An exhibition of drawings, caricatures, and comic strips
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Lawrence Stanley Gilliam (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
- Advisor
- Andrew Martin
Abstract: In 1967 I caricatured a friend who voiced objections to being "reduced to a comic book character." However, he did not realize that he had already "reduced" his life to certain artificial roles and power-identifications (with Freud, Nietzsche, and Sartre) by means of which he thought himself elevated above the mass of humanity, by characterization of him as a hypnotist-sorcerer, eyes gleaming, seemed appropriate . However, just as everyone is charged with the task of becoming human, an artist must avoid dehumanizing his subjects in caricature unless it be necessary in order to point out the stereotyped socioeconomic and psychosexual roles and group identities into which they have fit themselves, and through which they cut themselves off from those members of the human race who do not fit their concept of personhood. In my work any deviation from realism (loosely defined) may be counted as an editorial gesture. The human beings in the pictures with whom my sympathies lie are drawn in a way that takes into account their humanity. They are drawn with organic contours, avoiding grotesquerie. (Figure 1) The other figures, misshapen by the confines of their roles, appear inhuman in some way; having animalized, mechanized, and/or disembodied their humanity. (Figure 2)
An exhibition of drawings, caricatures, and comic strips
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Created on 1/1/1972
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Thesis
- Language: English
- Date: 1972