Multiplicity

graphite & putty eraser, digital composite
original source: 'The Guardian' G2 06/10/08

Of course, the obvious thing to do with the series of drawings processed from the original source of a selection of Warhol's Polaroid portraits was arrange them together, in serial fashion, as reproduced in the newspaper, & working very much in the 'multiple', mass-production style of Warhol himself. We're also back in familiar 'Modernist grid' territory, a homely place.

Two interesting articles in September's edition of Modern Painters feature illustrated variations on the theme.
On the subject of Warhol's one & only visit to China, he professed himself an admirer, as one might expect, of Maoist multiplicity & such socio-cultural phenomena as uniformity of dress, & the ubiquity of the mass-produced & disseminated Little Red Book & the simplicity of its ideas, all very much in accord with his own aesthetic philosophy & production.


Andy Warhol modelling 'Mao' jacket
photographic contact sheet/1982

Mark Wallinger, meanwhile, by simple dint of the application of a little drawing, using a felt-tipped pen, upon standard photo-booth passport-type self portraits, produced in multiples, transforms his appearance into a number of ethnic (stereo)types, (dis)guises, whilst remaining the same person underneath, suggesting that such significant differences as are habitually perceived might be more a matter of superficial surface appearance than the more profound, essential factors human beings share.


Mark Wallinger 'Passport Control'
colour photographs/1988

Addition 28/10/08


graphite & putty eraser/20x30cm
original source: 'The Guardian' 22/10/08

Closely related to the Wallinger photos & the creation of multiple identies from the same essential, individual source, this drawing was subsequently processed from a newspaper reproduction of a selection of 4 original photo booth images (arranged most seductively & irresistibly in our beloved grid format, note) of Jacques Mesrine, the so-called 'man with 1,000 faces', a master-of-disguise French criminal of the 70s (yeah, dig some of those hair & spectacles styles, very redolent of the period), which status also of course references Warhol's serial images of 'most wanted' & other mug-shot felons & gangsters, the glamour of which endures, particularly in cinema & TV: indeed, the Mesrine article which the photo-composite accompanies by way of illustration details a just-released 1st-part-of-2 biographical film of the subject, made topical by such.

Similar to the drawings of the 1st moon landing astronauts processed during the 'summer', the source of this drawing is of a suitably degraded nature through both technical considerations of its time & the various stages of reproduction to which it & its constituent components have been subject.

Soundtrack:


Nick Drake 'Five Leaves Left'
The Delgados 'The Great Eastern'
Charlotte Gainsbourg '5:55'
Sol Seppy 'The Bells of 1 2'
Luna 'Best of'