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Steve Thompson, aware of my strong feelings about the paintings of Sharon Moody, alerted me to the comics-inspired art of Vin Vicini. Funny thing is, in spite of what could be seen as superficial similarities, the new images I saw didn’t bother me at all. So let’s take a look at a couple of Vicini’s paintings, and then I’ll explain why.
First, a 12″ x 12″ oil painting titled “Chapter 7: ‘Catch the Hero.'”
This first example includes details from the covers of Amazing Spider-Man #19 (December 1964), Batman #219 (February 1970), and Avengers #35 (December 1966), all of which I’ve rotated so you can more easily compare them to how they were used above.
Here’s one more, “Batman and the Crate,” an 11″ x 14″ oil painting.
This one includes fragments of Batman #1 (Spring 1940), Detective #126 (August 1947), and Batman #11 (June-July 1942).
Why wasn’t I perturbed by these as I was by the Sharon Moody pieces? Perhaps you don’t see them as very different at all, but I do, for three clear reasons:
First off, Vicini used only fragments from each cover, rather the entire original composition, so that the power of his pieces don’t come wholly from Neal Adams or Don Heck or Steve Ditko. He used slivers of each original to create something new, and so his paintings do not depend solely on the original artist for whatever power there is to his own art. He brought something to these paintings more than just the energy of what had existed in the first place. He didn’t merely piggyback on the talents of those great artists, he added something new to them via the choices in his compositions.
Also, Vicini truly treats the comics like objects in a way that Moody, in my opinion, did not. With the Moody’s I showed you earlier, I felt that the heavy lifting was being done by Jack Kirby, Ross Andru, and the others,, something I still believe even after seeing her pieces in person. But when I look at “Chapter 7: ‘Catch the Hero'” or “Batman and the Crate,” my enjoyment comes from more than just being blown away by the work crafted by others.
And finally—did you notice how Vicini did more than copy the originals, but made tweaks to some of the covers to better fit his compositions as a whole? Do you see how the horizontal telephone wires from the Detective cover were eliminated? How the background webbing of the Spider-Man was de-emphasized and its background color changed as well? These artistic alterations in the service of the whole are meaningful toward showing something new is being created here.
Maybe you’ll disagree, but all these things rolled together means that when I look at these I’m not immediately thinking, “Ah, Jack Burnley,” but instead admiring Vicini for what he’s done.
Do you agree with my distinctions or not? Either way, I’d love to hear what you think as I continue to wrestle with this issue.
James
Now that I’ve thought about it and this thread is old and ignored I’ll comment.
I think you are wrong that there is any significant difference between Moody and Vicini in any moral sense. There are massive differences in composition, technique and success. The whole point of the Trompe l’oeil Moody is doing is the gimmick, or technique, if you are successful. If it doesn’t give you the double take that the 3-D Sidewalk Art or this kid does then it has failed. Kirby is utterly irrelevant to the painting. You are supposed to be WoWed by her technique. In the end I think Moodys paintings are exercises in virtuosity, rather then any attempt at meaning. The composition is so spare that it doesn’t give you anything else. The dead giveaway for me is that her paintings are of new utterly untouched comics isolated from any other human reference except for their illusion of dimensionality. No finger marks, no stains, no creases. No kid touched these. They are cold and analytical. Trompe l’oeil really does require a start, a wink and a chuckle to really work. To me the real sin is not that she stole Kirby’s art or relied on it’s power to make her’s work, it’s that she made Kirby’s art boring. But, that isn’t the same as Kirby doing the heavy lifting. If the illusion isn’t compelling then he point of the piece failed, it’s just a really nice copy of a comic page, and no lifting was done at all. Moody failed or succeeded on her own.
Vicini has achieved what Moody failed to do in composition because he has not relied on a gimmick to make his art work. His paintings are full of warmth and feeling, and way too Norman Rockwell for me. He has one of the issues that Moody has, a lack of interest. I’m over the retro thing, and he doesn’t offer much else. His treatment of the comics is the same as Moody’s. That he massaged the colors and tweaked this or that isn’t a great deal to me. Which comic they were was recognizable. The surreal newness of Moodys comics is just as removed from the real thing.
Both artists are looking at how we look at the beginnings of the Baby boomer era and what it means to be young. They both associate comics with youth. And both are doing paintings. And both are treating comics as objects who’s meaning is derived from their context, not their internal art or writing. As comic fans we have to be careful not to lose the forest between the trees. Moody wasn’t treating the comic any differently then Vicini, she was just much less successful. Moody has more ambition in her painting. She is striving for something and I give her points for that. For Vicini, a worn comic with a worn baseball mitt on a worn box is an image as old as they come and as hackneyed. Since he shot lower and hit his mark doesn’t make him any different. The comic was recognizable, which is what is important for the moral point here.
As for the whole point of attribution in reference to comics is general I tend to agree that it is a place where the fine arts go slumming. They are also deeply rooted in the post WWII world of the baby boomers youth. The two should not be confused, because they are not the same. We also have to be careful not to confuse comic art and comic books. One is an object and one is a style that talented people who were paid slave wages worked in.