A comment from this blog in reference to John Hankiewicz:
'I like Hankiewicz's comics a great deal, but I'm not sure that I get them in the sense that he means them to be got. That frustrates me. I think it is the beauty of the drawing that keeps me coming back. I sort of wish that drawing could be applied to a "straight" story ( relatively speaking) , maybe about the suburban area that he lives.'
My view of art embraces the counter to this notion.
First of all (as someone who was talking about this issue with me put very sharply) "as if John hasn't thought of that."
The joy of art (for me at least) is about letting go of what you 'want' the artist to do. With drawing, I have very hard time saying 'this drawing is inherently better than this one.' When I see art, often times what I see more than anything else are the choices: 'they made this choice at the top of the drawing...oh, and down here another choice.' It's hard for me to say one choice is better than another, since they all tell you something about the person who made the work.
I try to not say 'that's better than that' too much. But I do make a distinction about what moves me.
John Hankiewicz works moves me more than most art, and I think it must be, in part, because it doesn't try to hit any pleasure buttons (although I find his work highly pleasurable)...which becomes highly moving. Because it's all Johns choices, unfiltered (for the most part) to make a choice for YOU.
Quentin Tarantino movies don't move me at all, since all the choices are made with me in mind.
28 comments:
Reasonably sure Tarantino's choices aren't made with you in mind.
It's really nice to encounter something that really mystifies me. I don't understand Hankiewicz's choices mostly, there's not an obvious "sense" to them. It's really difficult to do that, and beautiful. I, at least, can't seem to make strips that don't function mechanically, that don't fully embrace that dichotomy between image and words. I feel like John's comics are like koans, there's some intuitive meaning I'm not grasping because I'm trying too hard.
I like Tarantino's movies, but they push the buttons in me they're supposed to push. They're calculated to appeal to me (or anyone within my socioeconomic spectrum). My idea of art is that it's about a genuine search of the universe, asking in some way what this is all about. It's confusing and difficult, but seeing it happen inspires me.
oh sean. cmon guy. me = the mass audience that tarantino relentlessly massages.
i feel like perhaps hankiewicz is trying to push a lot of pleasure buttons, very deliberately. but maybe it's some kind of dense, constricted, highly charged kind of pleasure that doesn't scream out for friends. it seems like there are antecedents for work with mood like his, as well as contemporaries. max ernst etchings? it looks like gorey, but it's scarier. gorey mixed with carl barks and night of the hunter and clowes. this isn't helping.
it's so potent as to stand very alone on a comics shelf, for sure. but this is not news to anyone who knows it. still, he's nice to talk about.
scary and hilarious and quiet. i want to go live in his comics sometimes, but i think that would involve slowing down my pulse and speeding it up, simultaneously. such is the temporal nexus of hankiewicz.
it's not like he's dead though. looking over my shoulder, perhaps. i hope this doesn't embarrass him or bum him out. john, do you like tarantino?
"I sort of wish that drawing could be applied to a "straight" story ( relatively speaking) , maybe about the suburban area that he lives."
i'd like to think that the apparent mood of his comics could be arriving from the honest attempt to make something straight about his life. JTM's dead ringer comes to mind as an example of this kind of comic too. work that feels directly channeled.
austin i would like to see arthur dove discussed in relation to intention, pleasure, choices, tarantino et al
"i feel like perhaps hankiewicz is trying to push a lot of pleasure buttons, very deliberately. but maybe it's some kind of dense, constricted, highly charged kind of pleasure that doesn't scream out for friends."
Yeah - I just meant that Hankiewicz isn't pandering to a perceived audience.
The contemporary art that all of you guys (and me) are into definitely is designed to push our pleasure buttons. It just goes about it in a more nuanced and subtle way.
Art-geeks are really just a different kind of Trekkie. The only thing that qualifies it otherwise is the rationale that fine art is somehow more important. It certainly isn't more important in any democratic sense.
Sometimes, yeah, it's just about a more refined sense of aesthetics, but the art that really moves me is asking questions, not answering them. I guess, maybe, that's my own aesthetic clitoris.
jesse: as my former roommate, aren't you tired of hearing me use quentin tarantino as the source of all problems the world faces?
ive enjoyed his movies the same way a bag of m and ms is enjoyable. how can you NOT like it?
but he jsut strieks me as a guy who has read every comment on every movie message board with guys saying stuff lik e'that fight scene should have been 5 minutes longer...and the villian shoulda come in during the second sce, etc'
and then he DELIVERS that movie and then that dude give tarantino a good grade. seems like a horrible set up for both him and the 'fans.'
stay on topic please
'Neon Knome' lost to 'Yappy Broads', what does that tell us about fans?
Austin, I know what you meant, I just disagree.
Whether John thought of doing something like that or not is irrelevant. I think that comment reveals a pretty immature view of art/literature, where the goal is to mystify, or come up with something so new that no one could've "thought of it" before the artist.
