Why?: Art, the Icon, and Simplification.

Why this message?

Why?  This is the question Michael Salter likes to ask, and hopes his art inspires others to ask.  He considers himself an” obsessive observer”.  He doesn’t take anything at face value, and over-analyzes everything he sees.  I can fully relate!  I feel like I am somehow from the same “school” or “generation” as Salter, even though I was only one year old in 1776 when he designed his first art production.  Because I am coming from a similar place of asking why, I truly appreciated his slide show (which he said was more than twice the number of slides one would hope for, yet I was disappointed when it ended).  One of my favorite things that he showed us was the sign for the pancake restaurant on W. 11^th.  You know the one, with the man that Salter likened to Ron Jeremy, the famous porn star.  I thought the man in the sign looked more like a creepy, smelly pedophile, but hey, similar vein.  But exactly “why” would that be the image you want EVERYBODY to see when they think about eating pancakes?  Why?  I have asked that question numerous times upon reading people’s t-shirts.  I can’t think of any really good examples from the top of my head, but I am constantly wondering, “Why is that the message you want to send to the world?”  Here are some prime examples of t-shirts that make a person wonder, "Why?"

Salter said, “Everything you look at matters.  It informs and defines you.  It has an effect on the way you think.”  I believe this too.  That’s why I think it’s so important to surround oneself with amazing, positive, inspiring things instead of most of what we see in our culture right now. 

I didn’t really like Chris Coleman’s art.  His “My House is not My House” series was all wrong for me.  It wasn’t just a picture; it did stuff.  But I kept expecting it to do more “stuff”.  I suppose he wanted it to be more than just a picture, to be interactive, but I found it actually less captivating than a still painting.  I wanted it to be MORE active if it was going to be active at all.  Either be a painting or be a video.  Why were all of the videos 5 – 6 minutes long?  Is that the amount of time it’s supposed to take for me to get it?  I think maybe the video clips should have been shorter so that I wasn’t waiting for something else that wasn’t going to happen.  Well, at least I’m asking “why”.  Maybe that was the point, just like in Salter’s art.  

The rest of Coleman’s art was too dark, bloody, warlike, and strangely science-fiction-y.  Not in a good science-fiction-y way like the Battlestar Gallactica and C3PO of Salter’s slide show.  The eery science-fiction-y way that makes me uncomfortable.  Kind of Orwellian.  Again, perhaps that was the point. 

I found the excerpt from “Understanding Comics” to be very captivating.  Most notable is the style in which it is presented.  How clever to write a book about comics in comic format!  Like our little iconic friend says, “The ability of cartoons to focus our attention on an idea is… an important part of their special power…(31)”  Case in point.  This chapter proves its own existence.  It’s so brilliant! 

Icon-man (he probably has a name, I’m sorry) says that “In pictures… meaning is fluid and variable according to appearance.  They differ from ‘real-life’ appearance to varying degrees (28).”  I guess that’s why when we look at the pancake sign we can see a porn star or a pedophile instead of just seeing a sign for a pancake restaurant. 

People are attracted to icons.  They’re just representations, but they can invoke meaning in such an effective way. The reading defines this as “Amplification through simplification.”  The reason it works is that “By stripping down an image to its essential ‘meaning,’ an artist can amplify that meaning in a way that realistic art can’t (30).”  The goal of the icon, or the cartoon is very similar to that of Michael Salter with his art.  Basically, they are both taking a complex concept and breaking it down to its most basic form.  In this way it is both simplified and personalized at the same time.  I say it’s personalized because as Scott McCloud points out, our perception of a comic or cartoon is our own interpretation of ourselves.  We see ourselves in everything.  Some examples from the reading were an electrical outlet, a Kraft cheese shaker, and a car’s front end.  What do these things mean?  Well, they have their obvious utilitarian purposes, but when presented as an art concept, it means whatever the viewer wants it to mean.  That’s the point of art.