Peter Saul "Ugly Americans" Solo Exhibition

The self-mocking, androgynous self-portrait 72x102inches Acrylic 2006. Peter Saul's "Ugly Americans" solo exhibition: on display from October 10 to November 7 at Praz-Delavallade Gallery. Born in 1934, Peter Saul is one of the most vital and original (older) artists in contemporary American art, and a pioneer of so-called cartoon art. Considered a representative figure of American Pop Art in the 1960s, he remains vigorous; his creative traits, like Pop Art, appropriate and extensively use mass media imagery, but he transcends Pop through it, developing unique pranks and irreverent references to create an unusually caustic artistic vocabulary. His extreme exaggeration and bad taste are more pervasive, humorous, witty, satirical, disorienting, countercultural, and critical than all other Pop Art. For over forty passionate years, Peter Saul has continued to cultivate cartoon painting with his unique approach, revisiting masterpieces of art history while developing his own distinct historical perspective. This radical view does not lie in the grandeur of history, but in new insights gained by reflecting contemporary mass culture. The artist reflects history in its primary truths: a dramatic mix of fear and romance, deeply allegorical, leaving viewers both laughing and crying. He narrates plots that are caustic, sometimes humorous, sometimes obscene, rich with suggestive implications, using various historical events, art history, or bewitching myths to expose the evil, depravity, gluttony, greed, arrogance, laziness, and belligerence of arrogant Americans, even evoking universal hatred.

Peter Saul's paintings rely on the complex organization of classical painting, expansive themes, exaggerated cartoonish figures, unpleasant colors, and flatness, sometimes adding narrative text to enhance storytelling. But when tackling those masterpieces of art history, he acts like a cartoonist, humorously and satirically hijacking images and processing them into cartoons, making art both humorous and critical. Art critic Michael Duncan wrote of Saul's work: "He has overall developed a unique style dedicated to the utopia of reversing all idealistic methods into a 'Museum Cartoon.' Through his unique method, he reveals the contradictions of American culture, the dialectic of good and evil, and sinister mentalities; this may best articulate our (Bush) era, while more obviously providing documentation of the decline of the American empire."