Here they are, works of three of my favorite contemporary painters. I have more favorites, but these will do for a start.
The first few are by Tim Biskup. You can tell he was influenced by Jim Flora, but his style is still very distinctive. Boy, the picture above is so small that it's impossible to see anything. Better click to enlarge.
What I like about these, apart from their color and design sophistication, is what Ayn Rand might have called their "sense of life." They're happy. They celebrate life. There's no hint of suffering. They're about the light-hearted side of life.
Here's (above) a skull, which is usually meant to symbolize mortality or horror or science. I may be reading something into this that's not there, but what I sense here is an artist who's regarding his own fragile mortality and laughing about it. There's time enough to think about the serious side of death. Here we're made to see the absurdity of it.
The delicate, colorful paper strips are like our thoughts unraveling. Our skull unravels as well. We all see such wonders during our lifetimes, and they're recorded on flimsy strips of paper that eventually unravel and go away. It all reminds me of Macbeth's "Tomorrow and Tomorrow" speech.
Very happy (above). Sexual, but very light and delicate.
This (above) is scary but light-hearted at the same time, as if Biskup were reminding us that our humanity is still intact, in spite of the mechanistic nature of the modern world. Even so, he says we'd better be careful.
Elegant, imaginative, clutter (above). This would make a great book cover for an author like Bradbury or Dahl or Borges.
Here's something by an under-rated artist...Philip Burke. Michael Sporn just did a survey of Burke's work on his blog. See the sidebar for the link.
Poor Woody. His face has aged way in advance of his actual chronological age. Has his mind aged at the same rate? I don't know. My guess is that a younger man lies underneath the aged exterior, but maybe looking that way depressed him so much that he actually took on the behaviors of an older man.
Burke's portrait of Cobain says so much about the price Cobain paid to get where he was.
Burke's sketch (above) of Dianne Sawyer. Look at how saturated the red and purple are.
Last but not least, Gary Panter's "Elvis Zombie." This was a book cover. I'll bet Panter wishes he'd painted a version that was seven feet tall.
I came across this photo of Elvis while I was searching for Panter's painting. It occured to me that this may be the most famous photo of the rock and roll era...what the classic photo of the G.I.s raising the flag at Iwo Jima was for the previous generation.
Hm. I don't have a favorite modernist, myself. Mark Rothko's pictures have always looked like half-opened window shades to me.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, all these paintings look interesting and fun, so maybe I should wise up!
On the third hand ... these pictures only seem modernist in the sense that the Fauves were modernist. It seems like they could all, by a slight stretch, have been done before World War I. A far cry from Rothko, in other words.
Burke and Panter are the best!
ReplyDeleteI plan to take SVA's cartooning program, and I could have the chance to be taught by Panter.
Regarding some of the middle paintings what is the difference between cartoonish pop art that sells for thousands and even hundreds of thousands of dollars and cartoon art? Is there any divide between "high" and low art anymore?
ReplyDeleteWhat makes Murakami http://www.collectorsquest.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/murakami_print.jpg different from some guy off deviant art?
Do you think if Clampett were able to come back to earth in the body of a twentysomething hipster he could become the hot young New York artist "using unheard of skill to contrast the exuberance and imagination of classic cartoon archetypes with postmodern alienation and despair" or somesuch.
I really like those paintings but it just seems weird that one artist can be considered a genius of modern art and make millions while a guy who does that same thing is called a hack commercial artist.
Lester, Anon: I agree with what you said about Rothko. He's too minimal, too simplistic.
ReplyDeleteThe Fauves did start the style that evolved into what we have today. I love earlier realistic artists like Rubens, but the move toward simplicity was bound to come sooner or later.
You can see why when you attempt to paint something yourself, even something realistic. You become aware of the underlying principals and realize that they have an aesthetic appeal all their own, before they're covered up.
Lots of Rubens' preliminary oil sketches (called cartoons) survive, and you can see the obvious delight he took in making them.
Sometimes i think that Rubens, the greatest of traditional painters, was also the first modern painter. You can see the influence of his cartoons on Turner, and the influence of Turner on the Impressionists and people like Rothko.
You could say that Mozart's Magic Flute led to Gilbert and Sullivan, which led to Broadway. Modernism was bound to come. It was just a matter of time.
No doubt we've lost depth of thought in the modern era, but I don't blame modernist painters for that. Traditional realistic painting was becomming lackluster in the mid 19th century, and it was clear that new blood was needed. What saved traditional painting was illustration, which was decried at the time, but which we recognize as valid today.
When things have settled down a bit, and we can look at the history of art more objectively, I think we'll see that a lot (not all) of these different styles were valid. Now artists can choose the method that suits them best.
Both artists and the audiences for art are more shallow now, but that has more to do with the decline of aristocracy and religion than the corrupting influence of modern art, at least in my opinion.
