Lichtenstein's "Whaam!" 1 1

[adamstrange]

7 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

No living artist fetched 6-figures on either the primary or secondary market until the early 1970s (I could be wrong, but, I think it was Jasper Johns, and it might not have been until the infamous Scull sale in 1973).

What was Picasso's work selling for in the 60s?

 

8 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

If there was criticism of his work at the time it came out, well, Rolling Stone magazine absolutely savaged Led Zeppelin's debut album too.  Neither of these criticisms has aged very well.

Your time-frame (50 or so years) is actually very short, historically speaking.  Many trends have last hundred+ years only later to fall out of favor without ever returning to favor.

[adamstrange]

3 hours ago, vodou said:

Some are okay with appropriation (or whatever word one prefers) and some art not. This is a subject of contention everywhere, not just in the art world.

Comic book collectors tend to be extremely sensitive to appropriation, while art collectors tend to bias the other direction tending to be insensitive.

The real question for each is are you:

1. A comic book collector dabbling in art, or
2. An art collector with an interest in (or worse...obsession with) the sequential art form?

And finally, do you side with the majority or the minority of the group you align with? 

I'm an arts enthusiast.  I happen to collect a variety of beautiful things which includes but is not limited to comics and original art.

[vodou]

1 minute ago, adamstrange said:

I'm an arts enthusiast.  I happen to collect a variety of beautiful things which includes but is not limited to comics and original art.

It's come up before around here, most recently brought up by myself, what (on each of us) imprinted first - comics (or other product media like video games, paperback covers, etc) or art.

For me it was art (as visual stimulation in it's own right not as marketing for "something else") and I find that has greatly influenced everything that came after for me as an enthusiast and a collector (as I don't collect everything I'm enthusiastic about). I don't remember running into anybody else that's true for in hobbyist forums, except a handful that like Felix and Benno grew up surrounded by the art their parents collected...but it wasn't comic/fantasy genre art, it was folk, gallery, whatever type art. I don't think I've ever met anybody else that saw comic/fantasy art as art first and only later the products the art was used for. When I take and strongly defend a position that appears opposite other posters here, I wonder if this is due to imprinting differently than most others on the basic subject of "what I first wanted to collect" at an early age. I always wanted to collect art, not "stuff" (with art on it).

You?

[adamstrange]

15 minutes ago, adamstrange said:

I'm an arts enthusiast.  I happen to collect a variety of beautiful things which includes but is not limited to comics and original art.

It may be on interest to add that I was not a comic collector until after I completed college.  I was a very casual fan of comics and bought less than 100 comics before I was a collector.

Growing up I was very seriously into collecting stamps. My thoughts with regard to "Whaam" and other works by Lichtenstein were formed prior to my comic collecting.

[comix4fun]

34 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

 

"When someone has to "explain" the meaning to you, or "sell" you on how important a piece is, they've lost me. That's when it ceases to be "art" and becomes "marketing". When markets for artists grow organically without the dog and pony show it is simply more authentic."

 No one has to explain the meaning of a Lichtenstein or explain how important his work is at this stage of art history.  If there was criticism of his work at the time it came out, well, Rolling Stone magazine absolutedly savaged Led Zeppelin's debut album too.  Neither of these criticisms has aged very well.  

They certainly did so at the time they were created and sold, which is what I've been referring to. When his markets were created, or invented by the gallery crowd, they absolutely told the tale of what the pieces meant and how subversive they were to consumerist impulses, etc. Those tales became history and the backstory to the movement and the pieces. So, you're right, no one has to explain that now, mostly because it's been repeated ad infinitum since their creation and packaging for sale. 

[adamstrange]

"Pong" came along when I was a teenager so I doubt that video games were a big influence.

Quote

I always wanted to collect art, not "stuff" (with art on it).

I'm not sure I understand the distinction.  Can you provide an example?

