Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2010, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Busboys & Poets, 5th & K Streets, Washington, DC
Cost: FREE and open to the public!
The Women's National Book Association, DC Chapter will sponsor a panel discussion on the DC graphic novel scene. The panel for the event, to be held at Busboys & Poets , from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., will include Carolyn Belefski, Molly Lawless, Matt Dembicki, and Mike Rhode. The event is free and open to the public.
Carolyn Belefski is the mastermind behind the web comic Curls. She is also one of the creators of several other comic books: Kid Roxy, Black Magic Tales, and The Legettes, and an indefatigable (nightly) poster to her blog, Sketch Before Sleep. Her work has appeared in USA WEEKEND Magazine, The Commonwealth Times, Virginia Living Magazine, Magic Bullet, CROQ Zine, and The Pulse on COMICON.com. Ms. Belefski is a nominee for the Kim Yale Award for Most Talented Newcomer for 2010.
Matt Dembicki is a DC-based cartoonist whose work includes the award-winning nature parable Mr. Big, The Great White Shark Story, Xoc, and The Brewmaster's Castle, about legendary DC brewer Christian Heurich. His latest anthology, Trickster: Native American Tales: A Graphic Collection, has received rave reviews from Booklist, Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal and has been nominated as one of the Young Adult Library Services Association's 2011 Great Graphic Novels for Teens. In addition to his own work, Dembicki also hosts kids' workshops in the DC area and beyond on making comic books.
Molly Lawless, a Boston native, moved to the DC area in 2005. She has self-published mini comics as well as a compilation, Infandum! Ad Infinitum. She is currently working on a full-length graphic novel for McFarland Publishing titled Hit by Pitch. She is an avid blogger and includes stories about her family in her daily posts.
Mike Rhode, panel moderator, is co-author of the comics research bibliography, editor of Exhibition and Media Reviews for the International Journal of Comic Art, and a contributing writer for Hogan's Alley. In 2008, he was named Best (Comics) Art Blogger by the Washington City Paper for his Comics DC blog. Rhode edited Harvey Pekar: Conversations, a book of interviews with the late underground comic book writer and author of American Splendor published by the University Press of Mississippi. He has written for the Comics Journal and was selected as an RFK Journalism Awards judge for the editorial cartoon division of Comics Journal in 2009 and 2010. Rhode currently writes about comics for the City Paper.
This event is FREE and open to the public!
NOV 19, 2010 – JAN 16, 2011
Rosaire Appel - Victor Kerlow
Rina Ayuyang - Blaise Larmee
Derik Badman - Andrei Molotiu
Gabrielle Bell - Robert Pruitt
Jeffrey Brown - Jim Rugg
Joshua Cotter - Dash Shaw
Warren Craghead III - Deb Sokolow
Anton Kannemeyer - Olav Westphalen
OPENING RECEPTION:
November 19, 7 – 9pm
THE SHOW:
PARTY CRASHERS mashes up comic art and contemporary gallery culture, and features artists who pass back and forth between the two worlds. This massive two venue show results from a crosstown collaboration between AAC Director of Exhibitions Jeffry Cudlin and Artisphere Gallery Director Cynthia Connolly. The show's two independent halves feature different types of work: Connolly's show presents fine artists who mimic the appearance of comic art; Cudlin's show at AAC contains:•
alternative comic artists who also show their original pages and drawings in art galleries•
fine and comic artists working side-by-side on a national curated project (Creative Time Comics)•
fine and comic artists creating avante-garde, purely abstract sequential art without words or recognizeable imageryTHE BACKGROUND:
In the late 1960s, Andy Warhol, Pop Art, and Fluxus caused a radical shift in what could be shown in galleries or museums—art went from being rarefied, academic and anti-literary to embracing narrative, mass media, and the stuff of everyday life.Yet the underground comics that began to emerge at that same time were arguably more transgressive and more influential on a subsequent generation of fine artists than any gallery or museum show.
