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Diagram showing dimensions of The EuroDisney Triptych
in cm/in
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The
EuroDisney Triptych was completed in January 1998 and first exhibited at the
Louis K. Meisel Gallery in New York 4 December 1999 to 15
January 2000. It was painted on Strathmore illustration
board, using ink and a mixture of Winsor and Newton watercolors
and Liquitex acrylic medium, which also serves as the final
varnish.
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The
painting is an elaborate comment on the juggernaut of American
popular culture that's homogenizing the world. The EuroDisney
theme park (so close to Paris, the last citadel of European
civilization) is the perfect symbol for this phenomenon.
The painting shows the park being destroyed by a huge crowd
of violent demonstrators.
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Detail
from left side of left panel
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Detail
from right side of left panel
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The
structure of the painting is like that of a comic strip,
moving chronologically from left to right, the action becoming
more and more violent. The style reflects this change and
turns gradually from a 1930s newspaper-cartoon style on
the left to a more realistic style in the center to an expressionist-cubist
style on the right.
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The
demonstrators bring with them signs, floats, and giant balloons
that grotesquely parody the Disney images. Ultimately, the
demonstrators prove themselves more imaginative and relevant
than the designers of the park.
The
theme of the painting is not an attack on Disney. (The Artist
has said that between 1926 and 1941 Walt Disney was one
of the world's most creative people.) Instead, it's a challenge
to Europe and the rest of the world, not to put up barriers
to keep out American popular culture, but to create and
update their own.
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Detail
from center panel
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Another detail from center panel
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The
Artist has said: "The element of a painting into which
I put the most thought is its structure. This is
a term that shouldn't be confused with composition or unity. Some critics have said that structure is
no longer important in a work of art because we live in
an unstructured age. But the world has always been unstructured,
and it has always been the artist's role to try to impose
structure upon it. I challenge myself with the most difficult
structural problems I can devise. I like the tensions resulting
from my attempts to organize the disparate elements and
make them contribute to the effect of the whole."
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While
he was working on this web project, it occurred to the Artist
that the technology he was using could be used to make a
giant version of his triptych and that people might respond
to the larger image in an entirely different way. A properly-made
enlargement could be even more impressive and powerful than
the original. A 28-foot long enlargement of the triptych
was shown at his 1999-2000 New York show. Click here for a picture.
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Detail
from center of right panel
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Detail
from right side of right panel
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The
EuroDisney Triptych is copyright ©
1998 by Ernest Ruckle. Although it uses Disney characters,
the Artist feels that its artistic value and imaginative
and structural content overcome any question of copyright
violation. Legal challenges should be directed to the Artist
c/o the Louis K. Meisel Gallery, 141 Prince Street, New
York 10012. No commercial use of any kind may be made of
these images without written permission from the Artist.
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