MIVA FINE ART

Revisionist Art

Here, in the form of covers from famous magazines such as Time and Playboy, Bob Dylan has taken social, political and pop-culture icons and married them with headlines and images  either ripped from other publications or just pulled from the ether.

The finished pieces, printed on large silkscreened canvas, are both absurd and satirical. They take aim at lofty public figures and celebrities, re-imagining their lives. Also in Dylan’s sights are the magazines themselves, for their covers that encompass dizzying arrays of unrelated subjects and for their lewd and violent imagery, used to catch the eye. Although the materials, processes and results are completely different, the Gates and the Revisionist Art Series share the same re-contextualisation of constituent parts: for the former, tools and pieces of machinery; and for the latter, iconography and headlines. There is a clear separation between the two art forms, yet they have a strikingly similar drive and vivacity.