Degeneration prints home page

The prints for the President: “Why?” series (2010–2018; murals ongoing) were derived from postage-stamp-size advertisements for mass-market posters — peace signs, anti-war slogans, environmental emblems — cut out of coarsely printed comic books published in the early 1970s. Striking formal qualities emerged when these crude reproductions were enlarged up to 2000% on a dying laser proofer and then sequentially copied up to 150 times. This method amplified the expected degradation of an image that normally occurs during each step (or “generation”) of the mechanical reproduction process, hence I call these serendipitous distortions "degeneration" prints.

Throughout the President: "Why?" animation the 3,500-plus tabloid-size “degeneration prints” traverse the ineffable border between figure and abstraction in a rhythmic flow of saturated color and riotous form — a metaphor for the formal and narrative collision between the protagonists’ brutal, realpolitik poetry and the battered but resilient ideals of the Sixties.

The degeneration prints have also been exhibited as site specific murals.

There are 30 sets of degeneration prints in the President: "Why?" series. Each set consists of approximately 120 prints, with an edition of three prints made from each original. Additionally, the sets were conceived as diptychs, and starting with sets 3 and 4 ("Cosmos Being" and "Peace Fingers"), the pairs were made in tandem.

The prints are presented below with their diptych match from the succeeding run.
(Note that there are approximately 1775 pairs, which are being posted as life allows.)
Click on an image to see the diptychs uploaded so far.

01B_Love Peace-w-02A_First Day Finger