Comics I Don’t Understand

And the John Cage Award for Cartooning Goes To…

Cidu Bill on Mar 10th 2011

(explanation)

Filed in Ad Reinhardt, Bill Bickel, Brevity, Guy and Rodd, comic strips, comics, humor | 44 responses so far

44 Responses to “And the John Cage Award for Cartooning Goes To…”

John Small Berries Mar 10th 2011 at 02:51 pm 1

The Ad Reinhardt estate is clearly less litigious than John Cage’s.
Cidu Bill Mar 10th 2011 at 03:10 pm 2

Well, John, different contexts: Guy and Rodd did a day’s worth of satire. In the Cage case, he was given album credit. They may have intended it as a similar act of satire, but it was still part of a permanent commercial product containing 4+ minutes of Cage’s concept. I side with Cage’s estate on that one.
Paperboy Mar 10th 2011 at 03:32 pm 3

This work is amazing as well as disturbing; it confronts us with our expectations on “Art” as well as aspects of our mortality (the “blackness” of Death). Rather than a plain, white space that would seem to encourage our own contribution, it is filled in completely, preventing us from establishing our own identity in relation to the work; we are out-siders, and thus are thrust in that roll. By using black as it’s key, it brings us face to face with our regard for African-Americans: is black “bad”, or “good”? It’s basic concept is not the ADDITION of ideas, which a white space would do, but the STRIPPING AWAY of newer, faulty canards that hide the basic truths of human endeavor. This is an inimatable work , and should be valued as such.
Kit Mar 10th 2011 at 03:40 pm 4

/thread, Paperboy
Swordsmith Mar 10th 2011 at 04:02 pm 5

This was both my favorite Brevity of all time (admittedly not a terribly high mark to hit), and my favorite comic of the day.
OldOwl Mar 10th 2011 at 04:19 pm 6

I ‘ll try to avoid all the pedantry that an art historian could bring to bear on the subject, and merely note that a poorly lit, low-resolution image of a Reinhardt black painting would look just like that. The joke (his joke on all of us) is that when you see a real one, it doesn’t look like that at all.
Paperboy Mar 10th 2011 at 04:26 pm 7

… when we actually are face to face with the actual painting, the brush-strokes are visible; we can follow the artists’ path, perceive his thoughts, his hesitations in the creation: we are there with him, and feel a kinship, a camraderie ,with the struggle. We see that it is not a flat surface, but one of ornate ridges of paint, rising and flowing; a rhythm of life transcending the boundaries of the frame. It is not PAINT we see, but a substance of the heavens, ebon and vast, encompassing, and enveloping all.
George P Mar 10th 2011 at 05:49 pm 8

I was really hoping that all-star recording of 4′33″ would top the charts in England last Christmas, but it fell short.
John Small Berries Mar 10th 2011 at 05:55 pm 9

Cidu Bill, how is 4+ minutes of the concept of a 4′33″ silent “musical” work materially different than 100% of the concept of a black piece of art?
Swordsmith Mar 10th 2011 at 06:04 pm 10

Reinhardt didn’t do one black painting, he did a whole series of them, and as Paperboy points out they aren’t actually one solid sheet of uniform black, but rather actual paintings complete with brush strokes and shadings and so on. Cage’s 4′33″ is a single work, and other than length is… just silence, or as he would put it, discovered noises.

For the two to be alike, Cage would have had to have written a score consisting of stops of varying lengths. Imagine if you had an orchestra where each performer had different positions of readiness in which they held their instrument depending on the length of the stop they saw on their score, so the whole piece would be a silent ballet of instruments changing positions, nearly ready to play a notes but never actually doing so.

Then, 4 minutes of silence not consisting of rests would be like a black near-square with no inner details. But that’s not what’s happened here. This is not a pipe.
OldOwl Mar 10th 2011 at 07:15 pm 11

I think Paperboy may have overstepped the Reinhardt brief just a bit. Don’t look for the heavens there, just black paint. See Reinhardt’s exchanges with Tomas Merton for his views on “content.”
OldOwl Mar 10th 2011 at 07:17 pm 12

“Thomas,” of course. Oops.
Paperboy Mar 10th 2011 at 08:05 pm 13

OldOwl#11- Thanks; I don’t want to damn Reinhardt with paint phrase.
furrykef Mar 10th 2011 at 10:05 pm 14

Kit — but how can it be /thread without any reference to Hitler?
Igelino Mar 10th 2011 at 10:47 pm 15

Is Paperboy the winner of this thread then?
Kilby Mar 10th 2011 at 11:50 pm 16

About twenty years ago I saw an ad for an unbelievably expensive “coffee table” book retrospective of monochromatic paintings (it was probably Reinhardt, but perhaps it was a copycat hack). Painting a monochromatic canvas might have some meaning in a museum setting where you can see the canvas (if you like that sort of thing), but this cartoon clearly points out the colossal idiocy of reproducing such works on printed paper (even more so on a digital monitor). Nevertheless, if someone is crazy enough to print it, there are probably plenty of people with enough foolish money to make it profitable.

