The Case Against Roy Lichtenstein
September 23, 2024 7:43 AM Subscribe
over the past few weeks and months, the talk around Lichtenstein been more about his appropriation of the work from comic artists and less about his impact on the art world. Jonathan Bailey, Plagiarism Today, 2023
The reason for that is the release of a new documentary entitled Whaam! Blam! Roy Lichtenstein and the Art of Appropriation. Though released in November 2022, the documentary has been getting a great deal of media attention in the recent weeks, including The Guardian, CBR, Artnet News and more.
Though I’ve long been familiar with the allegations against Lichtenstein, I was curious to see if the documentary provided any new information or at least new arguments in favor or against the artist.
But, while there wasn’t that much new information to be found, the documentary did a fantastic job of humanizing the issue, making me think about both sides of the debate and reach some new realizations.
So, I’m going to first review the documentary itself and then look at some of the points made in it and offer my thoughts on them.
The reason for that is the release of a new documentary entitled Whaam! Blam! Roy Lichtenstein and the Art of Appropriation. Though released in November 2022, the documentary has been getting a great deal of media attention in the recent weeks, including The Guardian, CBR, Artnet News and more.
Though I’ve long been familiar with the allegations against Lichtenstein, I was curious to see if the documentary provided any new information or at least new arguments in favor or against the artist.
But, while there wasn’t that much new information to be found, the documentary did a fantastic job of humanizing the issue, making me think about both sides of the debate and reach some new realizations.
So, I’m going to first review the documentary itself and then look at some of the points made in it and offer my thoughts on them.
"In music for instance, you can’t just whistle somebody else’s tune or perform somebody else’s tune, no matter how badly, without somehow crediting and giving payment to the original artist. That’s to say, this is "WHAMM!, by Roy Lichtenstein, after Irv Novick" : Dave Gibbons-- from a 2013 BBC documentary as quoted in The Principality of Lichtenstein by Paul Gravett. Retrieved September 23, 2024.
posted by dannyboybell at 8:26 AM on September 23 [5 favorites]
posted by dannyboybell at 8:26 AM on September 23 [5 favorites]
In music for instance, you can’t just whistle somebody else’s tune or perform somebody else’s tune, no matter how badly, without somehow crediting and giving payment to the original artist.
In the early days of sampling that is precisely what people were doing. And the whole vaporwave genre is absolutely loaded to the gills with uncleared samples. But then of course we have horrible decisions like Blurred Lines.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:04 AM on September 23 [14 favorites]
In the early days of sampling that is precisely what people were doing. And the whole vaporwave genre is absolutely loaded to the gills with uncleared samples. But then of course we have horrible decisions like Blurred Lines.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:04 AM on September 23 [14 favorites]
Jonathan Bailey, Plagiarism Today, 2023
One of the few outlets apart from Wikipedia where originality really counts against you.
(Also imagining an Airplane-like sequence where the camera zooms in on someone reading Plagiarism Today and every page is like, the openig lines of A Tale of Two Cities.)
posted by mubba at 9:10 AM on September 23 [18 favorites]
One of the few outlets apart from Wikipedia where originality really counts against you.
(Also imagining an Airplane-like sequence where the camera zooms in on someone reading Plagiarism Today and every page is like, the openig lines of A Tale of Two Cities.)
posted by mubba at 9:10 AM on September 23 [18 favorites]
The only way to view Lichtenstein’s work as transformative is if you view comic artists as unworthy or lesser than that of “real” artists.This is the long and short of it. There's no actual "debate" about what Lichtenstein did and never was. He's unquestionably a plagiarist but he plagiarized from artists the art world (and the world in general) considers trash so it's apparently okay because he elevated the trash.
This, clearly, is the view the art community still holds when it comes to Lichtenstein.
posted by star gentle uterus at 9:14 AM on September 23 [32 favorites]
I take a pretty extreme stance when it comes to art. If you don't want art to be copied or emulated, then do not show it. Anything once seen by another becomes a kind of public property, you share an idea, that idea is out in the world, it is not yours anymore. The concept of intellectual property itself is nonsense.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:19 AM on September 23 [5 favorites]
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:19 AM on September 23 [5 favorites]
Great, but that's not the issue people have here. It's about Lichtenstein being celebrated by the high art world while the original artists not only aren't credited they remain actively held in contempt by those very same people. Even in a world free of the concept of IP ownership surely you'd agree that you should at least acknowledge the artists whose work you are using? And that if you're being celebrated for their work it's not a good thing that the original artists continue to be treated as lesser?
posted by star gentle uterus at 9:21 AM on September 23 [16 favorites]
posted by star gentle uterus at 9:21 AM on September 23 [16 favorites]
It's about Lichtenstein being celebrated by the high art world while the original artists not only aren't credited they remain actively held in contempt by those very same people.There's no contradiction here?
posted by kickingtheground at 9:34 AM on September 23
> The concept of intellectual property itself is nonsense.
I find that this sentiment usually comes from people who don't create anything worth plagiarizing. Dedicated artists put in considerable effort, often for little reward. Then the plagiarist arrives, and free from the burden of expending time and effort on doing the actual valuable work, they can dedicate their time to turning a profit from it. And they won't be bothered to put your lowly name in their mealy mouths, they just proclaim "I made this!" while you pay their mortgage.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 9:34 AM on September 23 [25 favorites]
I find that this sentiment usually comes from people who don't create anything worth plagiarizing. Dedicated artists put in considerable effort, often for little reward. Then the plagiarist arrives, and free from the burden of expending time and effort on doing the actual valuable work, they can dedicate their time to turning a profit from it. And they won't be bothered to put your lowly name in their mealy mouths, they just proclaim "I made this!" while you pay their mortgage.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 9:34 AM on September 23 [25 favorites]
There's no contradiction here?
kickingtheground
Only if you accept the point of view that Lichtenstein transformed and elevated the original art, which as noted above is bullshit.
posted by star gentle uterus at 9:37 AM on September 23 [4 favorites]
kickingtheground
Only if you accept the point of view that Lichtenstein transformed and elevated the original art, which as noted above is bullshit.
posted by star gentle uterus at 9:37 AM on September 23 [4 favorites]
> If you don't want art to be copied or emulated, then do not show it.
And if you don't want people complaining that you copy other people's work, then don't copy other people's work.
posted by chasing at 9:43 AM on September 23 [15 favorites]
And if you don't want people complaining that you copy other people's work, then don't copy other people's work.
posted by chasing at 9:43 AM on September 23 [15 favorites]
Walk around any of the world's major galleries and you're as likely as not to see paintings that were once attributed to Rembrandt that are now attributed to "Rembrandt's studio" or "Johannes Blovius, after Rembrandt" or the like. If it's good enough for The Man with the Golden Helmet, it's good enough for Whaam!
Unless, of course, you think comics aren't art—in which case what are you even responding to in Lichtenstein's '60s work in the first place? The colours, the lines, the size of the canvas? He did later paintings in a similar style that weren't appropriations but were interior scenes and the like. Strangely enough, those aren't the ones everyone remembers...
I liked (still like) his pop art because I like comics. I'd like it more if the sources were given their due. At this point it's just changing an information panel next to a painting, it isn't as if you can't enjoy the painting itself.
posted by rory at 9:44 AM on September 23 [10 favorites]
Unless, of course, you think comics aren't art—in which case what are you even responding to in Lichtenstein's '60s work in the first place? The colours, the lines, the size of the canvas? He did later paintings in a similar style that weren't appropriations but were interior scenes and the like. Strangely enough, those aren't the ones everyone remembers...
I liked (still like) his pop art because I like comics. I'd like it more if the sources were given their due. At this point it's just changing an information panel next to a painting, it isn't as if you can't enjoy the painting itself.
posted by rory at 9:44 AM on September 23 [10 favorites]
Those poor graphic designers at Campbell's Soup. :(
posted by LionIndex at 9:48 AM on September 23 [10 favorites]
posted by LionIndex at 9:48 AM on September 23 [10 favorites]
>> The concept of intellectual property itself is nonsense.
> I find that this sentiment usually comes from people who don't create anything worth plagiarizing.
Yup! It's utterly condescending.
Maybe the thinking is that it, like, sticks to to Disney or whatever. "I'm going to watch 'Deadpool and Wolverine' but not pay for it — ha!" But Disney will be fine. When you're against intellectual property laws you're actually hurting independent artists who really need their protection to survive. You stick it to Disney by being *in favor of* intellectual property laws and then supporting independent artists.
posted by chasing at 9:49 AM on September 23 [7 favorites]
> I find that this sentiment usually comes from people who don't create anything worth plagiarizing.
Yup! It's utterly condescending.
Maybe the thinking is that it, like, sticks to to Disney or whatever. "I'm going to watch 'Deadpool and Wolverine' but not pay for it — ha!" But Disney will be fine. When you're against intellectual property laws you're actually hurting independent artists who really need their protection to survive. You stick it to Disney by being *in favor of* intellectual property laws and then supporting independent artists.
posted by chasing at 9:49 AM on September 23 [7 favorites]
I wonder if any of the cartoonists ever approached any high end gallery with their "art"?..I"m a fan of Nancy strip cartoons myself...
posted by Czjewel at 9:52 AM on September 23 [2 favorites]
posted by Czjewel at 9:52 AM on September 23 [2 favorites]
Those poor graphic designers at Campbell's Soup. :(
Comic art isn't graphic design, though.
But hey, if your graphic design is by a famous artist, everyone will celebrate it!
Lichtenstein only got away with it because he was painting a decade before comics artists started being given proper credit by publishers. Imagine trying it now with a panel by Dave Gibbons or Bill Sienkiewicz.
posted by rory at 9:53 AM on September 23 [6 favorites]
Comic art isn't graphic design, though.
But hey, if your graphic design is by a famous artist, everyone will celebrate it!
Lichtenstein only got away with it because he was painting a decade before comics artists started being given proper credit by publishers. Imagine trying it now with a panel by Dave Gibbons or Bill Sienkiewicz.
posted by rory at 9:53 AM on September 23 [6 favorites]
Anything once seen by another becomes a kind of public property, you share an idea, that idea is out in the world, it is not yours anymore. The concept of intellectual property itself is nonsense.
