Proof that Roy Lichtenstein was a bastard rip-off merchant who couldn't draw

[Santa's Boyfriend]

See all the work he ripped off, and how his painting and drawing abilities were far less proficient than the comics illustrators he copied his work from:









and for the full set:  http://davidbarsalou.homestead.com/LICHTENSTEINPROJECT.html

I've always had a big problem with Lichtenstein.  He's hailed as a great pop artist, but all he did was copy images in comics and stick them in art galleries.  You can see from the images above that the original images are not only technically more proficient, they're also more emotive and convey more character and feeling.  Yet Lichtenstein's work is worth huge amounts of money, whereas I bet the original artists work is worth next to nothing.  

It shows just how little comics art was regarded at the time, and it's little better regarded now.  I bet Lichtenstein never thought about the poor hardworking artists he ripped off.  What a cunt.

Those of you who are studying art at school, next time this comes up explain to your art teacher how much of a cunt Lichtenstein was and show them this link.

[mook]

Well I never, I always assumed that he had just copied the style of the comics not that he had ripped them off wholesale, what a scamp.

[Slaaaaabs]

I thought this was common knowledge? Some of them are really shit, but his most famous work succeeds in taking the images out of the comic book context and making them stand out on their own.

Plus he admits it...

[Hugo Rune]

Exactly.

The point about pop art was that it illustrated (*guffaw*) how art could be mass-produced and could be as prevalent and all-pervading a part of our everyday modern world as... (*furiously scratches head to think of something*) a can of soup.

To criticize Lichtenstein for copying another work is to spectactularly miss the point.

Somewhat.

[Capt.Midnight]

[Santa's Boyfriend]

Exactly.

The point about pop art was that it illustrated (*guffaw*) how art could be mass-produced and could be as prevalent and all-pervading a part of our everyday modern world as... (*furiously scratches head to think of something*) a can of soup.

My point is that comic art already WAS being mass-produced and already WAS prevalent and all-pervading.  What Lichtenstein did was utterly pointless, it's rather like me saying "hey, graffitti is a bit like art too, you know!" and doing bad rip-offs of stuff by Ghostboy or someone, and sticking it in an art gallery out of context to say that art could be produced at street level.  You may popularise it, but it already exists in a better form that says the same message better than anything I could reproduce.  If Lichtenstein did anything it was to reduce comics' value as pop art by putting individual panels into an art gallery.  Don't the original comics carry the idea of pop art far more strongly and coherently than anything Lichtenstein ever did?

[Catalogue Trousers]

Santa's Boyfriend wrote:

it's rather like me saying "hey, graffitti is a bit like art too, you know!" and doing bad rip-offs of stuff by Ghostboy or someone, and sticking it in an art gallery out of context to say that art could be produced at street level

Hey, don't knock it. It's made Banksy a rich man...

[Funcrusher]

Jeez, are you doing this for a joke or what? It's well known that Lichtenstein's images are based on real comic panels, in much the same way that Warhols images are borrowed. To me his pictures make the point that so called 'low art' or graphic design can produce powerful, amazing, evocative images. To take "Whaaam" as an example, the recent London exhibtion had a repro of the original comic panel. It's a nice piece of drawing, although, as a 60's Marvel (I think) war comic it's obviously done in haste, to a deadline. From it Lichtenstein makes an image which tightens up and simplifies it into the iconic picture which, personally, I like a lot. I would agree that some art world types talk in terms the popular materials being just some rubbish that 'real' pop artists have turned into art, when in fact the obvious talent and imagination of the original artists shines through.

I think that at the time of pop art the idea that popular culture could be 'culture', and have substance and merit was in it's infancy, and we've moved on from that now. That said, I did find it annoying that at the London exhibition the caption next to the "Whaaam" panel didn't credit the comic artist, which I would have thought they could have found out, probably from the beginning of the story in the comic.

So, no, I don't think Roy Lichtenstein is a cunt. Although I would say that any page from Jim Steranko's 'Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D' shits on Damien Hirst's entire output.

[Hugo Rune]

My point is that comic art already WAS being mass-produced and already WAS prevalent and all-pervading.  What Lichtenstein did was utterly pointless, it's rather like me saying "hey, graffitti is a bit like art too, you know!" and doing bad rip-offs of stuff by Ghostboy or someone, and sticking it in an art gallery out of context to say that art could be produced at street level.  You may popularise it, but it already exists in a better form that says the same message better than anything I could reproduce.  If Lichtenstein did anything it was to reduce comics' value as pop art by putting individual panels into an art gallery.  Don't the original comics carry the idea of pop art far more strongly and coherently than anything Lichtenstein ever did?

