The Taschen Collection: Art of our time
By Marga Paz
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It is still significant that the person who is today an internationally famous publisher of an eclectic catalogue of books on art, design, sex, architecture and film first founded Taschen Comics nearly twenty-five years ago, specializing in the sale of underground comics from his hometown of Cologne.
It was these underground comics that Mike Kelley confessed to have "incessantly" devoured in his student years. They had a decisive influence on shaping an oeuvre conceived from a place of artistic freedom open to influences from a non-artistic universe. Among other things, this universe influenced the particular way of drawing that characterizes his works. Elements of illustrations by Eric Stanton (artist for such porn comics as Sex to Sexty) or from children's comics like Sad Sack, joined in his works with pop culture, the rock music aesthetic and a motley assembly of objects from consumer society. In his own words: "I'm involved with using popular language because it is a commonly understood one. I try to make people feel comfortable with the work on first viewing. I don't think my work is about slumming. This is the kind of imagery people look at and read through. It's an invisible imagery, it's transparent.
That's why what I'm doing is modernist in some sense. I'm focusing on the visual language itself rather than having it be something you just look through or read through. There are a lot of artists who work with popular imagery, but nevertheless, when it comes to the critical discussion of high and low distinctions, it's usually about visual questions rather than the way in which these images mean. In 90 percent of Pop Art it doesn't matter what the images signify culturally. I've always been more interested in how forms have different readings depending on how they're positioned."
The intermingling of the contradicting concepts of high and low culture has shown itself to be of vital importance in the art of our times, and the subject of considerable attention at a variety of levels in the art world. This tenuous relationship was exhaustively examined in two exhibits in 1990: "Art et Publicité", at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the New York MoMA's "High & Low" show. The catalogue of the latter explains the phenomenon, which has determined the status of contemporary art just as it shaped modern urban culture: "We have seen that high art in our century, far from having a unified project or direction, has always included the most disparate attitudes, intentions, gestures, and critiques; and that the forms and intentions of advertising, graffiti, or comics have been diverse, and subject to varying rhythms of change."
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]
It is still significant that the person who is today an internationally famous publisher of an eclectic catalogue of books on art, design, sex, architecture and film first founded Taschen Comics nearly twenty-five years ago, specializing in the sale of underground comics from his hometown of Cologne.
It was these underground comics that Mike Kelley confessed to have "incessantly" devoured in his student years. They had a decisive influence on shaping an oeuvre conceived from a place of artistic freedom open to influences from a non-artistic universe. Among other things, this universe influenced the particular way of drawing that characterizes his works. Elements of illustrations by Eric Stanton (artist for such porn comics as Sex to Sexty) or from children's comics like Sad Sack, joined in his works with pop culture, the rock music aesthetic and a motley assembly of objects from consumer society. In his own words: "I'm involved with using popular language because it is a commonly understood one. I try to make people feel comfortable with the work on first viewing. I don't think my work is about slumming. This is the kind of imagery people look at and read through. It's an invisible imagery, it's transparent.
That's why what I'm doing is modernist in some sense. I'm focusing on the visual language itself rather than having it be something you just look through or read through. There are a lot of artists who work with popular imagery, but nevertheless, when it comes to the critical discussion of high and low distinctions, it's usually about visual questions rather than the way in which these images mean. In 90 percent of Pop Art it doesn't matter what the images signify culturally. I've always been more interested in how forms have different readings depending on how they're positioned."
The intermingling of the contradicting concepts of high and low culture has shown itself to be of vital importance in the art of our times, and the subject of considerable attention at a variety of levels in the art world. This tenuous relationship was exhaustively examined in two exhibits in 1990: "Art et Publicité", at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the New York MoMA's "High & Low" show. The catalogue of the latter explains the phenomenon, which has determined the status of contemporary art just as it shaped modern urban culture: "We have seen that high art in our century, far from having a unified project or direction, has always included the most disparate attitudes, intentions, gestures, and critiques; and that the forms and intentions of advertising, graffiti, or comics have been diverse, and subject to varying rhythms of change."
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]
Taschen Collection
Hardcover, 29.7 x 42 cm (11.7 x 16.5 in.), 254 pages
$ 70.00
$ 70.00
The Benedikt Taschen Collection on show at Reina Sofía
View from the staircase publishing house with Jeff Koons' Louis XIV, 1986, and Martin Kippenberger's Sozialkistentransporter, 1991. Photo: TASCHEN, Eric Laignel, 2001