Back in the day, the early days of this blog, one of my first local art blogs was about Ken Bastard and Meeghan Glick, who just started a collaborative project that combined Meeghan’s propensity for drawing lapin and Ken’s compulsion to use familiar media images for the basis of art and social critique.As the joke goes, two artists walked into a bar. Ken and I started chatting. I know how to ask questions; he knows how to talk. He compared the concept to Art Speigelman’s Maus. I love Maus, seen Speiglemen lecture. I was intrigued. A blog resulted. I saw one of his openings, blogged about here. But it turns out, that incidental meeting at a now closed drinking establishment was actually the start of the Battered Bunnies collaboration between these two kindred artistic sensibilities.
The official debut took place in an exclusive side gallery devoted to the “Battered Bunnies” imagery, part of the Exquisite Corpse exhibit. The show included some individual works as well as the collaboration.
“We wanted to show our different styles,” said Ken. When they do another installation of this series, they may want to consider sticking just to the bunnies as human stand-ins in images of familiar tragedies. The artists use satire and humor to peel away the familiarity and lets us see the actual tragedy anew.
How did they work? Was it like comic book artists, one did the drawings, the ink outlines, the other did the coloring, the colorist I believe is term. “No,” said Meeghan. “We both did both, you can’t really tell. One would start a painting, the other would finish.”
Ken’s sensibility, which is very punk rock, a twist of mad magazine and great comic book artists, like Jack Kirby, whom he idolizes. Meeghan likes drawing animals. I’m guessing her favorite Peanuts Character is Snoopy. A truly talented illustrator; she finds the nightmare just beneath the surface. They maybe bunnies, but you don’t want to turn your back on them. She convinces us our apprehension is justified. She finds that space where the cute becomes the grotesque.
The collaboration does appear seamless, you do not know where one ends and the other begins.By the same token you recognize bits of their individualistic style. It is neither clash nor blend; each style informs the other. A dialog is taking place underneath the hilarious black humor with a full range of historical references
This is my favorite hare, based on a famous picture by Depression era photographer, Dorethea Lange. I saw an early version of this work when I first met them. This picture is known for the craggy, weather-worn lines engraved into the face of a hard-bitten dust bowl refugee. Her face, and her children hiding their faces, shows how life for some Americans became a thankless struggle. I love the way the fur on the bunny appears matted, mimicking the crevices in her face. The rabbit makes the joke and the point, really original and brilliant idea. Maybe I like it because America is looking more like the Depression every day and there's no FDR hopping around.
Famous Jonestown mass suicide. All we need to see are the rabbit tales and paws to get the joke, which is in the context of the show. First the viewer recognizes the image and the viewer figures out the what the artists are doing with the bunnies. Really smart, really funny.
Why stick to 20th century tragedies. The Crucifixion of Saint Peter Rabbit, one of the most dramatic of the early Christian martyrdom tales; Saint Peter asked to be nailed upside down to the cross because he wasn’t worthy enough to die like Jesus. This is a line for line parody of The Crucifixion of Saint Peter by Caravaggio. You can't just trace a grand master. Think about it.
The exhibit included an explanation of how they bunny-fied the images. The deliberation for each piece is endearingly manic.
While it might be fair to criticize this work as unfeeling, or too irreverent towards the victims depicted, you still would be missing the point. In fact, that dismissal is the real cynicism. The Battered Bunnies are not finding the absurdity in our propensity towards cruelty, they are finding the absurdity in a society that distances itself from these victims. The absurdity is that Humanity inflicted this pain and individuals live their lives in denial of these terrible horrors. The bunnies aren’t unfeeling, it’s you who are unfeeling because your society has become so immune to suffering that the victims might as well now be pink bunnies. (no wonder they’re not very adorable! )
No comments:
Post a Comment