The upcoming KAWS exhibition at the YSP reminded me of the work of Mick Peter. Peter has developed a practice that juxtaposes the solid reality and gravitas of sculpture with the 'throwaway' language of the daily cartoon. His cartoon figures can look as if taken from the work of cartoon artists such as Robert Thompson or Larry but they are in fact illustrations designed by the artist himself.
From the Pyramid Selling exhibition at Tramway: Glasgow
Peter's work has examined the interrelationship between the flat, iconic language of drawing and the material language of sculpture in various previous exhibitions.
Drawing for Trademark Horizon
Trademark Horizon
The work in the exhibition 'Trademark Horizon' takes the shapes of typical logos and folds them into 3D forms, the drawing for the exhibition, shows how straightforward his working process is, however by pushing the work's scale and creating an installation, he is able to transcend what could be a trite idea and elevate these concerns into a dialogue about the nature of the relationship between flat images and sculptural concerns.
This is an old dialogue. During the Renaissance debates as to the merits of painting versus those of sculpture were common. Leonardo sets out the main issues. He argues that the demands placed on a painter are much greater than of a sculptor. While the painter had at least 10 visual problems to solve, “light, shade, colour, body, shape, position, distance, nearness, motion and rest”, the sculptor only has to work with “body, shape, position, motion, and rest.” Leonardo also argues that sculpture demands less talent than painting, going on to state that painting importantly involved less physical effort than sculpture, thus illustrating how painting was more cerebral. He rubbishes sculpture, saying that it “causes much perspiration which mingles with the grit and turns to mud”. The sculptor’s face is “pasted and smeared all over with marble powder…his dwelling is dirty and filled with dust and chips of stone.” The painter on the other hand “sits before his work at the greatest of ease, well dressed and applying delicate colours with his light brush”. His home is “clean and adorned with delightful pictures” and he enjoys “the accompaniment of music or the company of the authors of various fine works”. This of course is a key issue, because artists were at the time trying to make sure that their profession was seen as something higher than a mere craft. By pointing out the 'workmanlike' aspects of sculpture, he was trying to associate it with humble 'craftwork'. Leonardo accepts that sculpture’s greatest asset is its three-dimensional quality, however he goes on to state that the painter can equally achieve the effect of relieve (3 dimensional relief) through modelling in light and shade. It is unlikely that Michelangelo agreed with Leonardo on these issues. For centuries the arts had been divided into two categories. “Liberal” and “Mechanical” arts. The Liberal arts were considered to be fitting pursuits for free and noble citizens, being above the labour of handicrafts. Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy and Music represented the scientific Liberal arts because they were based on mathematics. Grammar, Dialectic and Rhetoric represented the rational side because they dealt with language. Both painting and sculpture had been classed amongst the mechanical arts because they required manual labour. Leonardo argued “With justifiable complaints painting laments that it has been dismissed from the number of the liberal arts, since she is the legitimate daughter of nature and acts through the noblest sense. Thus it is wrong, O writers, to have omitted her from the number of the liberal arts, since she embraces not only the works of nature but also infinite things which nature never created”.
These arguments as to what is 'proper' or high art, continue, and Mick Peter's work reminded me of how my own interests in art were 'rubbished' by my art tutors when I entered art college in the late 1960s. My own particular art hero was the cartoonist Giles. I thought his work wonderful and directly relevant to me as a young lad from a working class background. As well as Giles, the Marvel comics illustrator Jack Kirby seemed to me to be someone who could give real visual excitement to a graphic image. However I was soon guided away from these things and told to look at 'proper art'. Looking back on those times I can now see these debates as continuing ones, ones that will perhaps always be there because those that set the taste for society as a whole tend to be those rich and powerful enough to have their values listened to and taken seriously. We now have a debate as to what are 'English' or 'British' values, another debate as to who tells who what things are good and what are bad. Over time values change, my own work would have been derided as 'illustrative' 40 years ago, it is now accepted as 'narrative' art.
If you look at Peter's earlier work immediately above, you can see him thinking through the dilemma. His sculptural work is obviously directly influenced by 2D imagery, it operates as relief sculpture and/or sculptural line drawing, however the sources have been effectively covered up or hidden. His more recent work brings his interests out into the open, he is prepared to show full-blown cartoon type images and have confidence that they won't be derided as simply blown up cartoons, but that they will be accepted as interesting reflections on sculptural language and popular culture.
Mike Peter
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