Edited December 2, 2018 by adamstrange

[adamstrange]

12 minutes ago, comix4fun said:

They certainly did so at the time they were created and sold, which is what I've been referring to. When his markets were created, or invented by the gallery crowd, they absolutely told the tale of what the pieces meant and how subversive they were to consumerist impulses, etc. Those tales became history and the backstory to the movement and the pieces. So, you're right, no one has to explain that now, mostly because it's been repeated ad infinitum since their creation and packaging for sale.

"The Painted Word" by the late great Tom Wolfe provides an excellent overview of this phenomenon.

[vodou]

2 minutes ago, adamstrange said:

I'm not sure I understand the distinction.  Can you provide an example?

I saw this first and wanted it. The painting.

I didn't realize it at the time but my first exposure to "art" was also my first exposure to "illustration". Only many years later did I come to know it was done "for" Flashing Swords! #2 and then re-licensed to American Artist, Molly Hatchet, and everything else under the sun. Knowing that neither increased nor decreased my interest in or appreciation of the original oil painting. Generally speaking, paperback and comic book collectors would be more interested and value more highly the oil once the "use" is known and the so-called fine art world with the same information would devalue or ignore it altogether.

 

[adamstrange]

I have to first say I loved that I was able to see "Death Dealer" in person at Metropolis when they held a small showing for Frazetta.

The one thing I can say about comic original art is that I was deeply, deeply disappointed when I first learned that it was not in color. 

I do think highly of comics as an artistic medium but what I get when I purchase the original art is typically just the major portion of the artistic content as it does not include the color.  I therefore collect as "art" both the comics and the originals.  (I am aware that some comic covers and interiors are reproduced directly from the art, either because the original was a painting/water color/etc. or because the printing was done in black & white.  For the focus of my comic/art collection, this is a tiny portion of what was produced.)

 

[adamstrange]

56 minutes ago, vodou said:

For me it was art (as visual stimulation in it's own right not as marketing for "something else") and I find that has greatly influenced everything that came after for me as an enthusiast and a collector (as I don't collect everything I'm enthusiastic about). I don't remember running into anybody else that's true for in hobbyist forums, except a handful that like Felix and Benno grew up surrounded by the art their parents collected...but it wasn't comic/fantasy genre art, it was folk, gallery, whatever type art. I don't think I've ever met anybody else that saw comic/fantasy art as art first and only later the products the art was used for. When I take and strongly defend a position that appears opposite other posters here, I wonder if this is due to imprinting differently than most others on the basic subject of "what I first wanted to collect" at an early age. I always wanted to collect art, not "stuff" (with art on it).

You?

I have the collector gene.  It was true of my father and his father.  It was true of my mother's uncle, who was both serious and sufficiently funded to acquire numerous museum quality pieces of various kinds that would now be illegal or very expensive to collect today.  Since the age of 13, I have collected diligently and intently with the sole exception of my college years.

But I was an arts enthusiast before I started my first collection and always judge what I collect relative to what I consider to be the best.  Note:  My collection does not fare well in the comparison. I never expected it to be possible to collect what I like the most but that's okay as it a lot of is on public display at locations around the world so I'm able to enjoy it in person.

I think that answered your question but let me know if I haven't.

[porcupine48]

What a great thread and pleasant distraction from a gloomy Sunday afternoon.

Thanks all.

 

[adamstrange]

1 hour ago, vodou said:

I saw this first and wanted it. The painting.

You should have bought it when it was for sale! I doubt it would have cost you much more than $4 million.

[aokartman]

16 hours ago, delekkerste said:

Alan, you are missing the entire point of Lichtenstein's art.  It's not about the image, appropriated from sources like comics, but, how the image is presented to the viewer.  On the one hand, we have comic book panels from mostly non-descript genre (e.g., war, romance) titles printed on cheap newsprint and marketed to kids.  Even among OA collectors today, no one really cares about these pages, let alone any single panel - let's not pretend that they are something they are not.  An Irv Novick generic war comic panel page might fetch, what, a couple hundred bucks (plus or minus $100)? 

