Post from Warren Craghead
[Note from the editors–This is a response to Libby’s Jan. 22 post, “Thai food for thought.”]Cartoons and comics can also deal with real issues – they aren’t all escapist (shown, Michael Ray Charles’ “After Black” and “Before Black”).
I would argue a lot of contemporary art is only superficially about it’s “content” – much of the time it’s about the artist’s celebrity or a clever trick they’ve found (shown, David Salle’s “Tragedy”). THAT’S escapist…
AND, who ever said art has to deal with those issues of life and death?
AND, [Matthew] Ritchie IS dealing with those things – his work is a visual exploration of the most powerful philosophy we have today – modern science and it’s attempts to understand how we are here (shown, Ritchie’s “Day Three”). His work is not some cocoon as you’ve implied. You can say it ain’t great ( I think it’s ugly sometimes), but it isn’t some li’l fantasy-land.
–Charlottesville, Va.-based artist Warren Craghead is founding editor of Salvage Magazine.
