Funny Cuts Cartoons and Comics in Contemporary Art ; [exhibition at Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, 4th December 2004-17th April 2005]

As its point of departure Funny Cuts takes Pop Art's revolutionary referencing of comics and concludes with the most current trends in contemporary art. Here we see the diverse ways in which this art is in dialogue with the commercial and trivial picture worlds of comics and cartoons. In the 1960s Pop artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein broke new ground in their provocative confrontation with high and low art when they used motifs and references from popular comics. In the 1970s, American comics dealt with taboo subjects like sexuality and violence: for the first time, the subversive potential and the psychological content of comic worlds were used creatively in fine art. Within the context of the punk movement, Raymond Pettibon and Mike Kelley were inspired by comics, making wall-length drawings that used the narrative element of comics on the border between visual art and literature. And internationally today, artists still question political and social realities and their own identity through the mythological potential of comics and animations. Presented here are numerous images that visually demonstrate the various ways in which comics have become a form of high art.