Michael Diana, The Cherry Bomb Revolution, 1995
HEADBOILED ANGELTRIP
Michael Diana (NYC, NY) and Mark Laliberte (Windsor, ON)
Content Warning / Trigger Warning: HEADBOILED ANGELTRIP includes artwork depicting explicit content; including sexual violence.
For more information please contact Imogen at imogen@artcite.ca
September 6-28, 2019
Opening reception: September 6 at 7pm (artists in attendance)
BOILED ANGELS: The Trial of Mike Diana (Screening)
September 5th, 7pm at SoCA
This documentary chronicles the trial of Mike Diana who was found guilty on 3 counts of obscenity and became the first artist ever to receive a criminal conviction for obscenity for artwork in the United States.
In 1990, Mark Laliberte was charged in Windsor, Ontario for publishing and creating ‘obscene matter’ in his comic Headtrip, which included a strip that had been published by a young Florida zinester named Mike Diana. Laliberte’s parent’s home was raided by a special division of the Windsor Police due to his involvement with publishing this project. Whereas Laliberte’s case was later dismissed, Mike Diana faced similar obscenity charges for his Boiled Angel zine in 1996. Diana was found guilty on 3 counts of obscenity and became the first artist ever to receive a criminal conviction for obscenity for artwork in the United States.
The two artists will meet for this first time for this exhibition which looks at their individual practices and interaction through underground publishing.
Self-publication has always been a political medium. Since their conception, zines, underground comics, and alternative publications have been a way for people to publish outside of the constraints of mainstream media and have acted as a revolt against authoritarianism.
During the late 1980s and 1990s, zines and underground comics exploded out of the hardcore punk scenes and caused a new wave of mysterious, avant-garde and chaotic publications. These self-made publications covered an endless variety of controversial topics that were intentionally shocking and containing blatantly offensive imagery.
Mark Laliberte and Mike Diana are two artists that participated in the underground press world and challenged their audiences with hardcore, subversive depictions of graphic content. Their work is honest and unapologetic; it is confrontational in its vulgarity and satire. Laliberte and Diana’s comic writings and drawings command their audience to address the ugly realities in our collective existence.
HEADBOILED ANGELTRIP contains subversive graphic cartoon depictions of society’s most serious problems such as violence, murder, abuse, sexual violence, and religious corruption. Laliberte and Diana have taken on the role of agitators. This work is not meant to comfort and reassure us, it is meant to make us reconsider our values, beliefs, and attitudes.