Creative works are not ideas, and to call them such is to devalue creative labor. To argue that the actual work put in by creative laborers somehow becomes "public property" because they want to put the fruits of their labor before others is an anti-labor position that deserves only scorn.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:54 AM on September 23 [19 favorites]
Creative works are not ideas, and to call them such is to devalue creative labor. To argue that the actual work put in by creative laborers somehow becomes "public property" because they want to put the fruits of their labor before others is an anti-labor position that deserves only scorn.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:54 AM on September 23 [19 favorites]
I wonder if any of the cartoonists ever approached any high end gallery with their "art"?.
Czjewel
Genuinely, why the scare quotes? Do you really not consider the work of cartoonists art?
posted by star gentle uterus at 9:54 AM on September 23 [5 favorites]
Czjewel
Genuinely, why the scare quotes? Do you really not consider the work of cartoonists art?
posted by star gentle uterus at 9:54 AM on September 23 [5 favorites]
It has slowly become clear to me (John Barger had something to do with it) that the important function of the cultural institution of establishment "high art" is too often about the normalizing, codifying, and ennobling of social stratification and inequality. I see the piratical curation activity of the Lichtensteins and the Princes as very much a part of that. "We have sorted through the hopeless chaff of comic books / commercial advertising / Instagram, to find this one kernel of wheat that we hereby designate capital-A Art, so that our patrons don't have to." It's an elaborate pantomime, a ceremony that is it's own purpose.
posted by Western Infidels at 9:58 AM on September 23 [11 favorites]
posted by Western Infidels at 9:58 AM on September 23 [11 favorites]
I wonder if any of the cartoonists ever approached any high end gallery with their "art"?
Hirohiko Araki has had showings of his Jojo's Bizzare Adventure work at the Louvre (and even did a commissioned manga for the museum centered around his self-insert character.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:58 AM on September 23 [3 favorites]
Hirohiko Araki has had showings of his Jojo's Bizzare Adventure work at the Louvre (and even did a commissioned manga for the museum centered around his self-insert character.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:58 AM on September 23 [3 favorites]
Only if you accept the point of view that Lichtenstein transformed and elevated the original art, which as noted above is bullshit.
What a load of codswallop. "Elevated", sure, but Lichtenstein's work is absolutely transformative, significant, and valuable regardless of your opinion of the artistic merit of comic art, just as Richard Prince's cowboys are transformative, significant, and valuable regardless of your opinion of the artistic merit of commercial art (and, for the record, I hold both comics and commercial art as capital-A "Art" in the same league as anything in a gallery). Removed from their narrative and commercial context, re-scaled (ridiculously so, in Lichtenstein's case), and re-situated, the works simply hit the eye and brain differently than their source. In both cases, for me, the works gave me a deeper appreciation of the art and craft of their source material as well. I always viewed Lichtenstein's work (whatever the artist's intent, which really doesn't matter to me) as helping me see the art in comics and the relationship of that art to culture more broadly, rather than blessing comics with the status of art-qua-art.
None of this is to say that both Lichtenstein and Prince (and the art world more broadly) don't owe their source material a lot more than they were ever willing to grant. But that failure of the artists doesn't detract from the work in my eyes.
posted by multics at 10:03 AM on September 23 [26 favorites]
What a load of codswallop. "Elevated", sure, but Lichtenstein's work is absolutely transformative, significant, and valuable regardless of your opinion of the artistic merit of comic art, just as Richard Prince's cowboys are transformative, significant, and valuable regardless of your opinion of the artistic merit of commercial art (and, for the record, I hold both comics and commercial art as capital-A "Art" in the same league as anything in a gallery). Removed from their narrative and commercial context, re-scaled (ridiculously so, in Lichtenstein's case), and re-situated, the works simply hit the eye and brain differently than their source. In both cases, for me, the works gave me a deeper appreciation of the art and craft of their source material as well. I always viewed Lichtenstein's work (whatever the artist's intent, which really doesn't matter to me) as helping me see the art in comics and the relationship of that art to culture more broadly, rather than blessing comics with the status of art-qua-art.
None of this is to say that both Lichtenstein and Prince (and the art world more broadly) don't owe their source material a lot more than they were ever willing to grant. But that failure of the artists doesn't detract from the work in my eyes.
posted by multics at 10:03 AM on September 23 [26 favorites]
> None of this is to say that both Lichtenstein and Prince (and the art world more broadly) don't owe their source material a lot more than they were ever willing to grant.
That's kind of the point, no?
posted by chasing at 10:09 AM on September 23 [8 favorites]
That's kind of the point, no?
posted by chasing at 10:09 AM on September 23 [8 favorites]
star gentle uterus...If anything and everything is art...including my cats painting in gauche, then doesn't it devalue all art. I never heard the term scare quotes...cute.
posted by Czjewel at 10:10 AM on September 23 [1 favorite]
posted by Czjewel at 10:10 AM on September 23 [1 favorite]
(Also, when seen side-by-side Lichtenstein's pieces are simply not as good as the originals. They're generally flatter, less emotive, less dynamic. The lines on faces aren't as well-placed. If Lichtenstein's innovation was curation and the idea that comic panels could be blown up and shown in galleries: Fine. But instead of showing his poor copies, maybe just select and enlarge the originals? Way more interesting.)
posted by chasing at 10:12 AM on September 23 [9 favorites]
posted by chasing at 10:12 AM on September 23 [9 favorites]
including my cats painting in gauche
You consider the work of cartoonists the equivalent of animals playing in paint?
I never heard the term scare quotes...cute.
What's it like coming out of cryosleep in 2024? Must be a shock.
posted by star gentle uterus at 10:16 AM on September 23 [8 favorites]
You consider the work of cartoonists the equivalent of animals playing in paint?
I never heard the term scare quotes...cute.
What's it like coming out of cryosleep in 2024? Must be a shock.
posted by star gentle uterus at 10:16 AM on September 23 [8 favorites]
Removed from their narrative and commercial context, re-scaled (ridiculously so, in Lichtenstein's case), and re-situated, the works simply hit the eye and brain differently than their source.
multics
Then just display enlarged versions of the originals if you actually want "a deeper appreciation of the art and craft of their source material as well".
You only repeat that "high art" nonsense because ultimately, despite your protestations, you have been trained to view the originals as beneath real consideration as art that require "transformation" by a Real Artist.
posted by star gentle uterus at 10:21 AM on September 23 [4 favorites]
multics
Then just display enlarged versions of the originals if you actually want "a deeper appreciation of the art and craft of their source material as well".
You only repeat that "high art" nonsense because ultimately, despite your protestations, you have been trained to view the originals as beneath real consideration as art that require "transformation" by a Real Artist.
posted by star gentle uterus at 10:21 AM on September 23 [4 favorites]
Suddenly I really want to know what Duchamp would think of all of this.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:24 AM on September 23 [4 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:24 AM on September 23 [4 favorites]
It would be very interesting if we could rewind history and run experiments, wouldn't it?
Imagine Lichtenstein had collaborated with the original artists and rights-holders, created his big comic-style paintings with their blessing, with appropriate credit, perhaps even with revenue sharing. Did those versions, which were not divorced from their source material, make it in the gallery world? Or were they considered silly? An affront?
Imagine Richard Prince attached an artist's statement to "Untitled (Cowboy)" that said "I photographed a Marlboro billboard and I'd like you to pay me $3 million dollars for that now thank you." Did that one sell? Did that one even get onto the gallery wall in the first place?
I can't claim to know the answer, but my suspicion is that the context matters, that the erasure of the context matters, that the erasure of the context is sometimes very much part of the service on offer when cultural artifacts are exchanged for money.
posted by Western Infidels at 10:40 AM on September 23 [10 favorites]
Imagine Lichtenstein had collaborated with the original artists and rights-holders, created his big comic-style paintings with their blessing, with appropriate credit, perhaps even with revenue sharing. Did those versions, which were not divorced from their source material, make it in the gallery world? Or were they considered silly? An affront?
Imagine Richard Prince attached an artist's statement to "Untitled (Cowboy)" that said "I photographed a Marlboro billboard and I'd like you to pay me $3 million dollars for that now thank you." Did that one sell? Did that one even get onto the gallery wall in the first place?
I can't claim to know the answer, but my suspicion is that the context matters, that the erasure of the context matters, that the erasure of the context is sometimes very much part of the service on offer when cultural artifacts are exchanged for money.
posted by Western Infidels at 10:40 AM on September 23 [10 favorites]
I not been aware that Lichtenstein had been wholesale copying from other works. I think less of him now.
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:41 AM on September 23 [3 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:41 AM on September 23 [3 favorites]
Comic art isn't graphic design, though.
So Andy gets a pass because commercial design is less expressive than comics? I’m not really sure how else to read that.
posted by not just everyday big moggies at 10:44 AM on September 23 [2 favorites]
So Andy gets a pass because commercial design is less expressive than comics? I’m not really sure how else to read that.
posted by not just everyday big moggies at 10:44 AM on September 23 [2 favorites]
You only repeat that "high art" nonsense because ultimately, despite your protestations, you have been trained to view the originals as beneath real consideration as art that require "transformation" by a Real Artist.
You're just wrong. I encountered comics and appreciated them as real, first-class art long before I ever saw a Lichtenstein, and my encounter with his work only deepened my appreciation for the source material. I appreciate Lichtenstein (and, again, Prince) because I love comics.
Don't project your biases on other people, or presume to understand how they relate to art and culture.
posted by multics at 10:45 AM on September 23 [12 favorites]
You're just wrong. I encountered comics and appreciated them as real, first-class art long before I ever saw a Lichtenstein, and my encounter with his work only deepened my appreciation for the source material. I appreciate Lichtenstein (and, again, Prince) because I love comics.
Don't project your biases on other people, or presume to understand how they relate to art and culture.
posted by multics at 10:45 AM on September 23 [12 favorites]
his work only deepened my appreciation for the source material.
Then, again, why not just appreciate the source material directly?
