Gilbert & George

Gilbert & George place themselves, their thoughts and their feelings at the centre of their art, and almost all of the images they use are gathered within walking distance of their home in London’s East End. Yet their pictures capture a broad human experience, encompassing an astonishing range of emotions and themes, from rural idylls to gritty images of a decaying London; from fantastical brightly-coloured panoramas to raw examinations of humanity stripped bare; from sex advertisements to religious fundamentalism.

From the beginning, they wanted to communicate beyond the narrow confines of the art world, adopting the slogan ‘Art for All’. As a result they have joined the very small handful of artists to become household names, and their impeccably-dressed figures are instantly recognisable to the general public. Bringing together a selection of pictures that spans their entire 40-year career, it is fitting that Gilbert &George: Major Exhibition is the largest retrospective of any artist to be held at Tate Modern.

George was born in Devon in 1942. Gilbert was born in Italy in 1943, in a small village in the Dolomites. They met as students on the sculpture course at St Martins School of Art, London, where they exhibited together and soon began to create art together. They adopted the identity of ‘living sculptures’ in both their art and their daily lives, becoming not only creators, but also the art itself.

They established their reputation in 1969 with THE SINGING SCULPTURE. Standing together on a table, they danced and sang the Flanagan and Allen standard ‘Underneath the Arches’ – a song in which two tramps describe the pleasures of sleeping rough. It was a telling choice, harking back to prewar England and traditions of vaudeville, while also identifying with the fringes of society. Gilbert & George were invited to present THE SINGING SCULPTUREall over the world, sometimes for eight hours at a stretch. Realising, however, that they could reach only a handful of people at a time, they began to create films and pictures that could extend the idea of living sculpture without requiring their physical presence.

Matt Mullican "88 Maps"

This book is composed of thirty six plates of 61 x 61 cm

- twelve black and white plates hand rubbed with graphite crayon

- two spreads of two black and white plates hand-rubbed with graphite crayon

- twelve coloured silkscreened spread of two plates hand-rubbed with graphite crayon

-one colour silkscreened spread of two plates hand-rubbed with graphite crayon

-one colour silkscreened spread of four plates hand-rubbed with graphite crayon

-one title plate

-one colophon plate

The american artist created images that appear to be circuit breakers, mapping programs , , virtual worlds, and equivocations between language, signs, and pictures. Mullican catalogues his astonishing research into images of arresting essentialism.

for more images of the artists work please use the link below.

http://www.threestarbooks.com/MULLICAN_images.html

Wayne Lloyd

Artist Wayne Lloyd will re-tell Val Guest's classic Manchester movie, Hell is a City for one night only. In recent projects Lloyd has replaced films with his own stage presence and painted diagrams - with Last Tango in Paris, The Seventh Seal and Alexander Nevsky subjected to his remembered and imaginary re-description. Video documentation and drawings from this opening event will be installed in the gallery as part of UnSpooling - Artists & Cinema.

http://www.cornerhouse.org/events/info.aspx?ID=1784&page=0

Sharpie Art

Charlie Kratzer

Charlie Kratzer started on the basement art project in his south Lexington home, he was surrounded by walls painted a classic cream. He went through the entire project using nothing but sharpie pens and created a fantastic scenery of a classy victorian home. The actual process is simple but very effective, in a sense it has become 'graffiti for the home' and with a total cost of $10.

For a better view of the room please follow the link below

http://www.heraldleaderphoto.com/2008/09/18/man-decorates-basement-with-10-worth-of-sharpie/

Justine Ashbee

Justine Ashbee creates these captivating organic like hand drawings using a Sharpie Pen. These beautiful drawings cover the walls of her exhibitions and create a mesmerising 3d effect. As she states here “These drawings are executed purely by hand, using Sharpie pens. I begin with a curve, from which lines and forms begin to emerge, evolve, morph, and grow organically, in an intuitive flow, while maintaining delicate, elegant precision…”

For more information please follow the link below

http://justineashbee.com/

Brian Morris

Brian Morris creates all his artwork with the theme of the skull and the style of the tattoo artist. He creates toys, artwork and models with the gothic black and white theme.

Below is a link to his myspace page that features many more of his artworks

http://www.myspace.com/ooo000ooo

Roy Lichenstein

October 27, 1923 - September 29, 1997

Roy Lichenstein was an American pop artist that utilised the American comic book into fine art, his work was inspired by the advertising and classic comic book styles.