@15, 7, 3 - I liked Paperboy’s sarcastic rendition of “ArtSpeak” very much, I just hope that nobody takes it at face value.
Winter Wallaby Mar 11th 2011 at 01:22 am 17

Paperboy #3, #7: Nice!

Bill #2: Would it be OK to copy Klein and make invisible paintings? What if I tried to pass them off as original Klein’s?
Igelino Mar 11th 2011 at 06:33 am 18

Winter @ 17, invisible Calvin Kleins? Your biggest problem surely won’t be copyright infringement.
mitch4 Mar 11th 2011 at 07:34 am 19

Did Clyfford Still do any solid-black canvases?
John Small Berries Mar 11th 2011 at 09:18 am 20

Swordsmith, according to the Wikipedia article on 4′33″, Cage did something very similar to what you were suggesting, closing and opening the keyboard lid to mark the different sections of the piece.

Additionally, it claims that one of his influences were the all-white paintings of Robert Rauschenberg (which, like Reinhardt’s, were not merely a solid swath of color) - and that 4′33″ wasn’t even the first all-silent piece, so it wasn’t even an original concept.

I dunno. Maybe I just take a dim view of works like 4′33″, L.H.O.O.Q., and the like because I have a hard time believing that anything I could have produced, without any artistic or musical talent, could possibly be art.
John Small Berries Mar 11th 2011 at 09:19 am 21

Bah, sorry, thought I’d closed that tag.
Heather D Mar 11th 2011 at 10:03 am 22

@swordsmith — actually, 4′33″ does have 3 movements, though it’s for solo piano, not orchestra. As John Small Berries mentioned, Cage himself opened and closed the lid to show this. Other performers do other things… when I saw the piece a few years ago, the pianist put her hands up on the keyboard, as though she was going to play, and held them there… then put them in her lap between movements.

It’s actually more interesting than you might give it credit for. It could be argued that it’s not “music”, but it’s definitely art. Within music, silence can be just as important as the sounds — a silence in the middle of a phrase can be FILLED with meaning. Just as in drama/movies/etc, sometimes silence says more than sound. Silence can be filled with expectation… mystery… suspense… or calmness.

4′33″ takes the idea of the importance of moments of silence, and takes it to the extreme. If music consists of a balance of sound and silence… but you CAN have music that is ONLY sound… why not have music that is ONLY silence?

When actually experiencing the piece, it’s more interesting than you’d think. Especially if you have an audience where some people aren’t familiar with the piece… their confusion is part of the experience. “Found sound” is a good description. In silence for 4 minutes, you become ACUTELY aware of every little noise. It’s actually fascinating. You can certainly argue that it isn’t really “music”, but it’s still an intriguing experience… which you don’t realize until you’ve actually experienced it.
x Mar 11th 2011 at 11:00 am 23

Let me ask you. How many people here have actually seen this painting? How many authors who have this painting in their art texts have actually seen this painting? If you saw this painting forty years ago the number nine comes mind. Every art book has it shown as a monolithic black surface.
Winter Wallaby Mar 11th 2011 at 11:25 am 24

. . . I have a hard time believing that anything I could have produced, without any artistic or musical talent, could possibly be art.

By that standard, taking a
dump in a can isn’t art. However, since it recently sold for over $100,000, it must be art. Reductio ad absurdum, your standard is wrong.
Chuck Mar 11th 2011 at 03:36 pm 25

Black monolith? I suppose when you see it in person you realize that it’s full of stars.
mitch4 Mar 11th 2011 at 05:38 pm 26

Thank you Heather #22.

My version of what we can take from it has been with a lot of emphasis on that point about the other sounds surfacing to attention when the “musical performance” is sort of omitted. That’s why it is a concert piece, not a studio recording piece — there needs to be a hall and people shifting in their seats etc.
mitch4 Mar 11th 2011 at 05:44 pm 27

Let me ask you. How many people here have actually seen this painting?

