Neither Art Painting nor Art Photograph But a Nameless Mixture
Art is something which must be destroyed - a proposition common to many experiments of Modernity.
Pop art reverses values. “What characterizes pop is mainly its use of what is despised” (Lichtenstein). Images from mass culture, regarded as vulgar, unworthy of an aesthetic consecration, return virtually unaltered as materials of the artist’s activity. I should like to call this reversal the “Clovis Complex”: like Saint Remi addressing the Frankish king, the god of pop art says to the artist: “Burn what you have worshipped, worship what you have burned.” For instance: photography has long been fascinated by painting, of which it still passes as a poor relation; pop art overturns this prejudice: the photograph often becomes the origin of the images pop art presents: neither “art painting” nor “art photograph,” but a nameless mixture. Another example of reversal: nothing more contrary to art than the notion of being the mere reflection of the things represented, even photography does not support this destiny; pop art, on the contrary. accepts being an imagery, a collection of reflections, constituted by the banal reverberation of the American environment: reviled by high art, the copy returns. This reversal is not capricious, it does not proceed from a simple denial of value, from a simple rejection of the past; it obeys a regular historical impulse; as Paul Valéry noted (in Pieces sur l’Art), the appearance of new technical means (here, photography, serigraphy) modifies not only art’s forms but its very concept.
About The Martini
1) Source image http://www.journalstar.com/content/gallery/gallery_49/album_881/midsize_photo475074f836cde721239091.jpg -- note 600x386
2) convert -verbose -monitor 1.jpg -strip -quality 100 +dither -normalize -colorspace RGB 2.png
3) autotrace -report-progress -output-file=8.eps -output-format=eps -despeckle-level=10 -despeckle-tightness .75 2.png
4) autotrace -report-progress -output-file=8-2.eps -output-format=eps -despeckle-level=10 -despeckle-tightness .75 -centerline 2.png
5) convert -verbose -monitor -density 300 8.eps -quality 100 -median 11 -colorspace RGB preview.jpg
6) convert -verbose -monitor -density 300 8-2.eps -quality 100 -transparent-color white -colorspace RGB preview-2.png
7) convert -monitor -verbose -quality 100 preview.jpg -page +10+10 preview-2.png -flatten small-test.jpg
8 ) convert -monitor -verbose -quality 100 preview.jpg -page +2+2 preview-2.png -page +4+4 preview-2.png -page +6+6 preview-2.png -page +8+8 preview-2.png -page +10+10 preview-2.png -page +15+15 preview-2.png -page +20+20 preview-2.png -flatten small-test.jpg