No, the comics didn't, because the intellectual notion that art could be mass-produced didn't exist until someone came along and stated it throught the medium of pop art.

A comic primarily serves the purpose of telling a story. A can of soup primarily serves the purpose of containing food. Along comes Lichtenstein and Warhol and suddenly these familiar objects are being used primarily to convey (then) unfamiliar notions.

It's obvious to you and me now that art and design is inextricably bound to our consumer, mass-produced culture, but someone had to say it first at some point, didn't they?

I put it to you that that's what pop artists did.

[Funcrusher]

Does it really make any difference though that they're mass produced?  Books, play texts,dvds and cds are all mass produced as well.

[Hugo Rune]

If you take something like a DVD or a book then ostensibly the art comes from what's written inside it but I don't think Warhol et. al. we're terribly interested in that.

For them, the medium was the message: sod what's on the DVD or in the book, it's the book and DVD as objects in themselves that matter. What could be more banal than a picture of a can of soup, multiple copies of Monroe or a panel from a comic strip?

In this fascinating (though poorly-scanned) interview here with Warhol from 1986 about his use of the Amiga computer to create art, you can see how utterly banal the resulting work is when he entertains himself simply by changing the colour palettes of digitised images.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

It's obvious to you and me now that art and design is inextricably bound to our consumer, mass-produced culture, but someone had to say it first at some point, didn't they?

I put it to you that that's what pop artists did.

Hmm...  Perhaps you have something there.  Perhaps I'm too young to truly appreciate it.  It's certainly true that art movements need to be viewed in their historical context in order to truly understand what the artist was doing.  But I can't help but feel sorry for the original comics artists, who I'm sure were never credited or acknowledged.  He's certainly a very controversial figure in the comics world as he's seen as rather compounding the idea of comics being a "low" form of art by promoting the idea of comics being a pop culture accessory rather than a storytelling medium.  Plus his illustrative ability really isn't very good - certainly not as good as the original works of art.

[Funcrusher]

"What could be more banal than a picture of a can of soup, multiple copies of Monroe or a panel from a comic strip?"

If those things are of interest to you, they're in no way banal. The Campbell's soup can is a brilliantly simple piece of graphic design. The images of Marilyn are images created by talented photographers of an endlessly fascinating subject. And the impact that the viewer feels when looking at a pop art piece taken from a comic panel comes largely from the skills and imagination of the comic artist.

[Hugo Rune]

Yes, but through reproduction those images become banal, they lose their original meaning and Monroe is reduced to a wallpaper pattern.

If you replaced Monroe's head with your own, you'd think "Warhol" not "Monroe" or even "Funcrusher".

[Cardinal Tit Storm]

It's obvious to you and me now that art and design is inextricably bound to our consumer, mass-produced culture, but someone had to say it first at some point, didn't they?

I put it to you that that's what pop artists did.

Marcel Duchamp made that point, and with more wit, in 1917 with his urinal, and there was no need for these pop tossers to reiterate it.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

I did consider writing "R. Mutt" on the side of one of Damien Hirst's pieces in the Sensations exhibition about 10 years ago, but I figured I'd probably be sued.  Might have made me a career as an artist though.

Oh yeah, and plenty of people have tried to piss in Duchamp's fountain over the years.  I think that's a great reaction to it.

[Brutus Beefcake]

It's criminal that these wankers get more recognition that someone like Jack Kirby.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

Or indeed Will Eisner, Herge and a dozen other pioneers I could name.  You know that George Remi used the name Herge (or RG pronounced in French - his initials reversed) because he wanted to keep his name for when he became a famous artist.  But when he actually got around to trying he was told that his work wasn't very good and he should go back to doing Tintin, as that was where his true talent lies.  Actually his artwork wasn't that bad at all - it just so happened that the art expert who told him that was a huge fan of Tintin who was scared that if he told him his work was good he would never write another Tintin adventure.  It wouldn't happen over here, that's for sure...

[Harfyyn Teuport]

I assumed that Lichtenstein never claimed ownership or authorship of the actual imagery itself. If a photographer takes a picture of a lovely house, I don't believe he owes the architect a cheque.

