Ivan Brunetti is a genius who nonetheless believes that anyone can do what he does. And maybe he's right. In any case, I hope this little video encourages you to pick up Aesthetics: A Memoir, because it's boss!
And speaking of genius cartoonists, Dan Clowes is about to have an exhibit at the MCA in Chicago. (I wish a museum in Houston would give an exhibit to a cartoonist like Clowes.) There are a few photos from the install on his website.
A fake solution to the Museum Tower/Nasher Sculpture Center reflected light controversy. Museum Tower is a mirror clad skyscraper that reflects bright hot light down into the Museum District in Dallas, including into the Nasher Sculpture Center. The two institutions have been fighting it out, and Museum Tower has essentially come up with a solution that involves replacing the Nasher's innovative roof with a variation on the current design that would prevent reflected light from Museum Tower from directly entering the building. But the problem is that it doesn't do anything for the Nasher's sculpture garden or the neighborhood around the Nasher. And as Walkable DFW puts it, it doesn't really address the real issue.
I've measured temperatures on the sidewalks exceeding 130 F. [T]he specifics of this spat are far less important than future zoning implications of every other property from here to eternity? How much can your property (and what is your right) to degrade the surrounding environment, public space, and properties? This has been answered throughout the years (see: lead smelters and various other LULUs or Locally Undesirable Land Uses), but progress has a way of always bringing new issues to the fore. In this case, that is LEED or (supposedly) green design which emphasizes cooling inside of buildings naturally through (in this case) reflectivity and in this case that means at the expense of everything around it. [...] I've maintained from the beginning this HAS to go to court to establish a precedent to how similar issues are addressed in the future. Less mess, more straight forward, but MT/Nasher spat is the battle to spare the war. [Walkable DFW, June 13, 2013]
Museum Tower put up a website about their proposed solution with a really slick video (which I can't embed, unfortunately) where they don't mention the temperature of the sculpture garden or the surrounding sidewalks at all. They solve the problem by just not talking about it.
This was the invitation to Trenton Doyle Hancock's new show at James Cohan Gallery in New York. The lenticular card shows two images, one of the works in the show, As U Now Enliven a Test..., and a photo of the artist wearing glasses with drawn, bulging eyeballs on the lenses. This is a clue to the work. Hancock's subject is himself. It's quite a change from his earlier world-building project. This world, involving the human/vegetable hybrids called the "mounds" and the fallen ape-men known as "vegans," is delineated in great detail in his book, Me A Mound.
When you look at Hancock's work, it's obvious he is influenced by underground comics and art comics. But this influence is not just stylistic, but thematic. His early work involved taking a fairly odd (and indeed out-and-out silly) concept and building an entire world out of it with its own mythology, history, geography, etc. This is something that happens a lot with young alternative cartoonists. Sometimes they never progress beyond it--Dave Sim is a classic example of someone who took a jokey concept (a sword-wielding barbarian like Conan except he's an aardvark) and turning it into a career of sorts. The basic (and intentional) stupidity of the original concept his comic Cerebus was forgotten as it became a 25-year project. Chester Brown's serialized Ed the Happy Clown threatened to become something similarly overblown, but Brown nipped it in the bud. It wasn't the expressive vehicle that was going to see him through his 30s and 40s. Daniel Clowes must have had a similar revelation after spending several years drawing his jokey, amusing Lloyd Llewellyn comics followed by his deliciously creepy Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron. Clowes and Brown moved beyond these surreal sins of their youth into a kind of realism (loosely defined). Brown in particular started producing autobiographical stories.
This is not to say that their earlier work was bad. It's simply that it had an end-point. The one cartoonist who failed to realize this, Dave Sim, ended up creating a bizarre, cranky work that survives as an eccentric but occasionally brilliant artifact of comics instead of what he apparently wanted, a Gesamtkunstwerk that incorporated philosophy and religion and myth into its massive structure. Hancock might have ended up producing a body of art that was the equivalent of Cerebus if he had continued to elaborate on the mounds and vegans. Instead, he has followed the path of Chester Brown in a way, creating a body of work that is highly personal.
Trenton Doyle Hancock, The Irreducible Crucible, 2012, mixed media collage on canvas, 18" x 24"
Many works in the show are self-portraits--although with The Irreducible Crucible, one might night deduce that without Hancock writing "I AM TDH" on the piece itself. Hancock may be using himself as a subject, but he has not suddenly become a realist. His hyperactive style, full of surreal distortions, remains active in this new body of work.