You say Lichtenstein transformed the source material by re-scaling, recontextualizing, and re-situating the source material. That is, he blew up the originals and hung that in a gallery. But the only reason we're having this conversation is because the original work would never have been allowed to be displayed in a gallery at all. If you did the exact same thing, tried to display large versions of the original work as the original work by the original artists, you would have been laughed out of town if you could even find a space that would let you attempt it.
Lichtenstein added nothing, he was just the middle-man that provided the veneer of respectability never afforded to the originals.
posted by star gentle uterus at 10:53 AM on September 23 [9 favorites]
Then, again, why not just appreciate the source material directly?
You say Lichtenstein transformed the source material by re-scaling, recontextualizing, and re-situating the source material. That is, he blew up the originals and hung that in a gallery. But the only reason we're having this conversation is because the original work would never have been allowed to be displayed in a gallery at all. If you did the exact same thing, tried to display large versions of the original work as the original work by the original artists, you would have been laughed out of town if you could even find a space that would let you attempt it.
Lichtenstein added nothing, he was just the middle-man that provided the veneer of respectability never afforded to the originals.
posted by star gentle uterus at 10:53 AM on September 23 [9 favorites]
So Andy gets a pass because commercial design is less expressive than comics?
Andy gets a pass because those designers have already been paid and don't have ownership over the designs - Campbell's does. So his art can rightfully be described as commentary on commercial culture, which at the time was very dominant. Like, who cares if you appropriate Campbell's? Or McDonald's? Or Sears? Or whatever.
Comics are different - they are art, and connected directly to the artists who created them. They get a lot more respect now than they used to, which is why this is a FPP at all.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:07 AM on September 23 [5 favorites]
Andy gets a pass because those designers have already been paid and don't have ownership over the designs - Campbell's does. So his art can rightfully be described as commentary on commercial culture, which at the time was very dominant. Like, who cares if you appropriate Campbell's? Or McDonald's? Or Sears? Or whatever.
Comics are different - they are art, and connected directly to the artists who created them. They get a lot more respect now than they used to, which is why this is a FPP at all.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:07 AM on September 23 [5 favorites]
If Lichtenstein had licensed the work he used, the original artists still wouldn't have seen a dime. Guys like Hy Eisman and Russ Heath would have been on work-for-hire contracts, and copyright in their work was assigned to the publishers. Intellectual property laws protect rights-holders, not artists.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 11:13 AM on September 23 [12 favorites]
posted by Gerald Bostock at 11:13 AM on September 23 [12 favorites]
Warhol and Lichtenstein were both hacks managing to fleece the very wealthy with churned out faux-sophisticated art. But Warhol was cool.
posted by pattern juggler at 11:21 AM on September 23 [4 favorites]
posted by pattern juggler at 11:21 AM on September 23 [4 favorites]
fimbulvetr> Relevant Calvin and Hobbes.
I have this very strong urge to paint a copy of the third panel of this now.
posted by egypturnash at 11:25 AM on September 23 [5 favorites]
I have this very strong urge to paint a copy of the third panel of this now.
posted by egypturnash at 11:25 AM on September 23 [5 favorites]
The late Russ Heath has a 2012 comic about his views on the piece - and The Hero Initiative non-profit focusing on aid for comics creators.
posted by Nekosoft at 11:26 AM on September 23 [12 favorites]
posted by Nekosoft at 11:26 AM on September 23 [12 favorites]
It's important to note that for most of comics' history, the publishers did view it as work-for-hire graphic design. The publishers owned the images after they were created. So that adds another layer - if Lichtenstein had does things "correctly" from a copyright law POV, he would have been crediting and paying royalties to DC Comics, not Tony Abruzzo.
Not saying that the above scenario is morally right. It isn't. The artists involved were doubly screwed over by both their publishers and then again by Lichtenstein. But it does make the situation closer to Andy Warhol copying a Campbell soup can than when Lichtenstein copied Van Gogh's Bedroom at Arles.
posted by thecjm at 11:27 AM on September 23 [7 favorites]
Not saying that the above scenario is morally right. It isn't. The artists involved were doubly screwed over by both their publishers and then again by Lichtenstein. But it does make the situation closer to Andy Warhol copying a Campbell soup can than when Lichtenstein copied Van Gogh's Bedroom at Arles.
posted by thecjm at 11:27 AM on September 23 [7 favorites]
I enjoy looking at his art. He may have ripped it off, but they are impressive works to see in person.
And most art tends to be copying things that went before, so, shrug
And I am sure that I went to college with a woman who was somehow related. Can't find any references to him having kids, so maybe not a child, maybe a niece? I can remember what she looked like, but can't find a name to verify.
Think I saw one at the Broad last year. They are pretty cool to look at.
posted by Windopaene at 11:28 AM on September 23 [1 favorite]
And most art tends to be copying things that went before, so, shrug
And I am sure that I went to college with a woman who was somehow related. Can't find any references to him having kids, so maybe not a child, maybe a niece? I can remember what she looked like, but can't find a name to verify.
Think I saw one at the Broad last year. They are pretty cool to look at.
posted by Windopaene at 11:28 AM on September 23 [1 favorite]
As someone who grew up during a generation that was kinder to the idea of comic artists as just that, artists, I understand how recontextualizing the work would be compelling, but how it can also be done without Lichtenstein as a mediating force. How much credit should someone get for being a curator posing as a creator?
posted by Selena777 at 11:35 AM on September 23 [4 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 11:35 AM on September 23 [4 favorites]
This makes Lichenstein's career, which is trickier and smarter than the comic book work, reduced to a kind of undergraduate cynical gotcha takes. His comic book paintings are part of a post-Duchampian space about what it means to be vernacular, they strip narrative, and priortize the high visual, that is transformative enough. But he also strips unnecessary details, cleans and makes more precise the panels, and fucks with the scale in a signficant way.
They are new work. I don't think you should have to clear a sample, I don't think that you should have to clear a peice used for collage (Did Hannah Hoch, did Schwitters, did Rauschenberg); and I don't think you need to continue a folk motif in a new direction; really a direction he fucked around for a few years and left for other spaces.
posted by PinkMoose at 11:52 AM on September 23 [10 favorites]
They are new work. I don't think you should have to clear a sample, I don't think that you should have to clear a peice used for collage (Did Hannah Hoch, did Schwitters, did Rauschenberg); and I don't think you need to continue a folk motif in a new direction; really a direction he fucked around for a few years and left for other spaces.
posted by PinkMoose at 11:52 AM on September 23 [10 favorites]
Point of order: many comic artists’ work is displayed in galleries and sold for a lot of money. You’d be surprised how expensive an original Schulz can be.
posted by bq at 11:55 AM on September 23 [2 favorites]
posted by bq at 11:55 AM on September 23 [2 favorites]
i meant the comic work that he's quoting, who I doubt are trying to work out problems of mechanical representation and the semiotics of populist taste. I love me some comics; if he was parsing Krazy Kat or Nancy it would be different, but these panels, not quite the same. Also, the least interesting work by Lichtenstein.
posted by PinkMoose at 12:00 PM on September 23
posted by PinkMoose at 12:00 PM on September 23
I wonder if any of the cartoonists ever approached any high end gallery with their "art"?
I mean, I don't think there was much of a market for it back in the '60s, but there absolutely are now cartoon and comic artists whose work is exhibited in galleries and sold as art. Chuck Jones has galleries in both San Diego and Snata Fe.
posted by jackbishop at 12:09 PM on September 23
I mean, I don't think there was much of a market for it back in the '60s, but there absolutely are now cartoon and comic artists whose work is exhibited in galleries and sold as art. Chuck Jones has galleries in both San Diego and Snata Fe.
posted by jackbishop at 12:09 PM on September 23
I do wonder how Lichtenstein’s comic work would have been received differently if the original source had been credited at the time. Did viewers at the time imagine these as wholly original panels (though clearly quoting comic forms) and would knowing that they were largely copied have changed how the work landed?
posted by wemayfreeze at 12:11 PM on September 23 [2 favorites]
posted by wemayfreeze at 12:11 PM on September 23 [2 favorites]
Y’all know that there were contemporaneous reviews and reactions of these pieces, and that we don’t necessarily need to just idly speculate about these things like they were lost to the sands of time, right? The way these pieces are being willfully decontextualized is a touch bizarre.
posted by not just everyday big moggies at 12:16 PM on September 23 [6 favorites]
posted by not just everyday big moggies at 12:16 PM on September 23 [6 favorites]
MetaFilter: undergraduate cynical gotcha takes.
(kidding not kidding)
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 12:24 PM on September 23 [3 favorites]
(kidding not kidding)
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 12:24 PM on September 23 [3 favorites]
I did a lot of Art History in college.
There are certain artists of the pop time, that I did not connect with. Warhol being the most prominent. Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns being others, (not a big fan of "collage")
Rothko, OTOH... sublime
But, Art is Art, and what connects to you may not to me. Wish I could paint...
And if you in LA, go to the Broad. Such cool stuff.
posted by Windopaene at 1:15 PM on September 23 [2 favorites]
There are certain artists of the pop time, that I did not connect with. Warhol being the most prominent. Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns being others, (not a big fan of "collage")
Rothko, OTOH... sublime
But, Art is Art, and what connects to you may not to me. Wish I could paint...
And if you in LA, go to the Broad. Such cool stuff.
posted by Windopaene at 1:15 PM on September 23 [2 favorites]
because he elevated the trash
Isn't that what Devito did with Always Sunny?
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 1:29 PM on September 23
Isn't that what Devito did with Always Sunny?
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 1:29 PM on September 23
We have a big collection of comic art at my museum, along with exhibitions in the past of people like Chris Ware, etc. Granted, not every curator has it in their wheelhouse, but it's there in our public database right next to the Rothko. It was a painter who collected the pieces to give to us, actually.
