulse of what's going on. Which makes for interesting conversation and discussion. I seem to fall somewhere in the middle where I'm aware of whats going on and enjoy seeing new work. I'm curious but not avidly seeking out the latest craze of the art world - even though I'll sometimes have to frame it.
I think there's plenty of evidence of comics' influence on the art world and vice versa. Some artists move from comics or zines; Pettibon and Shary Boyle as mentioned. Johnny Negron seems to be just doing paintings and is represented by a gallery. George Grosz comes to mind as someone who seemed to slip between the worlds of fine art and cartooning, Feininger as well. Although that may not be what is being referred to as "contemporary" here both clearly loved comics.
I do see a lot more illustration based artists being represented in galleries and printing houses; Anton Kern Gallery has a lot of artists whose work is more similar to something you'd see at a small press expo. Two Palms Press even has been doing editions of Crumb's work and has other artists who seem to have been influenced by comics or cartoons(Ana Benaroya's work being very similar to Lale Westvind at times). It's interesting to see for sure.
Some current artists I find interesting: Neo Rauch Hein Koh Louis Eisner Margot Bergman Nicole Eisenman Ana Benaroya
Others of note: Max Beckman George Grosz Leinel Feininger
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Post by robindh on Jan 10, 2024 20:15:15 GMT
Lyonel Feininger is super underrated. Hope NYRC or someone reprint his strips
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Post by dominocorp on Jan 10, 2024 20:34:49 GMT
A shame that this is out of stock because while I normally hate pricey books, for Feininger this is the best way to get into his stuff www.fantagraphics.com/products/forgotten-fantasy-sunday-comics-1900-1915Even the cheap softcover that Fanta did years ago is OOP and price prohibitive. My big comics theory is that Feininger suggested a vibrant path that comics could have chosen which was largely tossed aside for a Caniff approach.
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Post by robindh on Jan 10, 2024 21:32:22 GMT
I totally agree, loved your TCJ articles on the subject
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Post by bluebed on Jan 11, 2024 2:11:08 GMT
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GHO
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Post by GHO on Jan 11, 2024 6:33:20 GMT
I also think elizabeth murray lives in the language of cartooning. although sometimes when figuration is brought up in relation to her work she can either agree or not want to acknowledge it. either way I enjoy her paintings, especially her later stuff.
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Post by manoopuesta on Jan 11, 2024 10:43:54 GMT
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Post by eheitner on Jan 11, 2024 13:46:39 GMT
I also think elizabeth murray lives in the language of cartooning. although sometimes when figuration is brought up in relation to her work she can either agree or not want to acknowledge it. either way I enjoy her paintings, especially her later stuff.
Whoa this is beautiful thank you for sharing it
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Post by eheitner on Jan 11, 2024 13:47:23 GMT
Sorry if my initial replies misunderstood the prompt. I also appreciate Dan Nadel-- his writing about Guston has encouraged me to keep trying with Guston even tho it hasn't quite hit for me yet. Re: Wojnarowicz, his collaborator, James Romberger, is known by us as a cartoonist but also has always had connections to the gallery world, his stuff is owned by the Met, and I think points to a little bit of what I was saying perhaps glibly earlier which is there is a significant amount of overlap on the fringes of these worlds...
I used to do the Chelsea openings and galleries but never found that much that inspired me but I'm glad it exists and inspires others.
Y'know who was a big proponent of cartooning and comics students going out to those openings and seeing what was going on in the fine arts world and not being limited to "pop culture"? Tom Woodruff
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Post by addley on Jan 11, 2024 18:22:59 GMT
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Post by pietrykowski on Jan 14, 2024 16:54:47 GMT
Some people I always have on my mind: William T. Wiley Ray Johnson
Douglas Huebler Marisol Al Ruppersberg Jim Shaw's Dream Drawings are always fun
A little more recent: Lee Baxter Davis (Trenton Doyle Hancock and Gary Panter's Professor) Mark Mulroney Teppei Kaneuji
Another thing to note on the subject is how much comics has influenced contemporary art. I'm not talking about the Roy Lichtensteins out there. Often we I go to shows there are freebie zines. The influence of text and image work on how shows are installed. I feel like a lot of photo books and installation art uses different panel transitions found in comics... even if the artists won't admit it
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GHO
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Post by GHO on Jan 15, 2024 1:02:44 GMT
I was just going to write something about marisol! I think marisol's work has been partially avoided in art history. there is a great new book out that pretty much encapsulates her whole career in a digestible format. her sense of illustration and humor is always present, and is something that is not often praised in art history. In terms of humor I pair her with artist like paul klee and especially ray johnson (maybe steinberg, but I haven't thought too hard about that). I think her fish works have to be some of my favorite pieces of art ever they're extremely simple while remaining playful and visually engaging. FISH. I also can never forget this big baby little lady sculpture. i've never seen this in person so I don't know just how big the baby is but I hope it's at least 5 feet. But, there's so much to explore in her work, her drawings are great as well, for me nothing beats the sculpture. this is also a great opportunity to bring up paul klee who is one of my favorite artist's due to just how goofy he allowed himself to be. here's a few of my favorites. MASK OF FEAR (this repro does no justice to how good this painting is)GHOSTCan you tell I like fish
The color!