Trenton Doyle Hancock, ...and then it All Came Back to Me, 2011, mixed media on paper, 9" x 8"
Trenton Doyle Hancock, As U Now Enliven a Test, 2012, acrylic mixed media on canvas, 24" x 24"
Trenton Doyle Hancock, If You're Too Fat, You Should Buy Clothes That Fit, 2012, acrylic mixed media on canvas, 14" x 11" x 3/4"
The bulging bloodshot eyes make me think these three portraits are of Hancock himself (if only because of the way he depicted himself on the lenticular invitation.) These two portraits depict a mouthless figure with bands of black and white fun on their faces. Or possibly the fur is a mask. The bulging eyes suggest surprise or awe. The black and white stripes could refer to a racial self-conception--particularly is you read them as details of a mask that the character is wearing. The images are arresting. The vigorous drawing reminds of Gary Panter, an artist Hancock has acknowledged as an influence.
Trenton Doyle Hancock, The Everlasting Arms, version #2, 2010, acrylic mixed media on canvas, 60 x 60"
The black/white theme is present in The Everlasting Arms as well. Certain motifs are repeated in many of the works. The combinations of black, white, grey and pink color schemes. Graphic raindrop shapes, red or pink, perhaps symbolic of blood. (The fact that the two arms are severed reinforces the blood interpretation. But the oozing sores with their black pus suggests the arms were removed as a prophylactic precaution instead of by violence. Whatever the reason for their removal, it is one disturbing image.)
Trenton Doyle Hancock, All Things Known and Nothing to Own, 2012, acrylic mixed media on canvas, 10" x 8" x 3/4" All Things Known and Nothing to Own again brings us the black, white, grey and pink color scheme. The pink forms a kind of penumbra around the face, as in If You're Too Fat, You Should Buy Clothes That Fit and ...and then it All Came Back to Me. But All Things Known and Nothing to Own adds another pink feature, the figure's enormous lips. While Hancock's work owes a debt to ccomics and cartoons, this piece reminds us of the way African-Americans were often treated-visually and as characters--in comics strips and books in the past. This figure could be an aged "Ebony" from Will Eisner's The Spirit. But at the same time, it come across as yet another version of TDH himself.
Trenton Doyle Hancock, The Former and the Ladder or Ascension and a Clinchin', 2012, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 84" x 132" x 3"
Trenton Doyle Hancock, The Former and the Ladder or Ascension and a Clinchin' detail, 2012, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 84" x 132" x 3"
When I saw the above image in my Sunday paper, I nearly fell out of my chair. I'm so used to the Chron giving short shrift to things I personally like that I was instantly suspicious. I figured it would be some AP story or something. But no, it's a lengthy feature by Chron writer Andrew Dansby (who also has another piece in Zest today on rock stars who die of cancer). It's exactly the kind of newspaper feature you would want to see on an artist like Dan Clowes--respectful, informative, not written from the point of view of "Wow, can you believe a grown man does these bang! zoom! comics except they're serious and for adults?!"
Of course, it was almost exactly a year ago I put on a show of comic art by Marc Bell and Jim Woodring at Lawndale. How did the Chronicle cover Walpurgis Afternoon? Ignored it. What can I say? The Clowes piece is progress in a way.
There are artists and there are people who involve themselves with art. This latter group includes gallerists, curators, critics, collectors, art space and museum directors, grant administrators, art school deans and directors, etc. Let's call the latter group gatekeepers, because their work involves exercising judgment about art. The two groups overlap. And in that overlap lies the possibility of ethical mischief.
The gatekeepers bestow artistic capital on the artists by choosing them. We may struggle with these choices, disagree with them, disagree with the very notion that a choice must be made and certainly with the theoretical frameworks on which the choices are made, whether stated or implicit. But in the end, there is more art produced than can be experienced , displayed, written about, or collected. There necessarily needs to be a culling process. Gatekeepers do this.
And each time a gatekeeper acts, an artist benefits. She gets some artistic capital (which, with luck, can be turned into economic capital). For example, every year Lawndale Art Center brings in a guest curator to act as the juror for The Big Show. In 2009, the juror was Laura Fried, who is an assistant curator at the St. Louis Contemporary Art Museum. Now the Big Show doesn't bestow a ton of artistic capital on the artists it shows. You haven't made it just because you had a piece in the Big Show. But it gives you a little artistic capital. You get seen by a lot of people. You get a line on your resume. And if you're lucky, you might sell a piece. That's what happened to Jed Foronda. Foronda is a young Houston artist who had two pieces in the 2009 show. I liked them and contacted him. Were they for sale? He said yes. So I bought one of them. So Foronda's artistic capital was turned into a small but nice chunk of economic capital.
But he also gained additional artistic capital by being collected. Different collectors bestow different levels of capital, of course. Charles Saatchi gives an artist he's collecting more artistic capital than, say, John and Becca Thrash, who in turn give a lot more than me. We're all collectors, but as collectors, our stock of artistic capital to spend varies wildly. But I give additional artistic capital above and beyond the meager supply I have as a collector because I'm also a critic. Foronda benefits from me not just because I bought a piece of his, but because I've written about his art. This is the way a critic bestows artistic capital. I've generally written good things about Foronda's art--but even if I had criticized it, he would have gotten a little artistic capital because being criticized by name means that your art is worth thinking about.