Sadly, we lack any really cool Lichtenstein or we could maybe do a little something something with the comics and a painting.
posted by PussKillian at 1:36 PM on September 23 [1 favorite]
Sadly, we lack any really cool Lichtenstein or we could maybe do a little something something with the comics and a painting.
posted by PussKillian at 1:36 PM on September 23 [1 favorite]
I'm sympathetic to the view that Lichtenstein was transformative for some of his pieces, but I don't think I agree that the majority of them are transformative. I think this discussion could use a reminder of what some of these side-by-side comparisons look like.
posted by Pitachu at 1:37 PM on September 23 [10 favorites]
posted by Pitachu at 1:37 PM on September 23 [10 favorites]
I think this discussion could use a reminder of what some of these side-by-side comparisons look like.
I had heard about this but never investigated: I figured it would be bad! But this actually seems fairly transformative! It’s not merely mechanical reproduction and re-scaling, it’s re-creation and re-contextualization.
posted by anotherpanacea at 1:50 PM on September 23 [3 favorites]
I had heard about this but never investigated: I figured it would be bad! But this actually seems fairly transformative! It’s not merely mechanical reproduction and re-scaling, it’s re-creation and re-contextualization.
posted by anotherpanacea at 1:50 PM on September 23 [3 favorites]
Looking at the side-by-sides is, for me, just a reminder of how the stripped down Lichtenstein pieces manage to look like amateur comics drawn during a chemistry class. Many of them lack the strength of feature or clarity of line that the originals have. I have been reading and loving comics since I was a small child, but the first time I found out that people found Lichtenstein to be transformative I could not understand why. It was only when I was older and realized that so much of the art world is shaped not by what moves the viewer new to a work, but rather by the various fads and cults with in the so-called art world.
On a separate note, scare quotes are not something new.
posted by Ignorantsavage at 1:58 PM on September 23 [6 favorites]
On a separate note, scare quotes are not something new.
posted by Ignorantsavage at 1:58 PM on September 23 [6 favorites]
He's unquestionably a plagiarist but he plagiarized from artists the art world (and the world in general) considers trash so it's apparently okay because he elevated the trash.
Thinking of this artist since he just passed: Richard Pettibone, Artist Who Appropriated Others’ Paintings for His Own Work, Dies at 86
"The work was only partially intended as parody. “Stella thinks I’m mocking him, and he’s right, I am mocking him,” Pettibone once told Art in America. “But I also greatly admire him. But I have to wonder, if he really thinks that a work of art has no meaning, that it’s just paint on a canvas, then how come his is so much more valuable than mine?”
posted by PussKillian at 2:01 PM on September 23 [3 favorites]
Thinking of this artist since he just passed: Richard Pettibone, Artist Who Appropriated Others’ Paintings for His Own Work, Dies at 86
"The work was only partially intended as parody. “Stella thinks I’m mocking him, and he’s right, I am mocking him,” Pettibone once told Art in America. “But I also greatly admire him. But I have to wonder, if he really thinks that a work of art has no meaning, that it’s just paint on a canvas, then how come his is so much more valuable than mine?”
posted by PussKillian at 2:01 PM on September 23 [3 favorites]
The only way to view Lichtenstein’s work as transformative is if you view comic artists as unworthy or lesser than that of “real” artists.
This, clearly, is the view the art community still holds when it comes to Lichtenstein.
You say Lichtenstein transformed the source material by re-scaling, recontextualizing, and re-situating the source material...
Lichtenstein added nothing, he was just the middle-man that provided the veneer of respectability never afforded to the originals.
Relevant Calvin and Hobbes.
I go back and forth on this, but I'm now of the opinion that a lot of what is considered "fine art" is indulging the whims of rich people and their friends.
Like, I can tease out that extra meaning and recontextualization if I squint my eyes and read between the lines, but as others have said above, it's really not that different.
And who benefits from this recontextualization? It all feels so grifty. I'm reminded of the time when Damien Hirst burned his work, and Stephen Colbert just shrugged his shoulders and said "Okay."
posted by ishmael at 2:05 PM on September 23 [3 favorites]
This, clearly, is the view the art community still holds when it comes to Lichtenstein.
You say Lichtenstein transformed the source material by re-scaling, recontextualizing, and re-situating the source material...
Lichtenstein added nothing, he was just the middle-man that provided the veneer of respectability never afforded to the originals.
Relevant Calvin and Hobbes.
I go back and forth on this, but I'm now of the opinion that a lot of what is considered "fine art" is indulging the whims of rich people and their friends.
Like, I can tease out that extra meaning and recontextualization if I squint my eyes and read between the lines, but as others have said above, it's really not that different.
And who benefits from this recontextualization? It all feels so grifty. I'm reminded of the time when Damien Hirst burned his work, and Stephen Colbert just shrugged his shoulders and said "Okay."
posted by ishmael at 2:05 PM on September 23 [3 favorites]
Y’all know that there were contemporaneous reviews and reactions of these pieces, and that we don’t necessarily need to just idly speculate about these things like they were lost to the sands of time, right?
If you have something to add to this discourse I encourage you to do so. Your contempt for your fellow MeFites has, unfortunately, added nothing.
posted by wemayfreeze at 2:16 PM on September 23 [1 favorite]
If you have something to add to this discourse I encourage you to do so. Your contempt for your fellow MeFites has, unfortunately, added nothing.
posted by wemayfreeze at 2:16 PM on September 23 [1 favorite]
Comic art isn't graphic design, though.
So Andy gets a pass because commercial design is less expressive than comics? I’m not really sure how else to read that.
I wasn't passing any judgment on the quality or artistic merits of the graphic design; there's good and bad graphic design, and it's its own artform. But it does something completely different to a comic. A soup can label is designed to be reproduced countless times, like Dali's Chupa-Chups logo, and it becomes part of the texture of our supermarket shelves, our cupboards, our daily lives. Warhol's art was tapping into that, into its being a mass-produced item. That was the Pop-ness of it.
A comic book is also a mass-produced item, and it seems pretty clear that was what Lichtenstein was going for: here's this pop culture object that is also mass produced and is considered to have no merit as art, and I'll take it and blow it up and make it look more painterly and stick it on a wall. And okay, that's interesting, and in the context of the time it might even seem justifiable, because not many grown adults took comics seriously in the 1960s.
But a panel from a comic book isn't a soup can label: it's part of a visual narrative. They're only mass-produced in the same way that books and magazines are: each issue has a print run to get it out to an audience, but each issue tells a story, and then different issues - with their own panels - continue that story, using images and words. Comics aren't just a bunch of cartoon drawings, they're more than that.
Cartoon drawings themselves sometimes end up in graphic design: cartoon animals on cereal boxes, that sort of thing. If Warhol had painted a box of Frosties with Tony the Tiger on it, I would still be saying that comic art isn't graphic design. A picture of Tony the Tiger on a Frosties box has different connotations to the panel that inspired Whaam!.
Lichtenstein sampled a single panel from a comic book and used it to represent the idea of comics and to harness some of their power. Same way a lot of musicians have sampled snatches of music (often the same ones over and over) to harness some of their power. And I'm okay with that, you can make new things out of samples. Just credit the source.
Warhol's Campbell's Soup can paintings do credit the source: it's right there. It's Campbell's graphic design department. Who was the original designer? I don't know—maybe Campbell's does, somewhere in its archives—but at least the source is clear. Same as a lot of music samples' sources are recognisable.
But Lichtenstein's source wasn't clear at all; it wasn't even clear he had a source until people started locating the panels he'd ripped off. He was just assuming people would think "he's painting in a comic book style" and that it was original to him, or else they'd think "source = a comic book" and that that would be sufficient.
As I said above, he only got away with it because in the 1960s "source = a comic book" was widely considered sufficient, because plenty of comics artists went uncredited and therefore unrecognised. That's what I meant about him not getting away with it today - he just couldn't, it's a different world.
But a modern Warhol could paint a picture of a modern Campbell's soup can without having to delve into which member of their graphic design department tweaked the font they now use for "Tomato" or what have you, because it would still be crystal clear to everyone what the provenance of the item was, and that it wasn't produced with the same artistic goals as a comic book. Because comics are a different kind of artform from graphic design.
posted by rory at 2:17 PM on September 23 [12 favorites]
So Andy gets a pass because commercial design is less expressive than comics? I’m not really sure how else to read that.
I wasn't passing any judgment on the quality or artistic merits of the graphic design; there's good and bad graphic design, and it's its own artform. But it does something completely different to a comic. A soup can label is designed to be reproduced countless times, like Dali's Chupa-Chups logo, and it becomes part of the texture of our supermarket shelves, our cupboards, our daily lives. Warhol's art was tapping into that, into its being a mass-produced item. That was the Pop-ness of it.
A comic book is also a mass-produced item, and it seems pretty clear that was what Lichtenstein was going for: here's this pop culture object that is also mass produced and is considered to have no merit as art, and I'll take it and blow it up and make it look more painterly and stick it on a wall. And okay, that's interesting, and in the context of the time it might even seem justifiable, because not many grown adults took comics seriously in the 1960s.
But a panel from a comic book isn't a soup can label: it's part of a visual narrative. They're only mass-produced in the same way that books and magazines are: each issue has a print run to get it out to an audience, but each issue tells a story, and then different issues - with their own panels - continue that story, using images and words. Comics aren't just a bunch of cartoon drawings, they're more than that.
Cartoon drawings themselves sometimes end up in graphic design: cartoon animals on cereal boxes, that sort of thing. If Warhol had painted a box of Frosties with Tony the Tiger on it, I would still be saying that comic art isn't graphic design. A picture of Tony the Tiger on a Frosties box has different connotations to the panel that inspired Whaam!.
Lichtenstein sampled a single panel from a comic book and used it to represent the idea of comics and to harness some of their power. Same way a lot of musicians have sampled snatches of music (often the same ones over and over) to harness some of their power. And I'm okay with that, you can make new things out of samples. Just credit the source.
Warhol's Campbell's Soup can paintings do credit the source: it's right there. It's Campbell's graphic design department. Who was the original designer? I don't know—maybe Campbell's does, somewhere in its archives—but at least the source is clear. Same as a lot of music samples' sources are recognisable.
But Lichtenstein's source wasn't clear at all; it wasn't even clear he had a source until people started locating the panels he'd ripped off. He was just assuming people would think "he's painting in a comic book style" and that it was original to him, or else they'd think "source = a comic book" and that that would be sufficient.
