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THE BLOG AT THE CROSSROADS
Dave Gibbons’ Signed Prints At Image Duplicator Exhibition!
Posted: May 14, 2013
In my recent article on Pop Art and plagiarism, The Principality of Lichtenstein, I included a preview of WHAAT?, Dave Gibbons’ brand-new sharp satirical take on Roy Lichtenstein’s famous painting WHAAM!, now showing in the retrospective at Tate Modern in London. Visitors to the Comica Comiket and other events on Saturday April 20th were able to see this for the first time in a one-off, large-scale pair of prints, framed in perspex.
This blow-up is now about to adorn Orbital Comics as part of an exciting exhibition entitled Image Duplicator from May 16th to 31st which Rian Hughes and Jason Atomic have curated. Courtesy of Dave and Print process, a signed and limited edition of this image will be available with all funds raised going to the Hero Initiative to help comics creators in need.
Dave Gibbons, artist on Watchmen (and many other fine comics), has given a bit of background on WHAAT? and the ideas behind it and this show:
“I’ve spoken out in the past about my dislike, on both aesthetic and ethical grounds, of the “appropriation” of comic strip images by “pop art”. The feeling amongst the comics community is pretty much unanimous: we feel patronised, and we feel that several of our revered elders have been, frankly, robbed.
“To us, their creativity and skilled labour has been discounted by considering their work as being merely, in the jargon of the art world, “found”, and they have received no credit or recompense for what amounts to celebrated and expensive copies of their creations. The current exhibition of such images at the Tate Modern in London has prompted a new consideration of these matters, and I was invited to speak on a recent TV show about my views.
”However, it was Rian Hughes, another vociferous critic of the art establishment’s attitude who came up with the brilliant idea of our comic community using its own medium to make the point. Under the title IMAGE DUPLICATOR, the response has been very heartening and we are staging an exhibition of several dozen images in the gallery space at Orbital Comics.
“Naturally, I’m very pleased to support this project and have created an image for exhibition and subsequent auction sale. Entitled “WHAAT?”, it’s framed in diptych format, measuring 41” x 94”, and is my very own “re-reappropriation” of an image originally created by Irv Novick.
“Whilst he and nearly all of the artists mistreated in the past are no longer with us to benefit, all profits from the IMAGE DUPLICATOR venture will, appropriately, be donated to the Hero Initiative. This is a US-based charity which exists to help living comic artists and their families who find themselves in financial difficulty due to age or ill-health.
“So, not only will IMAGE DUPLICATOR make a cultural statement on behalf of the medium which we love but will also have a positive and practical benefit for those in our community who have given of their creativity for often poor rewards.”
Be sure to see this show and support comics creators in need by buying this and other prints from Print-Process on sale through this Orbital exhibition.
Read The Blog At The Crossroads here.
