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Adam MysockIf He Wasn't Handsome, Would He Still be Super?2016
2016
About the Item
after: Joseph Shuster’s Superman #1 Cover (1939) and #17 Beast and the Beauty from Wally Wood’s, Bob Powell’s, and Norm Saunders’ Mars Attacks trading cards (1962)
Framed: 9h x 10w in
Our aliens are almost always the enemy. Maybe it’s a ploy by conspiracy theorists to unify humanity against a common enemy. But there are exceptions. Like Superman. His whole narrative hinges on his being born on another planet.
It begs consideration about what’s different with Superman; what makes this alien an ally rather than an opponent? For me, the easiest, or most superficial, answer has to be that he’s handsome. And white.
If He Wasn't Handsome, Would He Still Be Super? encourages a viewer to consider how heroic Superman’s selfless actions would be if he were depicted more like the alien monsters that populate our movies and televisions. How much does external appearance influence our impression of an alien’s social value?
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Adam Mysock was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1983 - the son of an elementary school English teacher and a lab technician who specializes in the manufacturing of pigments. On account of a steady stream of folk tales from his mother, his father's vividly dyed work clothes, and a solid Midwestern work ethic, he developed an interest in painting and drawing all things Americana from a very early age. Mysock earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting and Art History by 2004 from Tulane University. He then received an MFA from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
After his studies, he became the mural coordinator for the City of Cincinnati's MuralWorks mural program and worked as an adjunct drawing professor at Sinclair Community College in Dayton. In the summer of 2008, Mysock became a Professor of Practice at Tulane University where he currently teaches and maintains a studio. Mysock's work has been exhibited in Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana and is in private collections across the US, including those of Thomas Coleman and Michael Wilkinson. He was a 2009 jury winner in the annual No Dead Artists juried exhibition. On August 4th, 2012 he was awarded first prize “Best in Show” in the Ogden Museum’s Louisiana Contemporary Annual Juried Exhibition. Mysock exhibited at Pulse Miami Art Fair in December 2012 with Jonathan Ferrara Gallery and he was selected for the 2013 Edition of New American Paintings. Mysock was exhibited in a solo project booth at the VOLTA9 Art Fair in Basel, Switzerland where he was acquired by the SØR Rusche Collection. In 2016, Mysock’s work was featured in a Baroque and Contemporary group exhibition from the SØR Rusche Collection, Oelde/Berlin at Kunsthalle Jesuitenkirche as well as in a solo exhibition entitled When Everything Was Wonderful Tomorrow at Galerie Andreas Binder in Munich, Germany. His work was also featured in EXCHANGE, an international exhibition at Galerie Jochen Hempel, Berlin. Furthermore, Mysock was recently selected as one of two recipients of the fifth Manifest Artist Residency (MAR) Award upon his return to his hometown. Mysock currently lives and works in Cincinatti, Ohio.
'I’m a revisionist history painter. Rather than rewrite the narrative of the past to justify an ideology, I repaint yesterday’s imagery in order to rationalize our present circumstances.'
Mysock says of his work, "Telling stories is a part of human nature; it’s how we relate to one another. The stories we have in common help us create sincere connections to our neighbors and our surroundings. What’s more, storytelling – for better or worse – typically involves hyperbole. We tend to exaggerate; we tend to lie.
Generally, we believe we control our narrative embellishments. What gets exaggerated from one telling to another gets exaggerated to challenge our listeners. What gets repeated gets repeated because it resonates with them. What gets omitted gets left out because it’s lost its meaning. We actively use embellishment to keep our audiences engaged.
Given enough distance, however, sources and accuracy fade out and substitutions become the new norms. Quietly, time redefines what is truth and what is fiction.
As a painter, I’m preoccupied by the undeniable role that the image plays in creating this acceptance of the fictional. A painting has the authority to make the intangible concrete, and a series of them has the ability to authenticate a fabrication in our collective memory.
When I begin a piece, I typically start with preexisting images, artifacts from this collective remembrance. I look for images that shape my pictorial consciousness, that are hard to question because when I first saw them they were presented as the truth. They have to capture my imagination and they have to feel largely descriptive of a greater story. From them, I’m given my task – I have to “disrepair” them. I have to consolidate an earlier world of historical and cultural visual-fact with an evolving understanding of subtlety and gradation. I find that the discrepancies I discover between the absolute and the nuanced inspire me most.
The resultant work is largely about storytelling, the ownership and authorship of our culture’s visual narratives, and the parallels between those tales. It’s meant to challenge the truth of “source” and the source of truth. After all, as Franz Kafka once wrote, "It is hard to tell the truth, for although there 'is' one, it is alive and constantly changes its face."
- Creator:Adam Mysock (1983, American)
- Creation Year:2016
- Dimensions:Height: 7 in (17.78 cm)Width: 8 in (20.32 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:New Orleans, LA
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU10521291613
Adam Mysock
Adam Mysock holds a BFA degree in Painting and Art History from Tulane University and an MFA from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. In collaboration with his studio practice, he has taught at the university level for more than 10 years, most recently as a Senior Professor of Practice at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana.
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After: The Death of Seneca by Manuel Domínguez Sánchez (1871) and Eaton's Neck, Long Island by John Frederick Kensett (1872)
Painted as a response to the ongoing conversations about race and policing in the United States in 2020, Having Missed the Mark with Our Grief focuses on the problem of the “But what about…” conversations that too often accompany discussions about systemic racism and discrimination. From the nonsensical All Lives Matter crowd to the virtue-signaling of more well-meaning, empathetic groups, people outside of BIPOC communities too frequently seem ready to misdirect valuable attention away from meaningful change toward their own unthreatened subcultures.
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