As I said above, he only got away with it because in the 1960s "source = a comic book" was widely considered sufficient, because plenty of comics artists went uncredited and therefore unrecognised. That's what I meant about him not getting away with it today - he just couldn't, it's a different world.
But a modern Warhol could paint a picture of a modern Campbell's soup can without having to delve into which member of their graphic design department tweaked the font they now use for "Tomato" or what have you, because it would still be crystal clear to everyone what the provenance of the item was, and that it wasn't produced with the same artistic goals as a comic book. Because comics are a different kind of artform from graphic design.
posted by rory at 2:17 PM on September 23 [12 favorites]
I've always been interested in contemporary art. I collect it. I even own a (minor) Lichtenstein. I mention this not to claim any particular expertise (other than a scholarly interest and a familiarity with many artists that use other content as inspiration), but I humbly submit that Mr Bailey is missing the forest for the tree(s).
I fundamentally disagree with the premise, and agree with multics' remarks about Lichtenstein and Richard Prince in their post above: It seems to me this whole debate has started on the wrong note.
The fact that Lichtenstein appropriated comic book illustrations to create new work to me seems like a red herring: What made his work so compelling was indeed that he used familiar tropes (the comic style, the ben-day dots of color printing, the dialogue bubbles and and banal scenes, etc) and painted them in a large format that signaled "gallery artwork" to put on walls, at a time when - as many have correctly noted - comics were not generally viewed as "serious" art, barely even collectibles. Even more so, if comics had been seen as "art" and correctly valued at the time, Lichtenstein's work would never have been recognized as the transformative art it is.
Just as rappers sampled other works to make a new song, the "art" comes from recontextualization. One saw that, say, with cubism and dada, where ordinary product-labels or political images were cut up and re-presented in a new form. Surely, no one claims that Braque owe their success to the typeface designer of a newspaper he re-painted on canvas, the luthier who designed the shape of a violin he used, or such things. Equally, Warhol had the idea of painstakingly re-creating soap boxes as sculptures. Does the fact a graphic designer created the Brillo logo make Warhol's work any less valuable? Is the fact that he used a famous photo of Marilyn, taken by someone else, make his use of her image any less original? Not at all. Quite the opposite in fact. It is because the soap boxes were in every supermarket, and that photo had graced every newspaper, that the recontextualised work is valuable.
To claim that these artworks success is unfair to the source material seems to me to be naive. Naive about the way the art world works, commerce works, and culture works. The source materials existed before. They failed to obtain mass recognition because the creators lacked the means to make them so. They perhaps lacked the opportunity to present them as serious works, and we can certainly have a debate about how fair it is that "gallery art" or "collectible art" has greater cultural cachet than "commercial art", but we can't ignore the process by which art becomes well known, culturally significant, financially valuable, etc (let alone how those factors are intertwined). Ironically, some of these "plagiarized" works have become more valuable in retrospect - not only because the gallery artists have made the source material better known, but also because in the process the devalued has become valued over time (e.g. just look at the price of original comic books and illustrations, etc).
On top of that, since then, with postmodernism, there has been what some would call a perverse increase in appropriation strategies: Sturtevant, an artist who recently passed, made a lifetime career creating exact copies of famous works, often changing only the scale. He most likely appropriated works that themselves were appropriations, say Warhols and Lichtensteins, which some collectors no doubt snapped up. At the extreme, Fischli and Weiss, two Swiss artists, meticulously created reproductions of gallery props (a ladder, a garbage bag full of detritus, crumpled papers, etc) and left them there to annoy the pedestrian and delight those in the know who admired their craftsmanship and bloody-mindedness.
In light of that, it seems unfair to single out Lichtenstein: He had a valuable insight, he is undoubtedly gifted as a painter (try and re-create a comics page without the benefit of a copier or a computer!), and on top of it, when you examine the breadth of his work, he clearly shows a range of subject matter, a talent for composition, and a depth of meaning. He is many things, but to call him - and Warhol - a hack is unfair.
There may be many hacks and mere plagiarists in the arts. Go after the ones that create garbage, just not Lichtenstein, Prince and Warhol.
posted by Bigbootay. Tay! Tay! Blam! Aargh... at 2:26 PM on September 23 [10 favorites]
I fundamentally disagree with the premise, and agree with multics' remarks about Lichtenstein and Richard Prince in their post above: It seems to me this whole debate has started on the wrong note.
The fact that Lichtenstein appropriated comic book illustrations to create new work to me seems like a red herring: What made his work so compelling was indeed that he used familiar tropes (the comic style, the ben-day dots of color printing, the dialogue bubbles and and banal scenes, etc) and painted them in a large format that signaled "gallery artwork" to put on walls, at a time when - as many have correctly noted - comics were not generally viewed as "serious" art, barely even collectibles. Even more so, if comics had been seen as "art" and correctly valued at the time, Lichtenstein's work would never have been recognized as the transformative art it is.
Just as rappers sampled other works to make a new song, the "art" comes from recontextualization. One saw that, say, with cubism and dada, where ordinary product-labels or political images were cut up and re-presented in a new form. Surely, no one claims that Braque owe their success to the typeface designer of a newspaper he re-painted on canvas, the luthier who designed the shape of a violin he used, or such things. Equally, Warhol had the idea of painstakingly re-creating soap boxes as sculptures. Does the fact a graphic designer created the Brillo logo make Warhol's work any less valuable? Is the fact that he used a famous photo of Marilyn, taken by someone else, make his use of her image any less original? Not at all. Quite the opposite in fact. It is because the soap boxes were in every supermarket, and that photo had graced every newspaper, that the recontextualised work is valuable.
To claim that these artworks success is unfair to the source material seems to me to be naive. Naive about the way the art world works, commerce works, and culture works. The source materials existed before. They failed to obtain mass recognition because the creators lacked the means to make them so. They perhaps lacked the opportunity to present them as serious works, and we can certainly have a debate about how fair it is that "gallery art" or "collectible art" has greater cultural cachet than "commercial art", but we can't ignore the process by which art becomes well known, culturally significant, financially valuable, etc (let alone how those factors are intertwined). Ironically, some of these "plagiarized" works have become more valuable in retrospect - not only because the gallery artists have made the source material better known, but also because in the process the devalued has become valued over time (e.g. just look at the price of original comic books and illustrations, etc).
On top of that, since then, with postmodernism, there has been what some would call a perverse increase in appropriation strategies: Sturtevant, an artist who recently passed, made a lifetime career creating exact copies of famous works, often changing only the scale. He most likely appropriated works that themselves were appropriations, say Warhols and Lichtensteins, which some collectors no doubt snapped up. At the extreme, Fischli and Weiss, two Swiss artists, meticulously created reproductions of gallery props (a ladder, a garbage bag full of detritus, crumpled papers, etc) and left them there to annoy the pedestrian and delight those in the know who admired their craftsmanship and bloody-mindedness.
In light of that, it seems unfair to single out Lichtenstein: He had a valuable insight, he is undoubtedly gifted as a painter (try and re-create a comics page without the benefit of a copier or a computer!), and on top of it, when you examine the breadth of his work, he clearly shows a range of subject matter, a talent for composition, and a depth of meaning. He is many things, but to call him - and Warhol - a hack is unfair.
There may be many hacks and mere plagiarists in the arts. Go after the ones that create garbage, just not Lichtenstein, Prince and Warhol.
posted by Bigbootay. Tay! Tay! Blam! Aargh... at 2:26 PM on September 23 [10 favorites]
If you look at Lichtenstein's "Whaam!" and just see a blown-up copy of a comic book panel you're willfully ignoring why he made paintings like this and how he intended them to be perceived by his intended audience in the 1960's.
The meta-ness was the point. The man made abstract paintings of representational images. He made paintings of highly reflective mirrors that were actually masses of solid black dots. He made paintings devoid of any visible brushstrokes that depicted giant comic images of brushstrokes. "Whaam!" itself does not depict a jet blowing up another jet. It depicts a drawing of a jet exploding, where that explosion is intended to resemble the Abstract Expressionist paintings of artists like DeKooning or Pollock.
Is it unfair that Lichtenstein's paintings now sell for millions of dollars? Maybe, but comic book illustrators in the 50's and 60's were, in fact, making cheap, disposable entertainment for kids and unsophisticated adults. If they didn't get rich, its not because Lichtenstein ripped them off.
posted by spudsilo at 2:30 PM on September 23 [9 favorites]
The meta-ness was the point. The man made abstract paintings of representational images. He made paintings of highly reflective mirrors that were actually masses of solid black dots. He made paintings devoid of any visible brushstrokes that depicted giant comic images of brushstrokes. "Whaam!" itself does not depict a jet blowing up another jet. It depicts a drawing of a jet exploding, where that explosion is intended to resemble the Abstract Expressionist paintings of artists like DeKooning or Pollock.
Is it unfair that Lichtenstein's paintings now sell for millions of dollars? Maybe, but comic book illustrators in the 50's and 60's were, in fact, making cheap, disposable entertainment for kids and unsophisticated adults. If they didn't get rich, its not because Lichtenstein ripped them off.
posted by spudsilo at 2:30 PM on September 23 [9 favorites]
Lichtenstein, like Warhol, was responding to the appetite for "fine art" among the growing bourgeoisie that created a market for "original pieces" that could be churned out relatively quickly. (Warhol even called his studio "the Factory".) There is sometimes a degree of cleverness or talent on display, but the idea that these are deep, thoughtful pieces is a part of the marketing, and very few of them seem to say anything that wasn't old hat in 1930.
I don't have any problem with them making mediocre art to cash in on gullible rich people. That has been the goal of artists since time immemorial. But I don't think the fact somebody spent a couple hundred grand on a silk screened photo of movie star is any reason for the rest of us to think it is deep.
posted by pattern juggler at 2:39 PM on September 23 [6 favorites]
I don't have any problem with them making mediocre art to cash in on gullible rich people. That has been the goal of artists since time immemorial. But I don't think the fact somebody spent a couple hundred grand on a silk screened photo of movie star is any reason for the rest of us to think it is deep.
posted by pattern juggler at 2:39 PM on September 23 [6 favorites]
Maybe, but comic book illustrators in the 50's and 60's were, in fact, making cheap, disposable entertainment for kids and unsophisticated adults.
