Ligne Claire: Claire's rant on paying homage vs. laziness

bookshop:

gaminginyourunderwear:

WANT! Pin-Up Calendar of the Apocalypse.

brain-food:

Pin-Up Calendar of the Apocalypse

They’re not appropriately dressed, but these ladies are managing to get by in the apocalypse all the same. Illustrator Andrew Tarusov created a doomsday calendar,…

i do think the apocalyptic concept is cool but i’m reblogging because i absolutely don’t support appropriation without credit, and i reblogged the original set of illustrations.

I agree that these are little close for comfort (especially since they’re all from the same artist rather than from a variety of different pin-up artists), but I absolutely think the “apocalypse” angle is enough to “justify” the borrowings. He pretty cleverly chose originals to fit his apocalypses and he says right on his website that they’re based on Gil Elvgren’s work (if the English-language coverage doesn’t see fit to translate the page, that’s not his fault.) Taking retro, happy, slightly-exploitive-but-fun pin-ups and setting them in the apocalypses that fill our modern consciousness is an all-around clever idea (whether it’s done for fanboy appeal or for social commentary) and it perhaps makes the execution better that he directly ripped off famous pin-ups (you know, the kind that take five minutes to find.)

just, idk. People always accuse appropriative artists of being “lazy” or “cheating” without realizing that, at times, stealing is art.

I’m all for letting artists riff off of each other- I’m a big fan of Kirby Ferguson’s current Everything’s a Remix video project- I just think this artist took Elvgren, made the art worse, and added backgrounds without properly adjusting the figures or anything to make them match. I’ve seen tons of fandom artists remix classic paintings and pinups, but they’ve done it in a way where they’ve brought something new to the table… And they openly acknowledged their source, instead of letting people assume otherwise. I’m not saying this is wrong, or morally inexcusable, it’s just clear that the artist doing them is an otherwise talented illustrator- he seems capable of (given the time and effort) actually making pinups that are good enough on their own.

Like take Bill Mudron’s Doctor Who/Mucha riffs, for instance:

…instantly recognizable as playing with Mucha art, but the artist is bringing enough to the table in the way of typography, design, etc. to make it worth your while. I’m not saying the Pin-UP calendar isn’t art, it clearly is, but I just don’t understand the motivation when the final product isn’t intended to be a wink at the viewer or commentary.