Jed Foronda, The Wheels Keep On Spinning (detail), masonite, magazines, 2009
But Foronda's stock of artistic capital is still pretty low. He hasn't had a solo exhibit (as far as I know), which would be how a curator would shell out artistic capital, nor is he represented by a commercial gallery (as far as I know), which is the main way a gallerist pays out artistic capital.
The reason I'm talking about this is because the ability to bestow artistic capital is power. And power can be abused.
Dan Clowes, from "The Artist's Life" (collected in Pussey!)1993
This abuse can be overt and obviously malign, as in these panels from one of Dan Clowes's scabrous "Dan Pussey" stories. But a different ethical issue for gatekeepers came up in conversation this weekend. What if you are a gatekeeper? You have an artistic soul, and maybe you studied art. Maybe you're a Sunday painter. Do you exhibit your own art? Do you promote yourself as an artist, in addition to being a (gallerist, critic, curator, collector, etc.)?
My answer is that you probably shouldn't because you already have some power, some artistic capital to spend. If someone else wants to be on the receiving end of your artistic capital, they won't want to turn you down when you ask to be in a group exhibit or gallery show, or if you ask to have your stuff reviewed. So because of the power you have, you may displace an artist who has no power. You, as a gatekeeper with artistic capital to spare, might prevent an artist with none from being in an exhibit or a group show, all because of your own artistic vanity.
The thing is, there are curators and artists and gallery managers and owners and even collectors who do their own artwork. They are sincere and serious artists. But for me, from an ethical point of view, they need to be very careful about what they do with their art. They need to make sure that they are not getting shown because of their position in the art world, because of the artistic capital they have in their pockets to spend. In general, I think they should err on the side of not being exhibited. But that might be my inner goody-two-shoes talking.
Birchfield Close by Jon McNaught
This tiny book is a designer's notion of a good comic. It contains a variety of suburban vignettes, all of which appear as if you are an observer standing some distance away from them, quietly observing them and taking note. They don't cohere into a story or even have much relationship to one another. You see part of some television show. You see a cyclist fall off his bike and pick himself up. You see the aerial ballet of a large flock of birds. It's all rather impersonal, and the art reflects that. It's a lovely, gemlike piece of work.
Moving Pictures, written by Kathryn Immonen and drawn by Stuart Immonen
Set in an interesting milieu (the Louvre during World War II), this book is doomed by its pointlessly oblique storytelling, its terrible dialogue, and its characterless art. Apparently Stuart Immonen is a popular mainstream (i.e., super-hero) comics artist. I am unfamiliar with that work, but here he seems to be attempting a clear line style. His work resembles that of Paul Grist, but he lacks Grist's dynamism and humanity.
Weathercraft by Jim Woodring
One doesn't "review" a story like this. One genuflects before it. Mysterious as usual, we see what seems like a near redemption of that most human of creatures, Manhog.
Wally Gropius by Tim Hensley
Hensley has always been a talent to watch. Prior to this book, the coolest thing I had from him was a soundtrack he recorded for Dan Clowes' Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron. This book takes a lot from Clowes. Like Clowes, Hensley has an interest in the minimalist anonymous comics for small children from the 1960s and 70s. Wally Gropius is not merely a pastiche of them. I hesitate to say it is a deconstruction, because that implies a certain logical approach. Instead, Wally Gropius reads like an attempt by an alien civilization to communicate with us, having only read these comics prior to the attempt. Meaning is struggling to come to the surface of this sea of signs.
Superf*ckers by James Kochalka Superf*ckers is a seriously funny idea, and it works for a good chunk of this book. It starts to run out of steam in the end, though. The superhero team here are a bunch of hard-partying teenagers. Instead of incomprehensible teenage super teams like the New Mutants or the Teen Titans, this team acts more like the cast of a reality show. And that's really funny. Kochalka's intensely colored art here is really pleasing as well.
Wilson by Dan Clowes
Really deserves a long, analytic review. Suffice it to say here that Wilson is really good--a story of a deeply unpleasant misanthrope told in a visually interesting and formally inventive way. It's good to see Clowes not working on mediocre movies and instead doing really great comics--the thing he was born to do.
It Was the War of the Trenches by Jacques Tardi
Another book that deserves a long, detailed review. It's a great one that you must own if you are serious about comics as art. One thing that struck me is how indebted Tardi is to Louis Ferdinand Celine. Celine's cynical "fuck it" attitude permeates French cultural production, and It Was the War of the Trenches is no exception. In this series of short stories, the luckless protagonists seem to be asking, over and over again, "Can you believe how fucked up this is?"
[From the Drawn & Quarterly blog] As if that isn't the best news ever, Dan embarks on his tour next week. So new Clowes book and the chance to see him in person? Oh wait, did I mention a slide show, because we just put it together and it is fantastic! What could be better, well if you live in Boston you get to see Ghost World after the event, which Dan will introduce!!!