This attitude can kindly fuck all the way off. Comic artists were doing all sorts of interesting concepts in the 50s and 60s (like Master Race, the haunting and forward thinking EC story that would help create the modern era of comic art and design, for one notable example), and that's not even considering what was happening in Europe and Japan. This attitude is the sort of pretentious snobbery which is at the heart of the backlash to Lichtenstein, and betrays a paucity of vision in the speaker.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:55 PM on September 23 [8 favorites]
This attitude can kindly fuck all the way off. Comic artists were doing all sorts of interesting concepts in the 50s and 60s (like Master Race, the haunting and forward thinking EC story that would help create the modern era of comic art and design, for one notable example), and that's not even considering what was happening in Europe and Japan. This attitude is the sort of pretentious snobbery which is at the heart of the backlash to Lichtenstein, and betrays a paucity of vision in the speaker.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:55 PM on September 23 [8 favorites]
> he is undoubtedly gifted as a painter (try and re-create a comics page without the benefit of a copier or a computer!)
I hate to invoke the "my kids could paint that!" cliche, but recreating a comics page without a copier or computer is not particularly difficult and is done all the time by children.
posted by Pitachu at 3:06 PM on September 23 [2 favorites]
I hate to invoke the "my kids could paint that!" cliche, but recreating a comics page without a copier or computer is not particularly difficult and is done all the time by children.
posted by Pitachu at 3:06 PM on September 23 [2 favorites]
Indeed, the "my kids could paint that" is a cliche for good reasons.
From the "Boronali" scandal (celebrated impressionist painting "Sunset Over The Adriatic" by venerated "Italian" artist Boronali were actually painted by the donkey Lolo, whose owner dipped its tail in paint and showed it at the Salon Des Independents to mock the credulity of the art world - at least if the old "incredible but true" comics are a reliable source) to what everyone said when they saw a monochrome painting, the people who say that phrase are missing the point. Maybe a child could eventually create a Lichtenstein copy (well, maybe not every kid - Pitachu's kids are undoubtedly more gifted than average if they can do that), but show me a kid who has done that in real life!
Inevitably: Cue the next post (This kid did that and is now a famous artist) in 3, 2, 1....
posted by Bigbootay. Tay! Tay! Blam! Aargh... at 3:26 PM on September 23
From the "Boronali" scandal (celebrated impressionist painting "Sunset Over The Adriatic" by venerated "Italian" artist Boronali were actually painted by the donkey Lolo, whose owner dipped its tail in paint and showed it at the Salon Des Independents to mock the credulity of the art world - at least if the old "incredible but true" comics are a reliable source) to what everyone said when they saw a monochrome painting, the people who say that phrase are missing the point. Maybe a child could eventually create a Lichtenstein copy (well, maybe not every kid - Pitachu's kids are undoubtedly more gifted than average if they can do that), but show me a kid who has done that in real life!
Inevitably: Cue the next post (This kid did that and is now a famous artist) in 3, 2, 1....
posted by Bigbootay. Tay! Tay! Blam! Aargh... at 3:26 PM on September 23
The meta-ness was the point.
This thread is going to be a headache when we have a multi-dimensional matrix of different interests and understandings represented among multiple commenters: likes/doesn't like modern art; likes/doesn't like comics; likes/doesn't like Lichtenstein's work (or Warhol's); likes/doesn't like copyright; likes/doesn't like sampling; likes/doesn't like meta-ness...
For my part: likes modern art, comics, Lichtenstein's art, Warhol's art, sampling, meta-ness, and respecting artists' moral rights. Doesn't like: copyright in its contemporary form of overreach that's more for the benefit of multinationals than artists, but still thinks that copyright is pragmatically necessary in a capitalist society given that we don't have rich Medicis handing out largesse at every turn. (Oh, and doesn't like late capitalism; but that's a different thread.)
I once designed a poster that parodied Drowning Girl, precisely because I loved it. I still like Drowning Girl more than Tony Abruzzo's original comic book page that Lichtenstein copied. But even in an age when comic book artists weren't being properly credited in the comics themselves, and Lichtenstein couldn't necessarily be expected to know who Abruzzo was, it wouldn't have destroyed his meta-ness or really cost him anything to let it be known that he'd modelled it on a specific page from a specific comic book. (I'm not even sure you can be meta unless you acknowledge that there's a source at the heart of it, even if it's, per sixty years ago, "source = a comic book".) If his transformativeness could only come at the price of leaving his audiences thinking he'd come up with his images from whole cloth, I personally think that price was too high.
posted by rory at 3:32 PM on September 23 [15 favorites]
This thread is going to be a headache when we have a multi-dimensional matrix of different interests and understandings represented among multiple commenters: likes/doesn't like modern art; likes/doesn't like comics; likes/doesn't like Lichtenstein's work (or Warhol's); likes/doesn't like copyright; likes/doesn't like sampling; likes/doesn't like meta-ness...
For my part: likes modern art, comics, Lichtenstein's art, Warhol's art, sampling, meta-ness, and respecting artists' moral rights. Doesn't like: copyright in its contemporary form of overreach that's more for the benefit of multinationals than artists, but still thinks that copyright is pragmatically necessary in a capitalist society given that we don't have rich Medicis handing out largesse at every turn. (Oh, and doesn't like late capitalism; but that's a different thread.)
I once designed a poster that parodied Drowning Girl, precisely because I loved it. I still like Drowning Girl more than Tony Abruzzo's original comic book page that Lichtenstein copied. But even in an age when comic book artists weren't being properly credited in the comics themselves, and Lichtenstein couldn't necessarily be expected to know who Abruzzo was, it wouldn't have destroyed his meta-ness or really cost him anything to let it be known that he'd modelled it on a specific page from a specific comic book. (I'm not even sure you can be meta unless you acknowledge that there's a source at the heart of it, even if it's, per sixty years ago, "source = a comic book".) If his transformativeness could only come at the price of leaving his audiences thinking he'd come up with his images from whole cloth, I personally think that price was too high.
posted by rory at 3:32 PM on September 23 [15 favorites]
rory, that's a fantastic summary of the debate so far!
And it could be argued that meta-ness is the crux of the argument. Culture has been increasingly - not just familiar with - but openly embracing meta-ness, quoting, remixing and recontextualizing influences. Precisely because it's now easier to copy and edit, but also because source materials are endlessly discovered, forgotten and re-discovered.
The fact that you made an artwork quoting Drowning Girl seems like it could only happen because Drowning Girl was a famous artwork, not (or not just) because the source material was known to you.
I seriously doubt that anyone - certainly not the art critics and collectors at the time he was discovered - doubted that Lichtenstein's works appropriated existing comics or were fooled to think those were completely original images. It was the very banality of the source material (caveat: in the sense he chose rather cliche'd panels, not that comics are inherently banal) that made his work more interesting.
Turning the banal-but-well-known into elevated "fine art" has been a primary strategy in the art world since meta-ness reared its head in our culture. Blame consumer society, blame the society of the spectacle, blame late capitalism, but meta is not going away any time soon.
Of course, that's not to say there isn't actual plagiarism. Or exploitation. I think it's unfair that the original comic book artists do not get a fair share of revenues from movies, TV and other stuff based on their characters, for example.
I also think there are certain artists (cough! Jeff Koons! cough! Mark Kostabi! cough! cough!) who take the factory model a step too far. But that's a whole other debate.....
posted by Bigbootay. Tay! Tay! Blam! Aargh... at 3:54 PM on September 23
And it could be argued that meta-ness is the crux of the argument. Culture has been increasingly - not just familiar with - but openly embracing meta-ness, quoting, remixing and recontextualizing influences. Precisely because it's now easier to copy and edit, but also because source materials are endlessly discovered, forgotten and re-discovered.
The fact that you made an artwork quoting Drowning Girl seems like it could only happen because Drowning Girl was a famous artwork, not (or not just) because the source material was known to you.
I seriously doubt that anyone - certainly not the art critics and collectors at the time he was discovered - doubted that Lichtenstein's works appropriated existing comics or were fooled to think those were completely original images. It was the very banality of the source material (caveat: in the sense he chose rather cliche'd panels, not that comics are inherently banal) that made his work more interesting.
Turning the banal-but-well-known into elevated "fine art" has been a primary strategy in the art world since meta-ness reared its head in our culture. Blame consumer society, blame the society of the spectacle, blame late capitalism, but meta is not going away any time soon.
Of course, that's not to say there isn't actual plagiarism. Or exploitation. I think it's unfair that the original comic book artists do not get a fair share of revenues from movies, TV and other stuff based on their characters, for example.
I also think there are certain artists (cough! Jeff Koons! cough! Mark Kostabi! cough! cough!) who take the factory model a step too far. But that's a whole other debate.....
posted by Bigbootay. Tay! Tay! Blam! Aargh... at 3:54 PM on September 23
This has some interesting echos in the Disney age. The recent Hawkeye tv show drew incredibly heavily on an acclaimed Aja/Fraction run of the comic for the look of big parts of the show and some of the action set pieces. I don’t believe the original creators got any money from it. Or if they did, it was because fans made a noise.
posted by PussKillian at 4:46 PM on September 23 [1 favorite]
posted by PussKillian at 4:46 PM on September 23 [1 favorite]
I think there's no question that Lichtenstein's work is transformative— that's why you probably would go nowhere suing him. But so what? It's appropriative and a little tacky.
As a few people have pointed out, the originals are better drawn and composed. (And this may be only my opinion, but removing the yellowish newsprint tinge was a mistake; it makes the comics look worse, not better.)
If a textile design by an African or Native American artist whose work was ripped off by a chain store— which has happened— Mefi would be outraged. Art does this all the time, yes, but it's way less cool than it used to be. There really is something ugly about Lichtenstein making a bunch of money on these copies without even a nod to the original artist. And the idea that he was somehow elevating the source material is extremely condescending.
posted by zompist at 5:05 PM on September 23 [8 favorites]
As a few people have pointed out, the originals are better drawn and composed. (And this may be only my opinion, but removing the yellowish newsprint tinge was a mistake; it makes the comics look worse, not better.)