Well, not that Ad Reinhardt one, but I think I’ve seen this mostly-black Clyfford Still at the Art Institute of Chicago: http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/15569?search_id=1 (That’s why I mentioned him earlier.)

Yes, in that web image it does seem like just a black rectangle. But it’s quite textured and quite imposing in person.

In the late 1940s, Clyfford Still, along with Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko, originated the type of Abstract Expressionism known as Field Painting, a term used to describe large canvases dominated by one uniform color or a few colors closely related in hue and value. In contrast to Newman and Rothko, who usually applied paint thinly and uniformly, Still used a palette knife, creating textural effects that give the surface a complex, nearly sculptural sense of materiality. Named after the years of its creation, 1951–52 is a rare, nearly all-black work in the artist’s oeuvre. A vertical white line to the right of center and a thin streak of red-orange along the left side provide the sole interruptions in the black field. The subtle modulations of texture and finish support the artist’s claim that “I do not oversimplify—in fact, I revel in the extra complex.”
mitch4 Mar 11th 2011 at 05:54 pm 28

The Art Institute does seem to have two Reinhardts, with one of them seeming to be just a black square n this web mage: http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/146990?search_id=5 . But I don’t think I’ve seen this in person. The other one, BTW, is called “Black and White”.
Paperboy Mar 11th 2011 at 06:21 pm 29

mitch4#25- But if “there needs to be a hall and people shifting in their seats etc.”, it sounds like ANY concert before the music starts. (Yes, I know there’s the idea of attention; but one could get the same Cage affect if one simply decides to sit and listen before the show.) The thing about most modern art is that the most interesting and creative things about them are what is written about them. Some artist may drop the contents of a garbage can onto a gallery floor, and an art critic is told “extol it: Go!”, and he writes something like “Artist X makes a strong statement against our consumerist society; against the whole idea of obselesence in products and of people. Oh, wait; is that a Barbie doll in there? Bonus! It’s also about Sexism…” It’s great stuff. The S.F. Chronicle still has an Art critic, and I can’t tell if he’s serious or not, but he puts out good work. I don’t hate or shun modern art;I just can’t see paying anything for concepts.
Detcord Mar 11th 2011 at 07:06 pm 30

I’ve been debating with myself, which is kinda weird - I’ll admit - about whether or not I should comment on this… black square. I have to say that Paperboy has done a grand job. Seriously. So, I think I’ll end my debate with just that. LOL Paperboy. I couldn’t have said it better.
mark d Mar 11th 2011 at 08:51 pm 31

Kazimir Malevich also had a Black Square, albeit with a thin white frame. But let’s follow Paperboy, paint a black circle, and let it be representational rather than abstract expressionistic. I’ll call my black circle “Black Hole,” meaning a (hypothetical) black hole of astronomy.
Paperboy Mar 11th 2011 at 09:02 pm 32

mark d#30- Still wouldn’t pay money to see it.
Winter Wallaby Mar 11th 2011 at 11:10 pm 33

Paperboy #29/#32: Yeah, but by that standard does any art pricing make sense? I wouldn’t pay a lot of money for a drawing by Rembrandt (except for the resale value), particularly when you can get reproductions for a pittance.
Proginoskes Mar 12th 2011 at 03:26 am 34

My kid could paint *that*.
Dave in Boston Mar 12th 2011 at 05:52 am 35

Chuck: and then you can be drawn in, and you find it’s really about rebirth and transcendence…
Detcord Mar 12th 2011 at 06:52 am 36

Winter Wallaby(32)

Folks often pay money simply to see a painting or sculpture - i.e. the price of admission. I’ve done it myself in museums throughout Europe and the States, and don’t begrudge the cost… well, mostly. The Guggenheim in Spain was a complete waste IMO. Well, the contents anyway. The building itself was interesting, once, but I wouldn’t go back.

I like to touch history, though with most art that touch has to be figurative and not literal. Also, black squares such as this allow some to wax lyrical (i.e. the creativity and insight comes from the viewer, not the artist), which I think is the main attraction. My wife is doing so as I type as I ill-advisedly showed her what I was typing about - she’s got art degrees

Still say Paperboy’s got it.
x Mar 13th 2011 at 02:48 am 37

I asked : How many people here have actually seen this painting?

