The Ironic Icon

The Ironic Icon was a retrospective exhibition of works by William Anthony.

Stalke Galleri was proud to present the first retrospective exhibition of the American artist William Anthony.

Since the mid-1960s, William Anthony’s bizarre line drawings had achieved cult status among prominent figures such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. According to Warhol, Anthony’s illustration of the Bible was the only one Warhol could understand. Over time, others also came to understand his work. His satirical depictions of human folly, war, mythology from the Wild West, and humorous “copies” of modernist masterpieces and elements of visual culture—both mainstream and excessive—carried an unmistakable and quirky charm. The iconography made it clear that this was pop art, but also its subconscious underside. A visual machine distorted and rearranged images. Anthony’s icons were not spiritual guides; instead, they led into an existential wilderness where laughter appeared as the final salvation, the last divine message after God had left the planet.

Some claimed that Pollock could not paint, while others asserted that Anthony could not draw. This was mistaken. The figures in Anthony’s works were deliberately out of proportion and represented a formal exploration of the boundaries of drawing, conceived as a conscious attempt to escape conventions and rules. On a deeper level, this distortion formed the core of his practice. Even though people resembled what they were, Anthony’s lines appeared comical because humanity itself was comical.

Jes Brinch (Project Room)

Time to Change. New paintings by Jes Brinch.

The exhibition in the Project Room presented a series of new paintings by Danish artist Jes Brinch, who at the time was living and working in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Jes Brinch’s paintings took an existential point of departure, questioning values in life that are often taken for granted. The theme, Time to Change, focused on relationships between men and women. The works combined a feminist and humorous tone and, in addition to encouraging reflection on gender relations, conveyed elements of the artist’s personal experiences in Vietnam.

William Anthony

The Ironic Icons

Text, Leo Steinbech, Robert Rosenblum and Jacob Lillemose

Design Kristian Jacobsen

Producer: Stalke Galleri

Isbn: 87-90538-19-6

Quoted from the catalogue The Ironic Icon, Stalke Galleri

“These drawings project so much mordant satire and such precision in conveying human predicaments that the underlying sophistication is unmistakable.”

Leo Steinberg

Jes Brinch

Project room

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