If a textile design by an African or Native American artist whose work was ripped off by a chain store— which has happened— Mefi would be outraged. Art does this all the time, yes, but it's way less cool than it used to be. There really is something ugly about Lichtenstein making a bunch of money on these copies without even a nod to the original artist. And the idea that he was somehow elevating the source material is extremely condescending.
posted by zompist at 5:05 PM on September 23 [8 favorites]
Yeah, all of the comic writers and artists have continued to get royally screwed in the modern superhero-movie era. And of course law and art are different things, but in the legal world Warhol's silkscreens of Lisa Goldsmith's photos of Marilyn Monroe were recently found to be insufficiently transformative to qualify as fair use in a 7-2 opinion.
posted by whir at 5:08 PM on September 23 [2 favorites]
posted by whir at 5:08 PM on September 23 [2 favorites]
I view the value of a contemporary art pieces by the response they generate. They are meant to inspire this sort of commentary. And that is, of itself, part of the work.
It's why the pop art movement used readily recognisable, every day elements and decontexualised them as every day things and forced the view to assess them out of their original placement and in an area that demands a bit of thoughtfulness.
The fact that the comic frames are flatter is part of the point, especially in the context of what those comics were at the time of original publication. Their publishers at the time absolutely considered them disposable and that flatness emphasises it. 100%. It doesn't matter how the artform has moved since then - when Lichtenstein blew em up and put them in a frame, and made the art world look at them, they were the cultural equivalent of a thirty second tic toc. Sure, people were doing artistic things with them, but by and large they were not marketed as anything more than a disposable low effort read you could toss in the trash when you were done with it.
Almost everyone producing comics were doing so on labour hire. They didn't have IP ownership of their own work to defend in the first place and the concept would have been foreign anyway. Many comics were drawn to type - a set of visual templates that rendered one artist's work almost indistinguishable from the artist at the table next to them. They were making product for an employer, the same way the cans rolling off the factory floor belonged to Campbell. In the cultural context of the time, he absolutely was elevating them and holding them in front of people who would never otherwise give half a fuck about comics, and making them think about them and their own responses to being struck by those explosions and drowning hands in the rarefied space of the gallery. You read review of pop art from the period and there's often this sense of embarrassment and disgust, as if they know they are being made fun of but the people with the money are often not smart enough to see it.
Like pop art was consistently taking the piss out of fine art, pointing out that their hoity toity paintings were no better or worse than a frame from a comic, read once on the trolley then tossed at the end of the trip. All sacred and all profane at the same time. Different artists had different tacks, because that's always how it goes, but broadly the idea that anything can become fine art if you change the surroundings was a big part of that.
Coming at it 60 years later, a lot of that is lost. Pop art is the now the edifice of fine art it was once taking the piss out of. It's been absorbed and so the meaning changes. This whole thread is a great example of the different ways the work evokes a response and the different discussions it prompts. It does become tacky, because the nature of what a comic book panel has changed, the idea of who owns an image has changed. Even the way people are engaging from their own experience and understanding of the period it was produced in and trying to relate it to modern equivalents is tremendously interesting. Like taken in its original context, Lichtenstein's comic panels are more like modern animation frames. One piece in a chain that produces a story, produced anonymously and for hire, owned by a company that views the work as disposable and the viewer as a resource to be exploited, that probably has its own value but that gets lost between the frame before and the one after.
Like there's no one right and true answer to this, and that kind of makes it good art to me. It's still asking questions and getting responses, they've just changed as the viewers have changed over time too.
posted by Jilder at 6:28 PM on September 23 [10 favorites]
It's why the pop art movement used readily recognisable, every day elements and decontexualised them as every day things and forced the view to assess them out of their original placement and in an area that demands a bit of thoughtfulness.
The fact that the comic frames are flatter is part of the point, especially in the context of what those comics were at the time of original publication. Their publishers at the time absolutely considered them disposable and that flatness emphasises it. 100%. It doesn't matter how the artform has moved since then - when Lichtenstein blew em up and put them in a frame, and made the art world look at them, they were the cultural equivalent of a thirty second tic toc. Sure, people were doing artistic things with them, but by and large they were not marketed as anything more than a disposable low effort read you could toss in the trash when you were done with it.
Almost everyone producing comics were doing so on labour hire. They didn't have IP ownership of their own work to defend in the first place and the concept would have been foreign anyway. Many comics were drawn to type - a set of visual templates that rendered one artist's work almost indistinguishable from the artist at the table next to them. They were making product for an employer, the same way the cans rolling off the factory floor belonged to Campbell. In the cultural context of the time, he absolutely was elevating them and holding them in front of people who would never otherwise give half a fuck about comics, and making them think about them and their own responses to being struck by those explosions and drowning hands in the rarefied space of the gallery. You read review of pop art from the period and there's often this sense of embarrassment and disgust, as if they know they are being made fun of but the people with the money are often not smart enough to see it.
Like pop art was consistently taking the piss out of fine art, pointing out that their hoity toity paintings were no better or worse than a frame from a comic, read once on the trolley then tossed at the end of the trip. All sacred and all profane at the same time. Different artists had different tacks, because that's always how it goes, but broadly the idea that anything can become fine art if you change the surroundings was a big part of that.
Coming at it 60 years later, a lot of that is lost. Pop art is the now the edifice of fine art it was once taking the piss out of. It's been absorbed and so the meaning changes. This whole thread is a great example of the different ways the work evokes a response and the different discussions it prompts. It does become tacky, because the nature of what a comic book panel has changed, the idea of who owns an image has changed. Even the way people are engaging from their own experience and understanding of the period it was produced in and trying to relate it to modern equivalents is tremendously interesting. Like taken in its original context, Lichtenstein's comic panels are more like modern animation frames. One piece in a chain that produces a story, produced anonymously and for hire, owned by a company that views the work as disposable and the viewer as a resource to be exploited, that probably has its own value but that gets lost between the frame before and the one after.
Like there's no one right and true answer to this, and that kind of makes it good art to me. It's still asking questions and getting responses, they've just changed as the viewers have changed over time too.
posted by Jilder at 6:28 PM on September 23 [10 favorites]
In the early days of sampling that is precisely what people were doing.
I mostly reason about art by analogy to music because that’s the medium I know the most about and the one that, yes, I make myself. And music was definitely better when there was less copyright enforcement.
posted by atoxyl at 6:32 PM on September 23
I mostly reason about art by analogy to music because that’s the medium I know the most about and the one that, yes, I make myself. And music was definitely better when there was less copyright enforcement.
posted by atoxyl at 6:32 PM on September 23
“The Art” in Lichtenstein is that it produces this conversation, right here, decades later. It’s not the drawing; it’s not the originality, or lack of. It’s everything all wrapped up specifically to make people talk about it, endlessly, forever. Same with Duchamp. The reaction is the Art, not the artifact.
posted by DangerIsMyMiddleName at 7:21 PM on September 23 [2 favorites]
posted by DangerIsMyMiddleName at 7:21 PM on September 23 [2 favorites]
It's a fascinating commentary on something that a shitty reproduction of a panel that probably made its originator three dollars in today's money, when hung up in an art gallery, made Lichtenstein a millionaire. That "something" is capitalism, and it's the root of all evil in American culture.
But I don't blame Lichtenstein for any of this. The art world is a con game and he won it. People like Russ Heath, whose work he ripped off, lost; they produced reams of fine art they didn't even own and from which they saw next to none of the profits. But they didn't lose to Lichtenstein, they lost to an economic system that doesn't value a working artist's labor. If Lichtenstein hadn't ripped them off, he'd have had to come up with this own ideas. That'd just mean there was another starving artist. It's not like the good artists he stole from lost any money when he ripped them off.
I don't respect Lichtenstein as an artist, but I do respect him as someone who tricked rich assholes into giving him their money. It would have been nice if he'd shared the wealth with the artists he stole from.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:38 PM on September 23 [3 favorites]
But I don't blame Lichtenstein for any of this. The art world is a con game and he won it. People like Russ Heath, whose work he ripped off, lost; they produced reams of fine art they didn't even own and from which they saw next to none of the profits. But they didn't lose to Lichtenstein, they lost to an economic system that doesn't value a working artist's labor. If Lichtenstein hadn't ripped them off, he'd have had to come up with this own ideas. That'd just mean there was another starving artist. It's not like the good artists he stole from lost any money when he ripped them off.
I don't respect Lichtenstein as an artist, but I do respect him as someone who tricked rich assholes into giving him their money. It would have been nice if he'd shared the wealth with the artists he stole from.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:38 PM on September 23 [3 favorites]
The artifact is the art. Everything else is just people talking about things. Which they do about a bajillion different topics every day and isn't inherently unique or valuable.
posted by chasing at 7:38 PM on September 23 [2 favorites]
posted by chasing at 7:38 PM on September 23 [2 favorites]
High art is whatever gets the chattering classes going. Lichtenstein was probably an excellent conversation starter as well as a technically gifted artist.
posted by SnowRottie at 7:50 PM on September 23 [2 favorites]
posted by SnowRottie at 7:50 PM on September 23 [2 favorites]
Kumasi J. Barnett's works are definitely transformative but they also borrow heavily from original work by other artists.
posted by bq at 8:27 PM on September 23 [2 favorites]
posted by bq at 8:27 PM on September 23 [2 favorites]
Lichtenstein's process (for the pieces discussed) started by tracing over the original artwork. I don't have any children-- all I'm asserting is that you don't need to be gifted to know how to trace.
posted by Pitachu at 12:43 AM on September 24 [2 favorites]
posted by Pitachu at 12:43 AM on September 24 [2 favorites]
Pitachu, I'm sorry that we seem to have gotten into an extended disagreement! We just seem to be looking at the topic from two very different perspectives. To me, the fact that Lichtenstein traced over the source material to start some works is irrelevant to the argument, because his creations are "art", not just "craft".
