{"data":{"id":"4767","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":4767,"topgoose_id":1071,"tms_id":4767,"display_name":"Raymond Pettibon","sort_name":"Pettibon Raymond","display_date":"1957–","begin_date":"1957","end_date":"0","biography":"\u003cp\u003eIn Raymond Pettibon’s drawings,\ncharacters from recent history and pop\nculture mix with archetypal figures,\nand a literary sensibility collides with\naggressive commentary. Pettibon’s drawings\ndemonstrate his voracious appetite for\nculture both high and low, including politics,\nfilm, comics, religion, literature, surfing,\nand baseball. The artist received a degree\nin economics from the University of\nCalifornia, Los Angeles, in 1977, around the\nsame time he joined his brother’s punk\nband Black Flag, a now-famed force in the\nSouthern California punk underground.\nPettibon cultivated a distinct visual aesthetic\nthat was crude and direct; his bold, black\nink drawings combined with provocative\ntexts reflected the energy and angst directed\nat the conservative agenda of the Reagan\nera. Language continues to be crucial to\nPettibon’s practice, and he combines original\nwriting with quotes ranging from film noir\nto Henry James and Proust. Extraordinarily\nprolific, he has produced thousands of\ndrawings, which are typically exhibited in\nlarge, salon-style installations.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this drawing from 1996, a stylized\nrendering of New York’s Empire State\nBuilding emits dots of light in a night sky.\nThe drawing and caption evoke a bygone\nera while hinting at romance or social\nintrigue. The relationship of image to text\nis characteristically ambiguous: the vaguely\nanxious query written at the bottom of\nthe work might refer to the wife of Pierre S.\ndu Pont, one of the original financiers of\nthe Empire State Building and a president\nof the DuPont chemical company, or\nperhaps to that of his ancestor Pierre\nSamuel du Pont de Nemours, a friend and\ncorrespondent of Thomas Jefferson.\nGenerating a narrative with a minimum of\nwords and image, Pettibon allows almost\ninfinite options for interpretation.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500115615","wikidata_id":"Q564945","created_at":"2017-08-30T16:04:15.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-10T07:04:30.804-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/4767/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/4767/exhibitions"}}}}