Insane pixel-like wall art

May 29, 2007 1:40 PM

Peggy a redo of the Lichtenstein modern classic using 2788 hand cut, sanded, and painted dowels mounted on a wall, forming a 3 x 7 foot work of art.
posted by mathowie (38 comments total)

Interesting that its a sculptural interpretation of a 2D work, but I'm not sure it improves or expands upon the original. I'd much rather see entirely original work composed this way - I can think of many possibilites for that.
posted by blaneyphoto at 2:00 PM on May 29, 2007

but I'm not sure it improves or expands upon the original

Considering how intentionally playful Roy has been with his work, I think playing another step down the road of his self-conscious half-toning with these extrusion hijinx makes a different sort of sense in context than it would on an indepentent composition. As a statement about a statement about process and medium, it's pretty cool.
posted by cortex at 2:07 PM on May 29, 2007 [1 favorite]

Unfortunately the artist can't work in this medium again, as there's no overcoming the too-apt title of "Peggy."
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 2:08 PM on May 29, 2007

I guess I'm unimpressed by algorithmically putting colors at regular locations to reproduce a known image.

Strike that - make it "thoroughly unimpressed".
posted by Flunkie at 2:09 PM on May 29, 2007

Flunkie- this person apparently cut 2,788 dowels, sanded them, painted them, and then arranged them in a pattern to exactly match a piece of existing art. That sounds like a lot of work to me.

What does someone have to do to make you impressed? If the artist had done all this with only their mind, would that do it for you?

Art is expression. This person is expressing themselves by making you consider the physicality and medium of the piece as much as the actual content. We should celebrate expression, because it's better than the alternative.
posted by thethirdman at 2:15 PM on May 29, 2007 [3 favorites]

"That sounds like a lot of work to me."

Just because its alot of work, doesn't make it great art. All in all, its fine, but just not as impressive as you might think. Kind of like a homemade wooden lite-brite set.

Let's see him tackle some Seurat or Chuck Close work... then I might be won over.
posted by blaneyphoto at 2:19 PM on May 29, 2007

I think cortex got the dowel tip, er, point here. It's not that he just picked out something arbitrarily and made a craft of it, but rather he made a deliberate venture into the abstract via little pieces of cut and painted wood. It's easy to fault him for the misspent effort or whatever you don't like about it, but you didn't go to art school to learn that degree of concrete vs abstract, did you?
posted by Burhanistan at 2:27 PM on May 29, 2007

Nice.
posted by four panels at 2:30 PM on May 29, 2007

That's really pleasurable to look at.
posted by Peter H at 2:31 PM on May 29, 2007

Transferring "a Lichtenstein" to another medium has got to be one of the most self defeating artistic endeavors I could possibly fathom. What's next?

...but you didn't go to art school to learn that degree of concrete vs abstract, did you?

(insert ancient colloquial quip about assumptions here)
posted by prostyle at 2:33 PM on May 29, 2007

Let's see him tackle some Seurat or Chuck Close work... then I might be won over.

Wrong. It isn't lame because Lichtenstein is lame (which he is), it's lame because it's an extremely linear leap from Lichtenstein's dots to a 3D version of dots—dowels. It expands on the original, sure. By a couple of inches toward the viewer.

It could have been an interesting idea, but it's spoiled by being a too-literal use of a medium, which places it squarely in the "craft" camp instead of the "art" camp. It's a piece about dowels, not about Lichtenstein.
posted by interrobang at 2:34 PM on May 29, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'm underwhelmed. It's neat, but just neat.
posted by JWright at 2:35 PM on May 29, 2007

"Let's see him tackle some Seurat or Chuck Close work... then I might be won over."

Really? Doing Seurat in dowels would just strike me as tacky, like a black velvet painting of Seurat. Can one do first generation pop now?
posted by mumkin at 2:40 PM on May 29, 2007

"Doing Seurat in dowels would just strike me as tacky,"

I'm hardly saying it would be instantly "high art" if it were a Seurat interpretation, but tackling something like Seurat's work would require a lot more than simply gridding off a board and drilling some holes. The organic, intuitive placement of Seurats dots would be much more difficult to emulate, in my opinion anyway.

..but you didn't go to art school to learn that degree of concrete vs abstract, did you?