These magnificent pieces have strong bold lines and vibrant colours and perfectly straight edges as if a cut out from an actual comic book. These images are huge in comparison with the tiny comic books, reaching around 7-8 foot in height. generally taking a rather tongue in cheek look at the 'American dream'.

Looking at Comics becoming a part of 'high' art instead of a consumerist popular medium, the collect-ability of comics in the case of them as rare items, such as the original superman or spider man comics can reach up to a value of 30,000 to 3,500,00o.

Nigo - BAPE

Nigo is a Japanese music producer, DJ and creator of the urban clothing line A Bathing Ape or as it is also known BAPE. The Fashion label is one of the most expensive for the popular culture of clothing and is rather hard to come by with the only retail store in America being in New York. The clothing line began in Japan with a small group of the teenage demographic following the styles and fashions of the designers camo wear until he released the Bapesta, a sneaker which, according to Jonathan Ross, became the "epitome of collectible footwear". The style is influenced by the cult of Manga (Japanese comic) followers, whom are also known as the Otaku, they basically follow the Japanese anime and Manga religiously and are a part of and underground cult society that are generally deemed as ultra nerds. The collaboration with music artists such as Kanye West and Pharrell Williams has launched the urban BAPE brand worldwide.

The BAPE Logo

Kanye West, wearing one of BAPE's many hoody brands that feature the zip that cover the face.

Below is a link to the Fashion Labels site

http://eu.bape.com/

Pharrell Williams - BBC (Billionaire Boys Club)

Pharrell Williams, is the multi talented singer, songwriter, actor, fashion designer and entrepreneur. His clothes line Billionaire Boys Club or BBC as it is also known is one of the most popular and expensive brands around the world, the clothesline was inspired after a collaboration with Nigo in an album cover. the designs are similar to the Bape fashion in their simple style and following of the popular comic and cult fashions in Japan.

Below is a link to the fashion lines website

http://bbcicecream.com/

Takashi Murakami - Superflat

Takashi Murakami is one of the most influencial Japanese artists following the style of pop art or 'popular culture art', he creates characters and paintings that sell for millions while also branding the small characters such as DOB or his small mushroom creations as affordable toys for the public, so that his artwork is not just for the rich classes who are able to afford it. His works all feature the influence of the Japanese manga and anime culture with the bright colours and shiny perfection. He has also worked with Kanye West in album designs and music videos spreading his work into the popular mediums.

In the images above, on the left is the sculpture entitled 'My Lonesome Cowboy' and on the right is the other named 'Hiropon'. these two feature into the works of the anime characters and their shiny 'perfected' appearance but with a twisted sexual theme. Their has been a lot of controversy in Japan of the characters in Manga and anime, especially of the schoolgirl, being depicted as sexual objects to entice the adult audience as well as being a cute character to appeal to younger audiences. This in itself causes problems and a rather sordid and horrible feature to the animation and comic industry that generally appears to be childish and innocent.

DOB is a recurring character in a lot of Murakamis works, it appears on t-shirts, chains, posters and many other of the artists branded products.

KaiKai & Kiki are two characters that Murakami has made with the theme of the cutesy anime style, although with slight mutations.

Belo is a link to the artists page

http://www.takashimurakami.com/

BLU

Below is a link to the artists other works

www.blublu.org/sito/drawings/02/08.htm

Propaganda Posters

War in Comics

TATE BRITAIN - RUDE BRITTANIA British Comic Art

http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/britishcomicart/

Cartoons dealing with serious issues in a comical way.

The link below is to a comic that deals with the history of WWI through the countries as characters with the stereotypes of the nations. The simple sketchiness and funny charicatures contrast to the serious and devastating historical events.

http://worldfamousdesignjunkies.com/banners/lost-and-found/attachment/world_war_one__simple_version_by_angusmcleod/

Calvin and Hobbes- Bill Watterson

Interpretations of Characters

As I stated before, the graphic novel has become a darker, more serious version of the comic book with adaptations of well known characters such as Batman and Superman. In Frank Millers the Dark Knight as you can see below the grittier blood stained version is far apart form the 1960s tv series.

1960

1987

The link below is a site that displays many different interpretations of the Batman character in different styles. The individuality of each image is very interesting for the same character.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1mGwFD/abduzeedo.com/badass-batman-illustrations

Below is site by italian artist Matteo Scalera and his take on different characters

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2bya8l/thedesigninspiration.com/articles/stylish-italy-comic-artist-matteo-scalera/

ANIMATION

Animation and comic books are generally seen as a childish commodity because of the early years of animation being comical gags and children's entertainment. The domination of Disney over the Golden years of animation helped create the ideals of animation being something for kids and superficial enjoyment. Films such as Waltz with Bashir (2008), Persepolis and Grave of the fireflies has shown, animation can be dramatic and hard hitting rather than just the cuddly, 'soft' animation that people in the West generally expect.

