Sundays with Clyfford Still: Sylver Lyning (14)

Welcome to Sundays With Clyfford Still.  I’m your host, M.K. Hajdin.

This is number 14  in the series.  You can read the other posts here.

This week we’re looking at the lighter side of Clyfford Still.  We don’t have any evidence that Clyffie himself actually possessed a lighter side,  but a survey of popular culture reveals that one exists – created by other artists with a bit more humor and less paranoia.

 Here is cartoonist Kenny Be’s vision of “Clyfford’s Color Fyeld Gryll”, which unfortunately never came to pass.  Unfortunately, I say, because that “dyppying palette”  looks pretty good.

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Artists Rebecca Herman & Mark Shoffner propose Clyfford Still-themed dazzle ships:

They even have uniforms to match.  Click here to see.

I could just see the enemy ship’s crew squinting at the U.S.S. Clyfford Still, muttering things like “What the hell is that supposed to be?” and “My kid could make that in Photoshop..” right up until the moment they go down in a hail of torpedo fire.

On a still-satirical but slightly more serious note, here’s a cartoon from the 1940s about abstract art:

Vintage cartoon

“…the post-cubist abstract painting not only creates and controls ‘a world’ in itself, but also frees the artist, “completely, from a brutal, barbaric existence.”

The above quote is from a thinky piece inspired by this cartoon at Abstract Critical, a site featuring abstract artists.  Click here to read the rest of it.

…I could talk about the woman who defaced a painting at the Clyfford Still museum, but I didn’t actually find that funny.  Why don’t vandals ever attack bad art?  Do they think it’s already ruined, so there isn’t any point?

What do you think?  Tell me in the comments box below or tweet me with the hashtag #clyffordlove.

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