Artist Response #3 - John Haddock's "Cartoon Violence"

To this day, I still watch cartoons quite frequently so this artist's work using old black and white cartoons was a no-brainer. I thought it was interesting to see the cartoons that I watched when I younger portrayed as snapshots of acts of violence. Normally these types of cartoons are very innocent and silly with only a slapstick sort of violence. To have them portrayed engaging in violent or very disturbing scenes just seems very poetic.

The poetry is something complex and can be interpreted differently by many viewers. The way I see this piece is that cartoons are being used in the media to mask or hide the real problems in life. Us Americans are so sucked into our entertainment that we don't even realize the turmoil of other people. Its analogous to this story I heard from a friend that while Rome was burning down, the people of Rome were in the Colliseum watching the bloodsport unaware that their homes were burning to the ground. I interpret Haddock's art as modern version of that historical event.



After coming to this understanding, I think it would be interesting to do similar works of art, but instead use famous cartoon cartoon characters portraying similar scenes. I would use the cartoons that I grew up with and have them in scenarios that mimic real life problems.