Cel animation

This form of animtaion is deemed the 'traditional' style of producing animation and is what was used for the all of the early and some of the more recent Disney films. Now that Pixar and Dreamworks developed computer animation and disney has got on board with it, cel animation is rarely seen in any feature length films apart from the very popular Japanese Anime.

Computer Program

Adobe Flash Player is the most commonly used program amongst animators, Waltz with Bashir (2008) was created using a combination of Flash, Cel and 3D animation to produce the final outcome.

Stop Motion

This process can be extremely time consuming and is usually done in teams to make sure that the work is done in time. The standard is 12 frames per second for an animation piece not to seem too static or jolty.

Mediums of stop motion are varied from: 3-D Animation, Puppets, Clay, Paper Models, Lego etc.

These are some examples of animation from my research ...

Work Animation-

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/6AlQkS/gimundo.com/videos/view/work-an-animated-satire-thatll-make-you-smile/

Crater Face -

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/5n5z3X/drawn.ca/2010/05/19/crater-face/

Motion Illusion

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1v9YC5/www.wimp.com/motionillusion/

Skateboard Stop Motion animation

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1aBk05/gimundo.com/videos/view/stop-motion-skateboard-animation/

Through Brainstorming some Ideas I have found that I would very much like to work with a comic book style to the work and see what can be achieved through representing reality and hard hitting issues such as war, relationships or political issues.

I was very much inspired by Ari Folmans Waltz With Bashir (2008), Isao Takahatas Grave of the Fireflies (1988), Marjane Satrapis Persepolis (2007) and the Art Spiegelmans comic book Maus: A Survivor's Tale created in two volumes form 1986 and 1991. All of these depict seriuos issues of genocide, scarring war stories and the harsh reality of the world but through the medium of animation or comics, which can be seen as one of the most 'artificial' and'false' mediums to use to represent the real world.

Although I would like to use animation, the process is far too laborious and time consuming to create something with sufficient meaning or quality.

Persepolis (2007)

Waltz with Bashir (2008)

Maus: A Survivor's Tale

Comic books are excellent for their storytelling ability and alike to a storyboard the images flow from one to the other but always stay static for the viewer, each image revealing a moment in time and portraying a narrative to follow. The reader is able to go thorough the comic as quickly or a slowly as they wish taking in each image as much or as little as they would like.

Some of the most famous comic books around are generally the superhero comics but the most popular are not the traditional Superman and Wonder-woman comics but much darker themed graphic novels, such as Alan Moores Watchmen, V for Vendetta or the disturbing From Hell all of which have been made into blockbuster films, against the decision of Alan Moore himself who tried to stop them being made into films as he believed it would not work.

Alan Moore

The graphic novel is something different to that of a comic book, in its simplest form a comic book is more like a series or sitcom where each week the scenario starts again form the same point of equilibrium, a disruption of the equilibrium, a struggle and then the restoration of it. The graphic novel works more like a film in the sense that it has a beginning, middle and end, and if there ever where to be a sequel then it would continue from the last novels story. For instance Sin City By Frank Miller has several chapters that follows on from the last chapters ending. This therefore means that the graphic novels are more appreciated and 'valued' items than the weekly comic book.

The Darker themes and more gritty styles of the graphic novels have lead to different interpretations of old characters such as Frank Millers The Dark Knight Returns made the Batman character a much more terrifying and nasty individual than the rather camp and laughable 1960's American television series. This knew violent and cold side to the Batman inspired the films by Christopher Nolan, Batman Begins (2005) and the Dark knight (2008).

The new Batman is along way from the originals 'biff!' and 'kapow!' in terms of the violence. Graphic novels do tend to have a lot of violence in them but not as much as the Japanese comic books (Mangas) with ultra violence and adult themes.

Research

The 5 Obstructions

1. No Photography

2. Put yourself into the work

3. Contrast

4. Relate it to Everyday

5. Be Big!

Through these obstructions I will be limiting myself in what i am able to achieve with my ideas and taking myself out of my comfort zone in some aspects, although, I can always find loop holes and other ways around to achieve a similar effect which could create some interesting work.

Ideas - A diary of my life selecting one moment from each day and depicting this 'experience' through comic artwork. Through this I will attempt to achieve the feelings of the particular moment displayed and see whether the viewer is able to identify with the images created and the reality it is attempting to depict.