Limited-edition (200) color screenprint on a white background, printed on heavy paper stock, with a 18”w x 22”h image and measuring 22”w x 27”h overall. Signed and numbered in pencil by the artist, Jamie Reid, from the 1997 edition published with the Artificial Gallery in New York. Printed by Ambassador, NYC.
One of Jamie Reid’s most memorable images has to be the one he produced as the cover of author Greil Marcus’ 1994 book on punk music history (titled In the Fascist Bathroom: Punk in Pop Music, 1977-1992) that presented – in original and re-written forms - many of the rock critic’s columns written for the Village Voice, Rolling Stone, Artforum and New West magazines.
The cover shows a framed portrait of actor John Wayne resting on the downspout of a bathtub (European model). Reid added some sexy red lipstick to the Duke, along with a peace sign on his hat and a button that read “Peace is Tough”. The lipstick was the artist’s reference to another of Greil’s books – Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century, in which the author presented a treatise on the relationship between the Dadaist and Situationist philosophies, the punk movement, and heretics in Medieval Europe and 17th century England.
Reid chose “Peace is Tough” as the name for his retrospective art tours in 1997 (New York), 1998 (Athens), 1999 (Liverpool, Dublin and Bangor, Wales), 2001 Glasgow and Northern Ireland, and 2002 in Liverpool, and used the red-lipped Wayne image on the poster promoting this tour. |
