Dick Frizzell (Artist research)
Artist research:
Name: Dick Frizzell
Where are they from and where are they now:
(born , 1943) is a New Zealand artist based in Hawke's Bay.
Frizzell trained at the Ilam School of Fine Arts of the University of Canterbury from 1960 to 1963,
After this he worked in advertising for many years, and it is through this that he gained his appreciation for the advertising characters he uses in his work.
As a child Frizzell revelled in the rebellious energy of British and American comics
The artist also tries to engage with Kiwi culture which figures as an object of frustration and inspiration. Frustration because, in the Sixties, Frizzell found it hard to locate works of Modern Art or even find a place for the modern in the accepted idioms of art school
Artwork (for each relevant piece):
Name of work: Mickey To Tiki Tu Meke
What is it, and what is it made of:
A trained animator, he painted the watercolour for the Life Education Trust children's charity in 1995.
Frizzell created the original 49cm by 74cm watercolour and gouache on paper for a Canteen fundraising auction in Wellington. It then sold to a private collector for $4000.
Frizzell says it started as "a little idea ... something child-friendly to raise money for children".
"The Christchurch Art Gallery started the ball rolling when it reproduced the work as a poster," he said.
Mickey To Tiki Tu Meke depicts the morphing of Disney cartoon character Mickey Mouse into a Tiki.
In the title of the work the Maori phrase “Tu Meke” appears which approximately translates as “Too Much”. Auctioneers say this has multiple meanings: is it an illusion of multiplying or a call to change, for popular icons to reflect local culture.
Image:
What does it mean/represent:
The image, which has been described as one of the most important images in New Zealand’s visual culture, was inspired by a nation coming to terms with its identity.
“Mickey Mouse morphing into a tiki is a humorous and inventive take on national identity, and the pervasive globalisation of Disney,” says Chris Taylor, co-founder Ocula Black.
Over the past 18 years Mickey to Tiki Tu Meke has grown significantly in popularity. In 1997, the artist produced a series of 50 lithographs of the original painting. Ten years later, Frizzell revisited the work with a series of 250 screen prints entitled It’s About Time. And then again recently with 500 screen prints entitled Mickey to Tiki Reversed.
The image has been reproduced more than 30,000 times, featuring on prints, t-shirts, mugs and posters available from official retailers, including the Christchurch Art Gallery Shop and NZ Prints.
Connection to culture:
On occasions the artist engages with Maori culture. “I painted up a portrait of a cannibal chief from a Phantom Comic as if I was Goldie portraying a Maori Chief.” His Mickey to Tiki Tu Meke transforms Disney’s brand character into a sacred Maori symbol. But even by Frizzell’s own admission a tour of NZ to find examples of the profaning of this sacred form found few examples and was abandoned as a project.
Tu meke is a Maori cultural symbol
Connection to collonialism:
The point of it was wrapped up in New Zealand identity at the time - that culture flows both ways and to ring-fence one was to cut off its creative oxygen, that there could be freedom in being a bit reckless and that Pakeha people had a stake in things Maori and could be proud of it.
Critique/response to artwork:
Dick Frizzell's famous Mickey to Tiki Tu Meke painting had some of the elite of Maoridom hopping mad in 1995.
thought to be the country's most recognisable and reproduced artwork –
There were some who hated his work. They thought it was disrespectful and that he shouldn't be mucking around with cultural motifs.
"(The late film director) Merita Mita was there with a posse and I can tell ya they were really hot on it. My knees were going like a bullfighter waiting for the bull to come out. She called me a spiritual assassin."
"The cultural shift is that you can now go into these shops and get wall-mounted clocks that look like a tiki or the (NZ) Warriors logo. It doesn't have to be constantly based in the traditional form. I don't think at any point it cheapened Maori art or the tiki. It's not the image, it's what it says," Frizzell said.
Frizzell is proud that the image has become part of kiwiana
Art commentator Hamish Keith called the work a Kiwi icon.
Artist further/other work/development:
Frizzell spent time in an advertising agency and his art reflected an awareness of urban popular culture by calling on popular symbols. This particular image was reproduced many times, both in the form of prints and also on T-shirts.
Since 1997, when Frizzell created the original lithographic print at the Muka Print Studio in Auckland, Mickey To Tiki Tu Meke has gone on to become New Zealand’s best-selling print with more than 30,000 copies sold.
The major retrospective Dick Frizzell: Portrait of a Serious Artiste of 1997 attracted some controversy, somewhat due to the inclusion of Grocer with Moko (1992). This contentious work depicted the Four Square man with facial moko, which offended some viewers.
Sources:
www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10880032
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/45913/dick-frizzell-and-mickey-to-tiki-tu-meke
www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/arts/8672454/Dick-Frizzell-painting-sells-for-94-000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Frizzell
http://www.georgefm.co.nz/MICKEY-TO-TIKI-ORIGINAL-GOES-UNDER-THE-VIRTUAL-HAMMER/tabid/72/articleID/143023/Default.aspx
http://mindlessones.com/2010/06/03/tymbus-wants-to-tell-you-about-dick-frizzell/
What I have learnt:
Commercialising culture coming through and he has actually don’t quite well of it, is still being reproduced and is even seen on mugs, shirts and phone covers.
So why don’t souvineer shops get nailed? Because what they produce isn’t based on a traditional cultural form. The difference between making something to take away using the cultural motifs and something made from them ‘without permission’
Became a kiwi icon…
Keep in mind that majority of the web search came up with sites to sell prints
so he did get nailed on it but because it was explained away as a response to colonisation and globalisation (Disney aspect) it because a kiwi icon
