Provenance:
Phyllis Kind Gallery, Chicago

Exhibited:
Terre Haute, Indiana, Turman Gallery, Indiana State University, First Person Plural: Part II/Focus on Ed Paschke, March 3-April 3, 1991, no. 4

This lot is accompanied by a The School of the Art Institute of Chicago promotional poster featuring Tracer

Lot Essay:
Tracer, 1989:  The jittery, glowing face of the iconic comic strip Dick Tracy is surrounded by a TV screen and to its left a full color mirror image (also indicated by reverse numbers on the frontal face) of a wannabe Dick Tracy, a Tracer.   The duo reflects the essential oneness of the two faces.  The merging of icon with “the common man “ suggests the projection of self into cultural identity or the absorption of self by a fictional, flickering icon.  The delicately painted surface is a clue to Paschke’s encouraging empathy for a Tracer, the character under a big 1940s gangland Fedora.   

 

William Conger, Artist; Professor Emeritus, Art Theory and Practice,  Northwestern University