Shark 1990

Here's that shark, made by Don Ivan Punchatz, with what looks like graphite and maybe some airbrushing. I can almost imagine Punchatz’s hand moving across the paper, carefully building up tone and texture with the pencil. The shark emerges bit by bit, tooth by tooth, scale by scale. There's a playful, almost cartoonish quality to it, right? Like he’s channeling a bit of old-school animation, maybe even some MAD magazine. I wonder what he was thinking as he made this. Did he start with a sketch, or just dive right in? Was he trying to scare us, or make us laugh? Maybe both? He's flirting with caricature here, bending reality just a little to get at something truer than life. In a strange way, this shark reminds me of Philip Guston's late paintings. It's like Punchatz is saying, "Hey, let's not take ourselves too seriously," and it's a reminder that art can be fun, mischievous, and a little bit dangerous, just like a shark.