It was a simple question. The answer was none of you. You took the liberty, however, to mock it. I saw this painting more than forty years ago and i still remember my reaction turning around thirty feet from it and seeing nine perfect pulsating black squares.
Last but not least please forget the psycho-babble that has been written about it.
mitch4 Mar 13th 2011 at 04:11 am 38

Dear X,

Perhaps you missed my #27 and ff.

I did take your question seriously, and answered it. While I don’t think I’ve seen this exact painting, I’ve seen a different large mostly-black canvas, the Clyfford Still that I posted a link and catalogue description about.

The in-person experience is certainly different from looking at a tiny undifferentiated black rectangle on a computer screen! And also different in actual experience from imagining “if I were actually there, what would I see and feel and think?”. As I said, these large color-field canvases are imposing! And some have loads of impasto, ther textures, and details — so very different from the online pictures, and not something the detractors can honestly say they are accurately envisioning.

I wouldn’t want to get all poetic about the blackness, either. Rothko’s enormous misty boulders are (to my tastes) even more impressive, and that’s with color and shape, albeit attenuated.

X, your original #23 was less clear than this #37 about why you were asking, and what conclusions or implications you would draw from various answers. (I don’t get your mention of “number nine”. Beatles??) I’m glad you clarified it here, and I’ll happily second your contention that those who have not seen something like this as a real full-scale object are talking thru their hats when they dismiss it.

==Mitch

P.S. to those saying “my kid could have done this” — can (s)he really handle a 10-foot by 13-foot canvas? Stretch it, elevate it? Wield a palette knife? Or do you just mean “Anybody could have thought of doing this”?
Igelino Mar 13th 2011 at 05:57 am 39

X @ 37: Paperboy @ 7 didn’t sound sarcastic or mocking to me. I can’t always tell with him, though. I liked his posts because of their ambiguity.

The original art very badly reproduced here is worthless without its texture, the color is almost an unfortunate side-effect. Is that the ‘funny’ that Guy and Rodd were trying to produce?
Detcord Mar 13th 2011 at 07:06 am 40

x(37)

You mistake a lack of response as a confirmation that no one (here) has seen artist Ad Reinhard’s Black at the Museum of Modern Art (Moma) in New York. I’ve been to this museum many times and did indeed see this “piece of Art”. As my wife would tell you, I am no fan of this form of modern art, as my Guggenheim comments made clear. For me, “Black” was eminently forgettable - and still is.

Of course, you and others here are free to disagree. My wife does, and I remember arguing with her about this one at the time. Almost had another one today , but she knows me better now. She remembers it too and is currently waxing lyrical about it as I type.

And I stand by my 36 post. In my opinion, the paucity of ideas, combined with the need to produce more (to get the same income) has prompted many current artists to shift the source of creativity onto the viewer. My wife agrees and also thinks this is a good thing as it forces them (well, some anyway) to think outside their comfort zone. To that, all I can say is “piffle”. The rest would probably be censored.

Only Paperboy knows what was behind his posts, but I liked them for what I perceived to be an underlying current of witty sarcasms and gentle mocking. Until he writes otherwise, I go with his lyrical flow.
Winter Wallaby Mar 13th 2011 at 10:52 am 41

Detcord #36:

Still say Paperboy’s got it.

Well, sure. I’m hardly going to argue with someone who writes so eloquently.

X, #37:

I asked : How many people here have actually seen this painting? It was a simple question. The answer was none of you.

I’m impressed with your psychic powers!
Paperboy Mar 13th 2011 at 01:42 pm 42

My posts were supposed to be wittily sarcastic and gently mocking, as Detcord correctly perceives, but directed at the works of Abstract Modern Art and that of professional critics, not at people who enjoy viewing the work, or even those that create it.
When confronted with a large, single-color canvas with textures and details, the best reaction I think one could get is to notice the details, and to realize just about everything has interesting textures: the wall in your room, the sidewalk, that tree, if you just look. To try to understand what the artist is trying to say makes me realize I should be trying to understand those close to me instead, people I actually have a relationship with. The message of the Art is “There’s a world out there; Get out of this museum!”
Proginoskes Mar 14th 2011 at 02:32 am 43

No, I haven’t seen this painting.

No, I don’t want to. Never did.

Based on the last paragraph of #42, hasn’t the point of the painting been made, making it obsolete?
pepperjackcandy Mar 14th 2011 at 01:23 pm 44

Paperboy wrote:

The message of the Art is “There’s a world out there; Get out of this museum!”

I love this so much, I felt it needed to be said again.