Not sure if that's aimed at me, but yes - I'm a an art school grad, several times over.
posted by blaneyphoto at 2:45 PM on May 29, 2007

I'll join the snarkfest to say he's a lame graphic designer. You're welcome.
posted by parhamr at 2:56 PM on May 29, 2007

OK, well, I want it. It might not be good art, but I want it on my wall, so each time I go past it it changes and forms the girl's face. But I don't want to make it myself - that would be plagiarism, and I can't afford to buy it, probably.

So I'll just appreciate it as an idea.
posted by imperium at 2:57 PM on May 29, 2007

What's next?

Someone transferring Bilfield to another medium.
posted by 23skidoo at 3:01 PM on May 29, 2007

Sure, it's a riff off something that is itself a riff off another one. Art works like this, even if the destination is most of the time not shattering anything.

But it's beautiful, it's an interesting idea and I would gladly hang it on one of my walls.

What bothers me more it that his other works are rather meh.
posted by bru at 3:02 PM on May 29, 2007

Meh... Lichtenstein was just ripping off comic books.

This is a neat concept, not art in some traditional snooty sense, but attractive to the eye, easy to conceptualize its production for Joe Sixpack (me) and all in all I give it a thumbs up.
posted by wfrgms at 3:15 PM on May 29, 2007

I like it.
posted by mmahaffie at 3:19 PM on May 29, 2007

This'd be a crap post if anyone else had made it.
posted by Dave Faris at 3:32 PM on May 29, 2007

A celebration of tedium.
posted by tehloki at 4:25 PM on May 29, 2007

Meh, Shakespeare was just ripping of Holinshed.
posted by bardic at 5:00 PM on May 29, 2007

If I hand cut a stack of paper, printed out Metafilter on the pages, and bound the pages into a (3 dimensional ) book, it would be a lot of work too. I don't think it would improve on Mefi though...
posted by RMD at 5:11 PM on May 29, 2007

Flunkie- this person apparently cut 2,788 dowels, sanded them, painted them, and then arranged them in a pattern to exactly match a piece of existing art. That sounds like a lot of work to me.

People try really hard to do a lot of things, it doesn't make them worthy. This plainly doesn't work and it looks like crap.
posted by fire&wings at 5:28 PM on May 29, 2007

Shakespeare? This is admittedly a strange coincidence, but I'm working on recreating The First Part of King Henry the Sixth in the medium of painted dowels.
posted by found missing at 5:47 PM on May 29, 2007

That would look a lot better if the dowels weren't so broadly spaced that there's more whitespace than colour when seen head-on.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:51 PM on May 29, 2007

The popular poster of the work from which the cropped section was borrowed. Left gloved hand removed, solid black, yellow and white sections turned into dots, (zoom in....) dot size altered reduced ? red/white of lips inverted/simplified...
posted by RMD at 5:53 PM on May 29, 2007

I like Lichtenstein, and I think the dowel thing is great.

THERE. I SAID IT.
posted by katillathehun at 5:58 PM on May 29, 2007

This plainly doesn't work and it looks like crap.

It does? Objectively and absolutely? There's no way someone could feel otherwise without just plain being wrong?
posted by cortex at 6:03 PM on May 29, 2007 [1 favorite]

In addition to just plain being wrong, they'd be a chowderhead and a yokel.
posted by Eekacat at 6:26 PM on May 29, 2007

Flunkie- this person apparently cut 2,788 dowels, sanded them, painted them, and then arranged them in a pattern to exactly match a piece of existing art. That sounds like a lot of work to me.

Yeah, um, OK, I guess I shouldn't have spoken so loosely.

I am somewhat impressed with the amount of work that he put into it.

I am not even remotely impressed with its artistic worth.

How about if I do the same thing with two thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine dowels? Would you be even more impressed with me?

I sure wouldn't.
posted by Flunkie at 7:04 PM on May 29, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'm with katillathehun: I think it's cool and I like Leichtenstein.
posted by ob at 7:24 PM on May 29, 2007

is the copyright notice part of the 'art'?
posted by tremspeed at 7:28 PM on May 29, 2007

Here's hoping Mr. Bilfeld got the permission of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:44 PM on May 29, 2007

When I read the post title I thought it was going to be one dowel per halftone dot, but in hindsight a couple of thousand is obviously not enough. Bah. This looks like a pixel painting.
posted by ny_scotsman at 10:16 AM on May 30, 2007

This'd be a crap post if anyone else had made it.

Yeah! Get your own damn blo... oh.
posted by Pollomacho at 10:35 AM on May 30, 2007

Man, if I only had a Plinko chip...
posted by schleppo at 12:45 PM on May 30, 2007