I guess that is the point, but it’s my point: Lichtenstein took advantage of the fact that comics was a marginalized art form and that comics artists worked in relative obscurity and anonymity. Are artists only protected from uncredited plagiarism if their art forms are considered “legit” by the mainstream?
If the Pop movement (via Lichtenstein) truly recognized capital “A” art in a non-traditional source like comics, then why didn’t he just draw a comic book?
I forgot to mention earlier that your point about Lichtenstein’s misuse of the Benday dots pattern is SPOT ON (pun intended!). It’s less damaging than the plagiarism, but it’s still something that Lichtenstein could have made a legitimate comment on if he had had the skill; the cheap four-color print process added a weird, accidental, mechanical note of additional content to comic books that none of the artists intended. The beauty was in its overlapping dots and off registration that made for strange ghost images when you looked at them up close. It’s kind of amazing, but Lichtenstein missed the point.
And that vocabulary is so pervasive today – bad graphic designers continue to misuse it. It’s like a badly done reference to something they’ve never even seen because they’ve only seen Lichtenstein’s version of it.
Check out the 4CP blog for really awesome ongoing discussion about “The dots!” http://4cp.posthaven.com/
Hi kids, welcome to art school 101. Look up recontextualisation. The audience was equally shocked and dismissive when Duchamp started presenting his ready-mades in galleries. Today he is considered a giant of contemporary art at the time.
It is difficult to understand why some everyday objects and images break through and become world-famous artworks. @Mister44’s explanation is the most accurate: these works, like all works, are products of their era. When that era is no more, it’s hard to understand how things of the time came to be so popular.
Furthermore, like is the case for most artists, the popular consciousness simplifies an artist’s entire career of art to just one period of their art making lives. Lichtenstein was an exhibited artist before using the art of DC Comics.
Australia’s national gallery has one of these guys as well as his more recognisable works. I personally love this artwork far more than the comics stuff, but it’s important to understand that the artist’s work was a commentary and consideration of commercial art (i.e. what now classifies as ‘graphic design’) and comics are also commercial art.
ORLY? If you cared enough to even read the Wikipedia page on him you’d know that this was his first foray into using comics as art:
Inspired by this interaction with his son:
Mickey Mouse is so obscure, amirite?
And that vocabulary is so pervasive today – bad graphic designers continue to misuse it.
I hate when people misuse things that don’t understand!
Benday dots
I imagine the estate of Van Gogh is pissed about this one, right?
No just an appreciation of the fact that it’s an appropriation of the original.
The “I could have done that” is always strong when it comes to Lichtenstein 
Everything is a remix. Those comic panels borrow heavily from a history of visual story-telling devices and cliches. There is no such thing as an original idea. All ideas come from what we already know.
I don’t see anyone in this very reasonable thread misunderstanding what recontextualization is – we’re arguing that, on a scale, the panel(s) in question don’t fall into that category.
The only point I’ve seen that even comes close to giving him a pass here is that the panel was divorced from the context of the page and story it was in originally. But to what degree does that minor change recontextualize the image? To me that’s like taking a song out of its album, or an aria out of its opera. Again, apply this scenario to ANY other art form and it doesn’t hold water. If you take a chapter from a novel and publish it as a short story with the names of the characters changed, has it been recontextualized or plagiarized?
Reproducing a piece of static 2D visual art as another piece of static 2D visual art doesn’t seem very transformative. Sure, a painting of a stove is transformative because the painting is not a stove. But no one would argue that making an identical stove would fall in the same category.
How does this comment come immediately after you jab at Lichtenstein for remixing Van Gogh?
Did the winds change suddenly, or a I not understanding some esoteric concept wherein you change directions every post?
First he’s appropriating (“bad!”) then he’s remixing (“good!”).
And “you could have done it.”
Yes, and you could have invented the wheel, too. Any schoolchild could have.
Once you’ve seen it, it’s obvious.
As soon as you put an object in a gallery it has been recontextualised, whether you like it or not.
Pray tell, discussion club, how many people here have tertiary qualifications on the subject?
@JessePost Re your last comment because this discussion is now closed:
Obviously these works exist on a spectrum between those poles (thus the arguments).
The point I am making is that I’d contend you’d find few gallery curators or art school graduates who would see this as plagiarism. It seems to me like it’s comics fans who are most upset by this. When it comes to decisions on a topic I lean towards the professionals in that field.
And it’s immediately obvious that Lichtenstein was “permitted” to tip the scales towards plagiarism because “who cares about comics? They’re just meaningless pop culture artifacts.”
No one permits anything to happen in art. Artists mostly think “who cares about ______” IMO. The world is our canvas and palette.
I’m saying, “Reimagine those comics as meaningFUL art objects, take another look at what happened, and see if you feel the same way.”
No one is denying they are valuable art in their own right, but a panel of a comic is more like a note in a song than a whole song. Do you accept musical remixes or sampling as a genuine form of art? Does that use of a tiny portion of another whole work constitute plagiarism? The music world doesn’t seem to think so, even if their shitty record labels do. Again: I’ll side with artists here.
My final question is: why did the original comic artists not put their own blown-up panels on canvas and make this same art? Is it because they, too, saw their art as existing squarely in the commercial realm and not part of the elitist fine art world?
Allow me to introduce you to Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote (pdf).
I not only understand that but I support it. And if comics weren’t marginalized as something no more valuable than a urinal then Roy could have just hung up Russ Heath’s original panel and done the same trick. Actually, he could have anyway and I would think he was a hero of the comics art form.
Again, not arguing that recontextualization does not exist. I’m arguing that plagiarism also exists. Obviously these works exist on a spectrum between those poles (thus the arguments).
And it’s immediately obvious that Lichtenstein was “permitted” to tip the scales towards plagiarism because “who cares about comics? They’re just meaningless pop culture artifacts.” I’m saying, “Reimagine those comics as meaningFUL art objects, take another look at what happened, and see if you feel the same way.”
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