Keith Coventry’s drawings on magazine pages of ‘Gisèle’ 2001 and ‘Kate Moss’ 2000 are studies and the genesis for a series titled ‘Supermodel’, paintings, sculpture and prints. These "ape Rodchenko’s Constructivism through images of two different sized interlocking circles that depict bodily proportion as a faceless and characterless perfection, where each painting looks pretty much the same and each supermodel, for all her glamour, is shown to be as insubstantial as the celebrity culture she embodies. The Utopianism that has as its core a belief in perfection or purity will always lead to disappointment." (Keith Coventry: Paintings exhibition. Text by Andrew Wilson. Glasgow: Tramway, 2006). Robert Crumb’s ‘California Girl’ 1970 - 72 is an early drawing of his vision of an idealised woman, a subject he has returned to very frequently throughout his career, and which continues to be deeply divisive. “The incompetently drawn hand is just an indication of the state of my skills at the time, and the fact that I was smoking pot almost every day. Concentration impairment was the result.” Robert Crumb
Peter Blake’s two tracings, ‘Miss Super⭐️’ and ‘Brigitte Bardot’, are, like the Coventry works, stages leading towards the final work. A photograph from a magazine is carefully drawn on tracing paper and in turn drawn onto the canvas, allowing the everyday, popular culture to be added to the canon and history of painting. This ‘Pop’ act of image-transferal is revealed in his study for his diamond dust print, ‘Love Me Tender’. Similarly, Robert Crumb’s ‘Robert Johnson’, uses a photobooth self-portrait of the blues singer rendered in cross-hatching in his seminal screen print, framing Johnson with graphics inspired by record advertisements from the 1920s and 1930s.
Andy Warhol’s distinctive signature marks his portrait of Melva Borgidam(date unknown), in classic Warhol pose, shoulders sideways and head turned to face the photographer. Gavin Turk’s ‘Your Authorized Reflection’, a mirror signed by the artist in the bottom right corner understands, as did Warhol, the validation and commodification that a signature accords to an artwork. What one sees in the mirror, be it the viewer themselves or anything else reflected in the mirror is ‘authorised’ by Gavin’s signature.
David Gamble’s ‘Andy Warhol Wig. NYC’ 1987 focuses on his iconic white wig, which acts as an instantly recogniseable substitute of the recently deceased artist. Similarly Kevin Cummins describes his portrait of Ian Curtis ‘Like a prayer card, an icon really’, the close-up of Ian’s face echoed in David Bailey’s ‘Mick in Fur Hood’ 1964, printed 1992.
Derrick Alexis Coard’s ‘Healing in the Casual Way’ 2011, a pencil drawing on paper of a bearded man in a confident almost majestic pose creates, in his own words, ‘a form of testimonial where black men can be seen in a more positive and righteous light’. (‘Derrick Alexis Coard - I Am that I Am’, KARMA Press Release 2024). Susannah Baker-Smith also employs the three-quarter length format in ‘Another Living Soul 61’ 2020, but here there is a very unsettling quality to the photograph as the sitter hides his face and looks away from the viewer.
Genesis P-Orridge’s ‘Untitled’ 1979 is a postcard of Queen Elizabeth II subsumed by collaged seaside-goers and Nuclear Power plant workers. Traditionally portrayed solitary and independent, here she is reduced to a bit player. "Let's cut it up and see what it really says", one of Genesis’ favourite William Burroughs’ quotes. Sarah Lucas cuts, and crushes two beer cans together to make her beer ban penis works, ‘Elephant Beer Can Penis/Bierdosen Pimmel’ 1999 and ‘Beer Can Penis’ 2001. By anthropomorphising male genitalia, the works suggest the reinvention of the phrase ‘men are what they *drink’. “Beer Can Penis is art to make your head spin: a deceptively simple sculptural gesture that encourages you to ponder its exalted lineage while reserving the right to take the piss out of you for doing so. (‘Sarah Lucas’s ‘Beer Can Penis’ Unfurls a Micro-History of Modern Sculpture’, Fan Letter, Frieze, 09.01.2019. Text by Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith).