Now MFA students are as likely to be influenced by comics as by art history. In addition, many comic artists also show their original drawings in galleries alongside contemporary painters, sculptors, and photographers.
THE ARTISTS:
Philadelphia artist Jim Rugg's Afrodisiac refers to '70s blaxploitation and mimics the look of aging pop artifacts—each page features simulated yellowing and tattered edges. Rugg uses comic tropes in unexpected ways: advancing a narrative through fragments, covers for nonexistent stories, or sketched, incomplete splash pages.Philadelphia's Derik Badman is a critic, librarian, and comic artist, who transforms found texts, images, and even other comics to acheive unexpected results.
Chicago artist Robert Pruitt, another Creative Time Comics participant, creates large afro-futurist drawings in which isolated black figures are shown wearing the trappings of superhero and science fiction culture—as well as references to avante-garde early 20th century European art.
New York artist Victor Kerlow not only creates surreal stories that bridge the gap between urban ennui and paranoid fantasy, but also observes his environment with a reporter's eye, making energetic line drawings of the city in which he lives and places to which he has traveled.
Portland, Oregon artist Blaise Larmee creates washed-out black-and-white worlds populated by childlike young adults. His current book, Young Lions, highlights the artist's fascination with 'zine culture, bohemian lifestyles, and Yoko Ono. (Larmee also designed and illustrated the PARTY CRASHERS catalogue.)
Charlottesville, VA artist Warren Craghead III creates drawings, collages, books, and mail art inspired by his everyday life experiences. Craghead's stories are free associative and decidedly nonlinear.
Capetown, South Africa-based artist Anton Kannemeyer (aka Joe Dog) creates potent, troubling drawings that explore the legacy of Western colonialism in his home country; the hypocrisy and racism hiding beneath the surface of white society; and the corruption of South Africa's political elite.
Chicago artist Jeffrey Brown draws gently humorous autobiographical pieces, exploring not only the author's experiences with fantasy and comic culture, but also his relationships with his own wife and son. Brown was also featured in the Creative Time Comics series.
New York artist Dash Shaw pairs a powerful, reductive drawing style with sprawling, convoluted narratives. His latest book, Body World, follows botanist Professor Panther's encounters with a strange new psychedelic drug that threatens to turn humanity into a single hive mind, open to alien influences.
New York artist Rosaire Appel creates books and sequential images with asemic writing—a wordless form of writing that often resembles pictograms or reflects the mechanical act of producing text.
Bloomington, Indiana-based artist and scholar Andrei Molotiu is the editor of the award-winning Abstract Comics anthology. Molotiu offers digital animations, abstract comic drawings, and a catalogue essay about the uneasy relationships between comics, literature, and contemporary art in the present tense.
Oakland, California based Rina Ayuyang's Whirlwind Wonderland follows the daily life of a Filipino American girl, navigating, in the artist's words: "sleepy suburban sprawls, empty diners, fantasy-filled commuter traffic jams, misplaced football fanaticism, ethnic identity crash courses, and just good ole family hi-jinx."
Chicago artist Joshua Cotter's latest book, Driven by Lemons, is a sprawling sketchbook packed with ideas, story fragments, and intricate abstract exercises, all struggling against the boundaries of the comic form.
Hamburg, born, New York based artist Olav Westphalen uses the conventions of comics and caricatures to challenge the traditional baggage of fine art, creating outsized (and outlandish) sculptures, drawings, and performances. Westphalen was also featured in the Creative Time Comics series.
Founded in 1974, the AAC is primarily dedicated to supporting new work by contemporary artists in the Mid-Atlantic region. Located in the historic Maury School building, 3550 Wilson Blvd, Arlington, it mounts five exhibitions of contemporary art per year, rents studio spaces, and conducts educational programs for students of all ages. Normal public hours are Wednesday through Friday from 1 pm to 7 pm, and Saturday and Sunday from noon to 5pm. For more information, call 703.248.6800 or visit www.findyourartist.org
