Disasters 1972

Roger Brown made this work sometime before 1973, and I see a screen print or an early digital print in blacks, greys and yellows. It reminds me of art deco, and I can imagine him making it in stages, printing the grey background first, before moving onto the angular architectural shapes and the figures, adding more and more layers. I wonder if Roger Brown felt like the world was ending back then? He gives us buildings arranged as if an earthquake just struck them. People fall out of windows. There’s a ring of fire. Yet, it's not quite hell on earth; the palette is too restrained and the buildings are charmingly wonky. It feels somewhere between cartoon-like and catastrophic, and that middle ground is interesting. The flat blocks of color remind me of art by Alex Katz, but also of the earlier work of Philip Guston, who painted everyday objects with hard edges before he started making his painterly, cartoony figures. Artists are always inspiring each other, you know? It’s one big, ongoing conversation.