On the other hand, what makes a Lichtenstein painting based on an Irv Novick comic book panel worth $35 million has nothing to do with the fact that it's based on a singular image from an Irv Novick panel page from a war comic which might otherwise be worth $200 without the Lichtenstein imprimatur.  It's worth that because he made a conscious decision to take something from everyday (a generic comic book panel) and then transform it - via size, color, technique, language, etc. - to create something which packs a wallop to the viewer in a museum or gallery in a way that the image never could in its original form.  That David Barselou website which shows the comic panels side by side with the paintings as some kind of "Gotcha!" is absurd, because the impact of two images laid out a few inches by a few inches on a website may be similar, but, look at a Lichtenstein in a museum and then compare it to the source comic book in your hand and there's no comparison.  

Curious, no knowledge, has there been an example of original Lichtenstein sampled art sold recently?  David

[vodou]

1 minute ago, adamstrange said:

You should have bought it when it was for sale! I doubt it would have cost you much more than $4 million.

$4m is prohibitive. I'd like to write that it's maybe doable, but I think not. However, price aside, it's a small piece compared to contemporary gallery-sized works. I've been looking at those for so many years, where 36x48 is considered modest and smaller simply small, I'd have a really hard time stepping down to 16x20. You have a problem with comic art lacking color. I have a problem with 11x17 lacking...presence. Twice-up silver art is somewhat better at 14x20. Lack of color doesn't bother me at all.

[vodou]

3 minutes ago, aokartman said:

Curious, no knowledge, has there been an example of original Lichtenstein sampled art sold recently?  David

https://www.artsy.net/artist/roy-lichtenstein/auction-results

Sort by price and the comic stuff comic to the top.

[aokartman]

2 minutes ago, vodou said:

https://www.artsy.net/artist/roy-lichtenstein/auction-results

Sort by price and the comic stuff comic to the top.

I meant has there been a sale of original comic book art showing the source material.  Thanks, David

 

[vodou]

3 minutes ago, aokartman said:

I meant has there been a sale of original comic book art showing the source material.  Thanks, David

 

My "In The Car" separate catalog is not handy but my recollection is that it was sold by Christie's, maybe a decade ago, and there was a substantial write-up that did include discussion of and imagery from the comic book source material.

edit: Here you go, https://www.amazon.com/Christies-Auction-Catalog-Lichtenstein-2005/dp/B000LKU180

Edited December 2, 2018 by vodou
addition of Amazon link

[aokartman]

3 minutes ago, vodou said:

My "In The Car" separate catalog is not handy but my recollection is that it was sold by Christie's, maybe a decade ago, and there was a substantial write-up that did include discussion of and imagery from the comic book source material.

Could be a case of someone having some original comic book art with an awesome unexpected markup if they are paying attention. 

And, are the books he cribbed from lurking in the dustbins of history?  On the hunt,

David

 

[vodou]

1 minute ago, aokartman said:

Could be a case of someone having some original comic book art with an awesome unexpected markup if they are paying attention. 

And, are the books he cribbed from lurking in the dustbins of history?  On the hunt,

David

 

One problem with this theory is -generally speaking- that the fine art world doesn't care about the source material, including the comic book oa, and the comic book and comic art world doesn't care about Lichtenstein. As long as those two worlds hold each other in general disdain, the source material will not appreciate any further than it already has based on comic book and artist demand.

[aokartman]

22 minutes ago, vodou said:

One problem with this theory is -generally speaking- that the fine art world doesn't care about the source material, including the comic book oa, and the comic book and comic art world doesn't care about Lichtenstein. As long as those two worlds hold each other in general disdain, the source material will not appreciate any further than it already has based on comic book and artist demand.

You have got to be kidding.  The derivative original comic book art for Lichtenstein's art surely would command a premium.  Even just the books, I have not looked into it, but maybe I should..  David

DECONSTRUCTING LICHTENSTEIN LINK

Edited December 2, 2018 by aokartman
LINK ADDED