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Post by JerrryJames on Jan 15, 2024 13:22:01 GMT
Oooh, I hadn't made the full connection until now but I implore people to check out Antwan Horfee & some of his art, he's a French guy who was big in the graffiti scene & kind of created his own style in a way (in the graffiti world at least, funny how the standards can differ) with abstracted cartoony illustrative elements that are absolutely inspired by bande dessinee & vintage cartoons/comics in their own way. He's been getting more & more abstract & into a more 'contemporary' gallery look in recent years & working on canvas with some interesting techniques instead of just walls & spray paint, but he has a pretty extensive portfolio of work throughout the years & a lot of it is veryy cartoony & a lot more illustrative that I think some people here might admire, just under the name Horfee. He's also published or help publish a few books & a ton of zines throughout the years, but I bought a book called Menko Boys for $20 that he put together a few years ago that is a collection of cool old vintage japanese playing cards & now I see the only copies left are being sold for $98 lol damn.
For some more graffiti that is genuinely next level & awesome on a pure illustrative level, google 'Baer Graffiti' , but he's also made some wildddd things beyond graffiti too over the years that are pretty singular in vision & unique in approach, another guy with a hard portfolio to unravel. He's more like an extreme underground artist who is contemporary rather than just a contemporary artist, he's definitely not family friendly in any way, shape or form He had a show called Garbage Futurism sometime last year that had some of the wildest sculptures I've ever seen but unfortunately I live nowhere near there, he also has like this harem of strippers who assist him & get weird for events & skits he does but enough on that. Like, some of it is truly wacko out of this world wild to try & describe if you haven't seen before haha I can't even find pictures of some of the shit he made that I saw online. He handmade this line of crazy drug paraphernalia (pipes, tweaker pipes, tooters for snorting stuff, etc) that looked like Szukalski mixed with Mad Max lol idk how to even fully describe what that guy has going on without making myself sound a bit out there. He did this thing where he went around painting garbage on the side of the street neon colors with a pesticide sprayer filled with paint, & then some big name art-douche did the same thing & got headlines at the time. He's also been on an ongoing art-feud against Alec Monopoly which I find absolutely fucking amazing, Alec is one of the biggest douchebags in any version of the 'art world' & it's been hilarious to watch the antics over the past couple years.
There's a whole ton of people who are into what's called 'antistyle' these days in graffiti, & it's essentially influenced by a contemporary abstract or minimalist look in a way, kind of trying to de-construct the structure of letters & form & style altogether. A lot of it is much bigger in parts of Europe, specifically in the Slavic regions for whatever reason, but a lot of it is making its way into galleries & sort of circling Back into the galleries from which it's kind of inspired. It's like a mix of shitting on expectations, contemporary art, & then also just a straight up lack of talent and technique in a lot of cases for people who use it as a crutch to fall back on instead. Because it's supposed to 'not look good' or subvert your expectations or whatever haha there's a lot of very poorly painted spidermen & other weird comic characters thrown in there.
I almost have kind of a slight disdain towards contemporary art galleries/museums in a way, not necessarily 'contemporary art' or the artists themselves, of course. Every single time I even think about the words, I think back to a disappointing experience I had at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art a few years back & the main thing on display at the time that people were interested in was... a fucking shelf with 3 blenders on it that were full of what I can only describe as 'yogurt in various states of mold' with a giant 2 page description next to it that everybody was trying to read over the next person's shoulder so it could finally make sense to them. I guess if you think hard enough, or perhaps don't think at all, that could be sequential art in a way. I was utterly disappointed with almost everything in there I saw that day, all the art school hooha that only makes you feel anything after you've read a few pages on why it should make you feel something. I had a much better time & saw much more meaningful 'art' that actually pushed that definition while inside of a science museum lol which was unfortunate, because I had made it a mission to go very out of my way to the Contemporary Art Museum in the first place.
Anyways, that was half relevant & half random as I do best.
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