It was the jarring context in which Lichtenstein placed other people's images and the seemingly arbitrary nature of his choices which was his art. Whether or not you think that's good art is of course a completely different question, and certainly his repetition of the ouevre suggests more than a little fondness for milking it. You can criticise him on those terms. Criticising him for using other people's work, though, is a bit mad. Surely, that was the whole point?

[Mister Six]

I assumed that Lichtenstein never claimed ownership or authorship of the actual imagery itself. If a photographer takes a picture of a lovely house, I don't believe he owes the architect a cheque.

Stupid argument, because obviously the media and architects aren't connected. But if I went and used that photo for something else I would owe the photographer money, or at least credit.

[Johnny Yesno]

It's obvious to you and me now that art and design is inextricably bound to our consumer, mass-produced culture, but someone had to say it first at some point, didn't they?

I put it to you that that's what pop artists did.

Hmm...  Perhaps you have something there.  Perhaps I'm too young to truly appreciate it.  It's certainly true that art movements need to be viewed in their historical context in order to truly understand what the artist was doing.  But I can't help but feel sorry for the original comics artists, who I'm sure were never credited or acknowledged.  He's certainly a very controversial figure in the comics world as he's seen as rather compounding the idea of comics being a "low" form of art by promoting the idea of comics being a pop culture accessory rather than a storytelling medium.  Plus his illustrative ability really isn't very good - certainly not as good as the original works of art.

But they didn't say it first. That way of thinking was part of the Arts and Crafts Movement . The difference was that the likes of Warhol and and Lichtenstein didn't have a problem with mass production. They may have highlighted it but they didn't criticise it.

I think you were correct with your initial point Santa. You just got the term "artist" confused with "someone with ability".

[Harfyyn Teuport]

I assumed that Lichtenstein never claimed ownership or authorship of the actual imagery itself. If a photographer takes a picture of a lovely house, I don't believe he owes the architect a cheque.

Stupid argument, because obviously the media and architects aren't connected. But if I went and used that photo for something else I would owe the photographer money, or at least credit.

I don't understand what you mean by 'the media and architects aren't connected'.

The point I was making is the difference between (a) performing an interpretation of a pre-existing object and (b) plagiarising that object. If Lichtenstein had created a comic book with panels robbed willy nilly from other books and sold it as a representation of his skill in composition of serial art, I would class that as thieving. I just don't believe that the interpretation of materials in his art amounts to intellectual theft because any source material is abstracted beyond its original use to make an entirely new point, its function is entirely changed by context and thus rendered an entirely new object.

That's why I suggested that the difference is analogous to that between a photographer taking a picture of a house to show at an exhibition and an architect ripping off the design of another architect's house to sell to clients of his own. The photo taken is the photographer's creation, an interpretation from original materials to be viewed in its own context, an entirely different object to the design of the house itself, as in the thieving architect's case.

Lichtenstein, by applying an entirely different function to the source material, also creates an entirely different object, an abstraction based on or influenced by original material but, placed in its context as conceptual art, not a reproduction of it by virtue of its new, entirely different function.

[samadriel]

Lichtenstein's 'mischief' is redolent of a time when comic artists weren't recognised in the way that, say, we remember Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Will Eisner today.  Comics were just some rubbish churned out by dispassionate hacks to distract juveniles, especially the lowly fare Lichtenstein used; certainly it was nothing as worthy as art.  If that's one's interpretation of art today, then I suppose that holds; my interpretation is rather broader, personally ('Scott McCloud' broad).  I have no problem with Lichtenstein's idea, but he could at least have credited them as being by 'Roy Lichtenstein after John Smith', or whatever the phrasing is for that sort of thing.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

he could at least have credited them as being by 'Roy Lichtenstein after John Smith', or whatever the phrasing is for that sort of thing.

Homages and swipes still happen in the comic world, but most of the time they will be credited in that way.  I mean I wouldn't mind it so much if Lichtenstein had actually credited the artist and said where the image had come from.  It might have had a knock-on effect to people picking up the comics then.

[Mister Six]

I don't understand what you mean by 'the media and architects aren't connected'.

Taking an illustration and making another illustration that copies it is not the same as taking a photo of a house.

A better example would be me building a copy of the London Gherkin in Bumfuck, Arizona (but with, perhaps, different coloured windows) while claiming credit for being an architectural genius because my placement of the building in a scrotty little town gives it a different meaning and visual effect compared to the one in a major metropolitan city.

And while that wouldn't be without merit as art, not mentioning that it was based on a design by Sir Norman Foster would be a bit off.