Justin: I like Panter's Elvis Zombie, his famous Raw cover, and some of what he did for Pee Wee Herman, but these aren't typical for him. You better take a look at the book that surveys the whole of his work before making a decision about him. I love the guy, but it seems to me that he took a wrong turn into post-modernism, which was disasterous for his career.
I agree, and I wasn't criticizing any of these paintings at all which are awesome as much as the arbitrary distinction that puts some guys in the art encyclopedias as avant garde pop artists while geniuses like Gary Larson and Bill Watterson (and John K) aren't given much thought by the art world
ReplyDeleteWhat I can't stand is postmodern art and writing that goes out of it's way to be subversive and "break rules." I think it's great that with the internet and whatnot traditional authority and institutions have become increasingly irrelevant and if people like what you do you can make a living off of it. You don't really need to worry about getting a devastating review from an influential art critic like you did in the 40's. Serious literature is really the only artform left where it matters what an influential critic thinks.
This is why it bugs me when artists and writers go out of their way to be "meta" and break arbitrary rules that only 90 year old art critics and english professors still think are important. Irony and Postmodernism were a groundclearing of all the arbitrary rules and it is asinine to pretend you are being audacious by breaking them. Watching postmodern art today is like watching a pro democracy protester in France continuing to gleefully pound the remaining bricks from the Bastille into dust.
Also another post on postmodernism would be awesome, I love seeing you pick out specific examples of how sterile and dreary cartooning has become. If you do please pick out examples from Chris Ware's work.
ReplyDeleteInteresting find.
ReplyDeleteWhere I fell in love with Tim Biskup were the books of Business sized card paintings, where the cleaning of a brush became design then object. I like the bigger stuff as well of course. I only wish I could name more of his animation background work; the only thing I can think of off the top of my head is a fractured fairytale take from Vince Waller. Not sure if IMDB would be any help here.
ReplyDeleteI love Burke as well, he has probably kept me from totally denouncing Rolling Stone as a useless misguided out of touch magazine. Panter I am mostly familiar with his more commercial work; I only occasionally see what is probably his more prolific fine art stuff, (perhaps looking a lot like wallpaper design?) and I might have to share Uncle Eddies opinion of that as well, I only hope it has been fruitful for him.
Would Tim Biskup have gone more abstract if he had not kept a hand in the Gama-Go business? I still find his work marvelously balanced.
this is modern art? i'm surprised! i see this stuff and always thought it was an extension of cartooning..seriously...surrealism was deadly serious until it started showing up in advertising/animation, now its an accepted part of the mainstream lexicon, is that what happened to modern art? it got co-opted by cartoons, billboards, animation? im really surprised, i do this stuff sometimes, thought it was cartooning, one on me uncle eddie.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that really bugs me is all the second rate Andy Warhols out there.
ReplyDeletehttp://images.usatoday.com/news/_photos/2007/01/07/jolie-large.jpg stuff like this. The observation that celebrities and logos have replaced religious iconography as powerful symbols in our culture was already done perfectly by him and with far more subtletly. It seems like every other art school painting is is a hyperrealist painting of the pope shopping at Best Buy or The Last supper with Ronald Macdonald as Jesus and the rest of the Apostles being represented by fast food mascots.
It sucks how cartoons have stopped contributing symbols and ideas so original they become cliches to our culture. It really bothers me how shows like Family Guy act like they're being clever by drawing a character walk like an accordian or quote Daffy Duck, whenever I see a character walk in a distinctive or funny way I just assume they're referencing a movie I haven't watched. Why try to plumb your own subconscious when you can just steal imagery from Lewis Carrol and Salvadore Dali.
Eddie: I own the book. Yeah, there's plenty of new work by Panter I don't like. I love his older Jimbo comics, that Raw cover, and the Elvis Zombies though... I don't know. I've still got my heart set on going to SVA mainly because it would be a ton of fun. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteThis is pretty off topic, but Anon's comment about comics being sterile reminded me how a lot of comics out there have an inking style that looks like it was inspired by "Eightball". It's a style that deadens most drawings and I see it everywhere.
ReplyDeleteIf you like Tim Biskup you should check out Nathan Jurevicius, he's an illustrator and comic book artist who does some really beautiful work, he also created this wonderful game as a spin-off to his Scary Girl comic http://www.scarygirl.com/world.php?level=peninsula
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.koldcast.tv/2010/koldcast-news/a-brief-history-of-notable-animation-makeovers/ Does anyone elses blood boil reading lists like these? Bugs Bunny in particular "look how modern he looks!"
ReplyDeleteIn pretty much example the characters go from loose and organic to modern designy garbage and that's seen as progress. I honestly am shocked at how civil John K is to all the "what about Fairly Odd Parents?" wieners that comment on his blog.
Anonymous 6:30
ReplyDeleteOkay, the "Tom and Jerry" example made me laugh out loud. The "before" example used was from a Gene Deitch short (High Steaks, to be specific), not the original Hanna-Barbera series!