Over the last few days, it has become clear that The Asian Series, a show of paintings by Bob Dylan at Gagosian Gallery in New York, has its roots in photographs taken by others. Blake Gopnik pairs six Dylan paintings and their sources.
Left: Gagosian; Right: Dmitri Kessel, Time Life Pictures / Getty Images
Bob Dylan’s painting called The Game, next to the black-and-white photo it’s based on. Oil paints turn a document into “art”—which could help us give it a more critical viewing.
Dylan’s painting, Opium, and the 100-year-old photo it is based on, by Leon Busy, taken in Vietnam. Could it be that the painting, made so recently—and pretending to be a real observation—gives a sense that old clichés are alive and well? It’s not that such opium dens still exist, but that we still have them in our minds.
Monk, executed in oils by Dylan, and the hand-colored photo it was based on. Purely on the two pieces’ own terms, the photo actually may be the more striking image.
Dylan’s Big Brother, and a quite recent photo by Bruce Gilden that is its source. It seems obvious that Dylan’s image has a very photographic composition. It is hard to imagine simply viewing the world at this angle.
Dylan’s Trade and the photograph that gave birth to it, by Henri Cartier-Bresson. When artists borrow from such a famous source, they are normally flagging their work as a deliberate appropriation.
Dylan’s Emperor and a photograph from circa 1900 of Manchu newlyweds. By mixing such a vintage scene with much more recent imagery, the series gives viewers a sense that it is aggregating clichés—deliberately?
