Edited by Monica Rumsey. Foreword by Elsa Longhauser. Text by Jeffrey Uslip, John Yau. Interview by Ali Subotnick.
For more than 30 years New York–based artist Joyce Pensato (born 1941) has transformed America's most iconic cartoon characters into psychologically charged enamel paintings and charcoal drawings. Her subjects, such as Mickey Mouse, Felix the Cat, Donald and Daisy Duck, the Simpsons, Batman and South Park's Kyle and Stan, oscillate between comedic representation and menacing abstraction. I Killed Kenny is the first museum exhibition devoted to Pensato's work and features the monumental wall painting "Running Mickeys," created on-site for CAM. Presenting a selection of key paintings and works on paper spanning Pensato's career—from being mentored by Joan Mitchell and Mercedes Matter at the New York Studio School in the 1970s to her most recent metallic painting, "Gold Batman"—this book reveals her work's evolution.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Bookforum
Christopher Lyon
The title character of Joyce Pensato: I Killed Kenny is Kenny McCormick of South Park, who dies in practically every episode of the show’s first five seasons only to mysteriously reappear. The book’s ink-black varnished cover imitates the enamel surfaces that Pensato favors. Contemporary art has a long history of appropriating cartoon characters; one thinks Andy Warhol, who painted Dick Tracy and Batman, or Peter Saul’s scatological Supermans from the generation before Pensato’s. But it is hard to think of an artist who approaches these characters without apparent irony. Pensato elicits powerful emotional responses with seemingly minimal means, using pared-down visages of Mickey, Daffy, Cartman, Bard, and Kenny–not to mention the masked eyes of Batman, her main squeeze, represented in this book by ten paintings reproduced in an extravagant gatefold.
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.5 x 12.75 in. / 110 pgs / 94 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $39.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $53.95 GBP £35.00 ISBN: 9780983967224 PUBLISHER: Santa Monica Museum of Art/Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis AVAILABLE: 12/31/2014 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: WORLD
Published by Santa Monica Museum of Art/Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. Edited by Monica Rumsey. Foreword by Elsa Longhauser. Text by Jeffrey Uslip, John Yau. Interview by Ali Subotnick.
For more than 30 years New York–based artist Joyce Pensato (born 1941) has transformed America's most iconic cartoon characters into psychologically charged enamel paintings and charcoal drawings. Her subjects, such as Mickey Mouse, Felix the Cat, Donald and Daisy Duck, the Simpsons, Batman and South Park's Kyle and Stan, oscillate between comedic representation and menacing abstraction. I Killed Kenny is the first museum exhibition devoted to Pensato's work and features the monumental wall painting "Running Mickeys," created on-site for CAM. Presenting a selection of key paintings and works on paper spanning Pensato's career—from being mentored by Joan Mitchell and Mercedes Matter at the New York Studio School in the 1970s to her most recent metallic painting, "Gold Batman"—this book reveals her work's evolution.