That position is so far from what I think of as a good or interesting approach to art, I don't really know what to say. It seems like how someone who is competing for social position and recognition ( two things this blog by way of Blaise seem to focus on). If you're interested in baffling the reader, well, that's not really that hard. I think lots of people have thought of that..
Ultimately, we're talking about a work being edifying, and in what way. John has done comics that seem more "straight" and are about his suburban surroundings.
My note about his work is really not much different than saying you'd prefer it if a free jazz artist would occasionally get a little tuneful. Not really a radical notion.
I've avoided this place for a while. I think that was a good idea.
Thing is, this kind of obscure/baffling stuff, at worst, is just another sensation button. It's really worse, in some ways, cause the pleasure comes from a feeling that in order to feel that pleasure, one has to have special access to the obscure.
I think most of the readings of material done in that state of mind are projections. It's sort of like noise music fans. Sometimes it's the real deal, but most of the time, I'd wager, when they're getting off on the music, they're actually getting off on the idea of being the kind of guy that gets off on that kind of music.
I hate that that quote was used. I love Hankewiecz's comics. I interviewed the guy, fer chrissakes..
Just to refine it a bit, I think his comics work is best when they touch on the particulars of his life and surroundings.
The drawings and prints? I love all of them.
i tried making a cutting edge jpg last night, after seeing cutting edge jpgs online. it gets frustrating because there are certain signs that I understand, certain colors / photoshop effects that i know are cutting edge, but i wasn't able to cohere these signs into a coherent structure. i felt like i understood the frustration with cutting edge art.
cutting edge art seems to be really simple to make, but it is always very hard to make. i think perhaps because the surface is the access point, but underlying all these seemingly aesthetic decisions is [something], and that [something] is difficult to access.
anyway, i know these feelings of mine were unhealthy, no matter what the intent of the original artists is. i should be content creating my own culture, and i should be able to appreciate other cultures for being other.
at the same time part of me will be left feeling discontent and perhaps will eventually assimilate somewhat to the cultures that i think are cutting edge.
this is all, for me, somewhat off-topic in a john hankiewicz discussion, because he seems to be unconcerned about being cutting edge.
Yeah, I don't know what "cutting edge" means. I don't think it really means anything, really. It's just a relatively new trend, those really raw looking jpegs. It's not really new. I don't know that there is anything to consciously understand before one could make a successful one.Like most contemporary style, it seems to be about achieving a pleasing grotesque kind of mish-mash, i.e, finding those compositional points that seem "off" in a way that isn't too obvious, but obviously composed.
As far as content, though? I have no idea, but they seem to convey passing aesthetic fancies and little more. Maybe a reference to lame technology as the new naive.
"Maybe a reference to lame technology as the new naive."
that's a really good way to put it. It's like trading on the idea that there are, maybe, "outsider" artists who use whatever's available in a really obsessive way - not wanting to appear to be one of those but wanting to acknowledge their fake-influence. Also, there's something transcendent about what's considered lame, like a punk fuck-you-I'll-do-it-however-I-want.
But back to Hankiewicz, I was pretty muddy with what I was saying. I agree that art trying to be exotic via mystification is annoying and reminds me of people putting their heads in triangles or getting into orgone boxes - bullshit, but John doesn't seem concerned with fashion or popularity and is baffling only because he's experimenting with his own language and systems. I do probably get more out of the strips that I have more of a way into, and, yeah, his drawings and prints are fucking amazing.
What is this about jpgs?
@uland, @jason agreed, nice phrasing
@ian link
Maybe someone upthread said this already but I think JH's work is mysterious and baffling (which, as someone wrote, is easy) but also CONVINCING. I don't know what's going on exactly but the drawing skill and the arrangement of images just makes it seem real and alive.
Yeah, I think that he conveys a real kind of authority— a wieghtiness and sense of drama that can't be dismissed.
"that's a really good way to put it. It's like trading on the idea that there are, maybe, "outsider" artists who use whatever's available in a really obsessive way - not wanting to appear to be one of those but wanting to acknowledge their fake-influence. Also, there's something transcendent about what's considered lame, like a punk fuck-you-I'll-do-it-however-I-want."
Yeah, I think that's right. There's something attractive about a lot of that stuff. That 'out for pizza' girl? Have you guys seen her stuff? There's some pretty striking things going on there.
It's kind of knowing simulation of ignorance, in a way. I think it's fun, but I'm not sure how much it can really speak to adult experience.It's holding childhood a little too dear.
Did you guys see Where the Wild Things Are? I think that movie is a perfect example of privileged adults rewriting childhood narratives to suit their vision of themselves. Spike Jones apparently had a note stuck to the wall of the production office that read "There is no difference between childhood and adulthood". Well, yeah, if you can afford it, that'd be nice to believe...
That movie was awful. It's good to prevent yourself from being bitter and maintain some belief in possibility, but, yeah, unless you've got money to burn, it's impossible to treat adulthood like childhood when you have a job, kids, etc.
out for pizza girl ? link please
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