Plus, the initial tracing is transformed by changing to a huge scale, by calling attention to the dots, by removing extraneous details, etc. He's not making a copy, he's remixing the source material. The actual technique used, or the fact that even your (fictional) kids could have used the same technique is beside the point. Lichtenstein's work is valuable not because of his technical mastery of drawing/painting but because of his pioneering use of "pop" in art. Before him and Warhol, no one had thought of painting an image of a giant light switch (L) or even just a big dollar sign (W). Equally, as mentioned above, Lichtenstein's broader body of work, while it mostly uses similar technique, demonstrates a visual sophistication such as representing mirrors, brush strokes, or conversely removing key details from scenes to dramatic effect that is the mark of artistic prowess.
Here's another, perhaps even more radical example of this dichotomy between art and craft: Consider Robert Ryman. He makes primarily white paintings. Most of his works are literally pure white squares, using mundane paint materials. Any child could use white paint and paint a square canvas. And yet, if you are lucky to see a Ryman show, you will realize that every one of his paintings is different, and that the cumulative effect is sublime: Some are smooth, others mottled, almost 3-dimensional. They are so much more than a banal white square. Some of them can take your breath away. You get the sense of an immensely gifted painter in full command of their ability. The fact that he chooses to focus on the most basic element (pure white) makes his work all the more special.
Any child could not do that. And yet I'm pretty sure that at every one of his shows, at least one person came out and said "Bah. My child could have done that".
posted by Bigbootay. Tay! Tay! Blam! Aargh... at 1:20 AM on September 24 [3 favorites]
Plus, the initial tracing is transformed by changing to a huge scale, by calling attention to the dots, by removing extraneous details, etc. He's not making a copy, he's remixing the source material. The actual technique used, or the fact that even your (fictional) kids could have used the same technique is beside the point. Lichtenstein's work is valuable not because of his technical mastery of drawing/painting but because of his pioneering use of "pop" in art. Before him and Warhol, no one had thought of painting an image of a giant light switch (L) or even just a big dollar sign (W). Equally, as mentioned above, Lichtenstein's broader body of work, while it mostly uses similar technique, demonstrates a visual sophistication such as representing mirrors, brush strokes, or conversely removing key details from scenes to dramatic effect that is the mark of artistic prowess.
Here's another, perhaps even more radical example of this dichotomy between art and craft: Consider Robert Ryman. He makes primarily white paintings. Most of his works are literally pure white squares, using mundane paint materials. Any child could use white paint and paint a square canvas. And yet, if you are lucky to see a Ryman show, you will realize that every one of his paintings is different, and that the cumulative effect is sublime: Some are smooth, others mottled, almost 3-dimensional. They are so much more than a banal white square. Some of them can take your breath away. You get the sense of an immensely gifted painter in full command of their ability. The fact that he chooses to focus on the most basic element (pure white) makes his work all the more special.
Any child could not do that. And yet I'm pretty sure that at every one of his shows, at least one person came out and said "Bah. My child could have done that".
posted by Bigbootay. Tay! Tay! Blam! Aargh... at 1:20 AM on September 24 [3 favorites]
I don't understand the comparison to Warhol. Everyone was familiar with the Campbell's soup can. Nobody thought Warhol invented that design. He re-contextualized it. He took the mundane soup cans in our cabinets and made us see them as Art.
To my mind, Lichtenstein was a gifted curator although many people thought he was an artist. So that was the con. People thought he created these comic-like images when in fact he borrowed them. It is a bit of found Art except in this case it is in fact somebody else's Art and that was never acknowledged. You can both appreciate Lichtenstein and at the same time admit he was behaving dishonestly.
posted by vacapinta at 1:32 AM on September 24 [2 favorites]
To my mind, Lichtenstein was a gifted curator although many people thought he was an artist. So that was the con. People thought he created these comic-like images when in fact he borrowed them. It is a bit of found Art except in this case it is in fact somebody else's Art and that was never acknowledged. You can both appreciate Lichtenstein and at the same time admit he was behaving dishonestly.
posted by vacapinta at 1:32 AM on September 24 [2 favorites]
Norman Fuckin' Rockwell [or rather, Alfred Fuckin-E Newman]
posted by chavenet at 4:07 AM on September 24 [1 favorite]
posted by chavenet at 4:07 AM on September 24 [1 favorite]
>I find that this sentiment usually comes from people who don't create anything worth plagiarizing. Dedicated artists put in considerable effort, often for little reward.
And I find the argument often comes from other artists like myself making original works, but if taking personal digs at unseen art makes you feel better you do you.
posted by GoblinHoney at 7:45 AM on September 24 [5 favorites]
And I find the argument often comes from other artists like myself making original works, but if taking personal digs at unseen art makes you feel better you do you.
posted by GoblinHoney at 7:45 AM on September 24 [5 favorites]
Metafilter: whatever gets the chattering classes going.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 11:13 AM on September 24 [1 favorite]
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 11:13 AM on September 24 [1 favorite]
Count me as one of those who was unaware that Lichtenstein was using actual comic panes as, at minimum, heavy references. Unlike Warhol's cans, they weren't immediately recognizable as specific icons of popular culture. And the way they were presented made it look like they were deliberately fake. Not just pulled from context, but going beyond that to avoid being part of any actual narrative or other structure. So I thought the conceptual part of the art was how we view comics, in general, as a medium. Not any specific comic.
To not credit the original artists, or at least the source book, was shitty even before the pieces became incredibly valuable. I guess it's considered fair use because, as noted above, he and his estate weren't sued, but it's still obviously plagiarism. "Not actually illegal" is a low, low bar to clear.
posted by wnissen at 2:55 PM on September 24 [2 favorites]
To not credit the original artists, or at least the source book, was shitty even before the pieces became incredibly valuable. I guess it's considered fair use because, as noted above, he and his estate weren't sued, but it's still obviously plagiarism. "Not actually illegal" is a low, low bar to clear.
posted by wnissen at 2:55 PM on September 24 [2 favorites]
(Though I admit I am not the most observant person, for years I thought the Chinese artist was "Al" Weiwei.)
posted by wnissen at 3:00 PM on September 24 [1 favorite]
posted by wnissen at 3:00 PM on September 24 [1 favorite]
for years I thought the Chinese artist was "Al" Weiwei
No, it turns out he was made out of meat the whole time.
posted by The Tensor at 4:20 PM on September 24
No, it turns out he was made out of meat the whole time.
posted by The Tensor at 4:20 PM on September 24
I don't understand the comparison to Warhol.
Because they were working from the same framework and doing the same thing conceptually. Warhol's most famous for the cans and his silkscreens, but he played around a lot with other less iconic images too. Might be worth having a dig!
I talked a lot about context and period in my larger reply, but people of the period had a different relationship with comics than we do now. They were more broadly read and were serialised, and the daily newspapers had a 'funnies' section that had a variety of strips including the drama and action comics Lichtenstein cribbed from. They were very much part of the vernacular that's hard for people in the 2020s to grasp.
posted by Jilder at 6:30 PM on September 24 [1 favorite]
Because they were working from the same framework and doing the same thing conceptually. Warhol's most famous for the cans and his silkscreens, but he played around a lot with other less iconic images too. Might be worth having a dig!
I talked a lot about context and period in my larger reply, but people of the period had a different relationship with comics than we do now. They were more broadly read and were serialised, and the daily newspapers had a 'funnies' section that had a variety of strips including the drama and action comics Lichtenstein cribbed from. They were very much part of the vernacular that's hard for people in the 2020s to grasp.
posted by Jilder at 6:30 PM on September 24 [1 favorite]
Every time I look at these paintings the main thing I notice is how shitty his lettering is.
posted by egypturnash at 7:34 PM on September 24 [2 favorites]
posted by egypturnash at 7:34 PM on September 24 [2 favorites]
Also: someone designed the campbells soup can, it's not like campbells soup the company birthed the design from some sort of corporate gestational design slurry. I find it funny that people here are fine with that but act as if lichtenstein is beyond the pale.
posted by Ferreous at 6:23 AM on September 25 [1 favorite]
posted by Ferreous at 6:23 AM on September 25 [1 favorite]
Lichtenstein didn't cheat the comics artists he copied, nor did Warhol the graphic designers or photographers he copied. Copyright is mote trouble than it is worth.
I just don't think either one did anything interesting with the materials they took. I think there is a lot more creativity in Jess Collins' Tricky Cad or Jack Kirby's collages, despite having a similarly telationship to their source material.
posted by pattern juggler at 8:19 AM on September 25
I just don't think either one did anything interesting with the materials they took. I think there is a lot more creativity in Jess Collins' Tricky Cad or Jack Kirby's collages, despite having a similarly telationship to their source material.
posted by pattern juggler at 8:19 AM on September 25
Lichtenstein didn't cheat the comics artists he copied, nor did Warhol the graphic designers or photographers he copied.
As was pointed out earlier, the courts ruled otherwise with regards to Warhol.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:26 AM on September 25
As was pointed out earlier, the courts ruled otherwise with regards to Warhol.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:26 AM on September 25
While their decisions are obviously not insignificant to future cases, I can’t really think of nine people I’d trust less with the nuances of transformative use than the current Supreme Court.
posted by not just everyday big moggies at 12:52 PM on September 25 [3 favorites]
posted by not just everyday big moggies at 12:52 PM on September 25 [3 favorites]
I am baffled by how much this argument has escalated, because I wasn't making any comments about his art or the value of said art. I was responding purely to "re-create a comics page without the benefit of a copier or a computer" which is genuinely not a terribly complicated technique.
posted by Pitachu at 1:46 PM on September 25 [1 favorite]
posted by Pitachu at 1:46 PM on September 25 [1 favorite]
The case against Lichtenstein is weak.
Contrast it with the case against Sparta later on the front page.
No contest.
posted by Captaintripps at 5:38 PM on September 25 [2 favorites]
Contrast it with the case against Sparta later on the front page.
No contest.
posted by Captaintripps at 5:38 PM on September 25 [2 favorites]
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Also, TIL that there is a whole site devoted to exploring plagiarism.
posted by davidmsc at 8:12 AM on September 23 [2 favorites]