Comic Release American Prayer

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COMIC RELEASE

Negotiating Identity for a new Generation
The Carnegie Mellon University
Regina Miller Gallery (Purnell Center of the Arts )
01. November 2003

exhibition-catalogue

American Prayer 2000
213 cm x 187 cm
mixed media (oil and acrylic on canvas)

curated by Vicky A. Clark and Barbara Bloemink with Ana Merino and Rick Gribenas

circulated by Pamela Auchincloss Arts Management Services
.
With a pow and a zap, cartoon imagery has recently exploded. Artists, graphic novelists, and zine makers everywhere are taking advantage of the potential to tell stories in a recognizable and familiar language. From Japan and Israel to the Americas, artists use cartoon imagery to address problematic issues. In the process, they participate in the construction of identity in its many guises, weaving aspects such as race, gender, sexual orientation, violence and war, loss of innocence, and the commodification of identity into complex, layered tales. And at times, they make us laugh at ourselves.

=> http://artserver.cfa.cmu.edu/~miller/exhibitions/comicRelease/comicRelease.html

ARTISTS EXPLORE THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CARTOON CHARACTER AND ITS IMPACT ON SOCIETY

31. January 2003
Tribune-Review
Pittsburgh
Kurt Shaw
Tribune-Review art critic

'Comic Release: Negotiating Identity for a New Generation'

Although cartoons and caricatures have played an important role in Western culture since the Middle Ages, the development of the comic strip and comic books are a unique American phenomenon and has contributed significantly to American visual culture.
...Gottfried Helnwein's "American Prayer," which is a large hyper-realistic painting of a boy kneeling in bedtime prayer to a large and looming Donald Duck.
About Helnwein's piece: Clark says, "In many ways, this is the signature piece for this whole show, because it shows how cartoon imagery has entered our culture, our world, our daily life."

=> Gottfried Helnwein, 'Comic Release: Negotiating Identity for a New Generation'

Regina Miller Gallery
Purnell Center of the Arts
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh PA 15213-3890

• Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Sunday 11:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
Closed Monday
• Event Line
(412) 268-3618

• Directions
Gallery entrance
To Carnegie Mellon University:
CMU Visitors directions page
To the Miller Gallery (from Forbes Ave. and Morewood Ave.):
* The Building in front of you is Purnell Center for the Arts. The building to your right is Warner Hall.
* The door to the gallery is underneath the electronic bulletin board.

Exhibitions at the Regina Gouger Miller Gallery are supported in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; individual sponsors; the School of Art; and the College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University.

Other articles related to the comic culture:

Gottfried Helnwein organized the first museum retrospective exhibition of the works of the Great Comic Artist CARL BARKS.

1994 - 01.Jan.1997
Carl Barks - retrospective
Gottfried Helnwein Organizes the First Retrospective Museumshow of the Great Comic Artist
UND DIE ENTE IST MENSCH GEWORDEN
The Show "Die Ente ist Mensch geworden - das zeichnerische Werk von Carl Barks" consisted of more than 400 original art works,
290 from the collection of Gottfried Helnwein.

=> The first museum retrospective exhibition of the works of CARL BARKS.

MEMORIES OF DUCKBURG

Opening one of these comic books felt like seeing the daylight again for someone who had been trapped underground by a mine-disaster for many days. I blinked carefully because my eyes hadn't gotten used to the glistening sun of Duckburg yet, and I greedily sucked the fresh breeze into my dusty lungs that came drifting over from Uncle Scrooge's money bin.
I was back home again, in a decent world where one could get flattened by steam-rollers and run through by bullets without serious harm. A world in which the people still look proper, with yellow beaks or black knobs instead of noses. And it was here that I met the man who would forever change my life - a man who, as the Austrian poet H.C. Artmann put it, is the only person today that has something worth telling us - Donald Duck.
English translation of "Erinnerungen an Entenhausen" , pulished in the German periodical "ZeitMagazin" on May 12, 1989
by Gottfried Helnwein

=> MEMORIES OF DUCKBURG

MICKYMAUS UNTER DEM ROTEN STERN

ZEIT magazin
Gottfried Helnwein
Das Museum der 100 Bilder Bedeutende Autoren und Künstler stellen ihr liebstes Kunstwerk vor Herausgegeben von Fritz J. Raddatz
Als ich ein Heft öffnete, fühlte ich mich wie einer, der bei einem Grubenunglück verschüttet worden war, und nun nach vielen Tagen Finsternis wieder ans Tageslicht trat.
Ich blinzelte, weil sich meine Augen noch nicht an das gleissende Licht der Sonne von Entenhausen gewöhnt hatten, und sog gierig die frische Briese, die vom Geldspeicher Dagobert Ducks herüberwehte, in meine staubigen Lungen.

=> MICKYMAUS UNTER DEM ROTEN STERN

Roy Disney about Helnwein's Carl Barks retrospective

VORWORT BY ROY DISNEY
Wir sind Gottfried Helnwein zu grossem Dank verpflichtet, dass er die erste bedeutende Ausstellung von Carl Barks' Kunstwerken und den damit verbundenen Katalog ermöglicht hat. Gottfried Helnwein, selbst ein anerkannter Künstler, hat der Kunstwelt mit diesem Projekt einen grossen Dienst erwiesen, indem er über 300 Arbeiten des Künstlers für dieses wirklich bedeutsame Ereignis zusammengestellt hat.

=> Roy Disney about Helnwein's Carl Barks retrospective

German Donald Duck Comic: Duckburg Citizens praise Helnwein

Walt Disney's Micky Maus
Ehapa Verlag, Stuttgart
DIE PANZERKNACKER
Ein schlapper Fall
"Die neue Ausstellung von Gottfried Helnwein soll ja phaenomenal sein,
die Kritiker ueberschlagen sich fast."
"Hab' davon gehört ! Werd' ich mir bei Gelegenheit ansehen müssen.
Ist ja Pflicht!"

=> DIE PANZERKNACKER - Ein schlapper Fall

=> Helnwein and the Comic Culture