Review by C.J. Bunce
You might not have heard of Bosnian artist and graphic designer Mirko Ilić, but in the 1970s you may have seen his comics and illustrations inside and on the covers of magazines like Heavy Metal. Later he worked on projects including the opening credits for the movie You’ve Got Mail. By the 1990s his art was featured in top U.S. magazines and newspapers, ultimately with selections making it into the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery and the Museum of Modern Art. But in his sixties–in 2020–the pandemic arrived, and using his gallery in New York City, Ilić returned to single page and comics-style panel artwork as a way of documenting what he saw and how he felt. Like a museum exhibit catalog, the new hardcover book Nightmares and Daydreams A.C. 2020, available now here at Amazon, preserves his unique collection from the period in 70 comic panel works and illustrations, a snapshot of the biggest societal event humanity has faced this century so far.
The A.C. of the title is a play on 2020 A.D. as a reference to “After Covid,” since his work contained in this book were expressions he created beyond 2020 and into the first years following the lockdowns.
Endless influences can be seen in this book-bound “art exhibition” or “art installment,” making you want to get into the artist’s head and ask which were part of the day’s intentional study, and which were just embedded in his DNA from a lifetime as a professional artist. The stark individuals and tormented couples stretch from Magritte’s play on a single image to Chris Ware poking around similar themes of social isolation, personal despair, and depression. The artist cites some of the more obvious inspirations in a brief addendum, which include Moebius, Leonard Cohen, and Giorgio de Chirico.
Many of these images screamed George Segal to me. Ilić’s drawings are photo-real, but they are missing something. Humanity? Certainly they all miss the joy of life. But with every page you can see an artist reverting somehow into a process, or a method from his youth. Is this how he held onto himself when his world was pulled away? In one work viewers see the offset repetition of a Donald Judd installation. His image No. 28 merges a familiar visual from Ridley Scott’s Alien with the escape and transcendence of Carl Milles. The nudes, contorted sex scenes and lifeless, are soulless forms giving in, surrendering a la Philip Pearlstein.
Ilić’s work looks nothing like Robert Crumb yet you cannot deny the influence of indie comics publishing on this gallery of work. As to subject matter, it would certainly pair well with Harvey Pekar’s Our Cancer Year. It’s all bleak, but it captures one man’s perspective on a year and an aftermath. The artwork ends before whatever came next for the artist. Did he, did his subjects, ever snap back or find joy again?
It’s a trip to the recent past and a good reminder nobody wants to visit that place again. And it’s a rare document putting a bit of a mirror on real life. For fans of modern art, Nightmares and Daydreams A.C. 2020 is available now here at Amazon, from publisher Self Made Hero.
