This book takes as its point of departure Pop Art's revolutionary referencing of comics and concludes with the most current trends in contemporary art, reflecting in many diverse ways its dialogue with the commercial and «trivial« picture worlds of comics and cartoons.
Pop Art artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein were ground-breaking in their provocative confrontation with high and low art using motifs and references from popular comics.
In the sixties, Erró, Hervé Télémaque, and Öyvind Fahlström used comics in their work to critique society; today they are again provoking public interest.
In the seventies, American «comix« dealt with taboo subjects like sexuality and violence; here, 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, Mike Kelley and Raymond Pettibon were inspired by comics; in wall-length drawings that made use of the narrative element of comics on the border between visual art and literature.
New German and international artists question political and social realities and their own identity through the mythological potential of comics and animations and also in the creation of new virtual identities using video art.

Artists
Yoshitaka Amano, Angela Bulloch, Marcel Dzama, Tim Eitel, Erró, Inka Essenhigh, Öyvind Fahlström, Arturo Herrera, Hideaki Kawashima, Mike Kelley, Roy Lichtenstein, Takashi Murakami, Yoshitomo Nara, Julian Opie, Philippe Parreno, Raymond Pettibon, Alexander Roob, Wilhelm Sasnal, Dorothea Schulz, David Shrigley, Thaddeus Strode, Hervé Télémaque, Andy Warhol, Sue Williams and others
Présentation de l'éditeur