Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 20, 1994                   TAG: 9403130193
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: B-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By MIKE MAYO
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

GOOD TASTE GONE BAD

In his introduction, Chicago artist Mitch O'Connell writes that "the line between `fine' and `commerical' art is sometimes a wavy one." He spends the rest of this wonderful book proving the fact.

Though his black and white pictures have been displayed and sold through conventional galleries, they're familiar to most readers through magazines - Spy, National Lampoon, Playboy. He mixes elements of comics, religious imagery, advertising and other commercial forms to create cluttered works that may be difficult to describe but are always surprising and interesting.

Satire plays a large part in McConnell's book, but his targets aren't obvious. "Hold That Pose," for example, appears to be a combination of self-portrait and homage to kitsch, complete with a crying Elvis, Chihuahua in a teacup and one of the kids from "The Family Circus."

Others are more overtly sexual and/or religious, and the book also contains some sequential works, stories in words and pictures that are too unusual to fit easily in a conventional comic book or strip. That originality makes O'Connell's work worth a second look. He's dealing with serious ideas in a playful way. Even if you don't get all the references to breakfast cereals, science-fiction movies and cat women, you can still appreciate McConnell's crazed take on contemporary America.

For my money, "Good Taste Gone Bad" is less pretentious than the Whitney Museum, and a lot more fun.