OT: Deitch exhibit in NYC

Here's a posting for Bill K, who's handling the programming for SPX as well. This should be an excellent exhibit:

For immediate release
CONTACT: Bill Kartalopoulos
kartalopoulos@gmail.com

Major Retrospective of Work by Legendary Underground Cartoonist Kim Deitch Opens at MoCCA on September 9

• Exhibition dates: September 9 – December 5, 2008
• Opening Reception: September 12, 2008, 6 – 9 pm

The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) is pleased to announce a major retrospective of work by underground cartoonist and graphic novelist Kim Deitch (b. 1944), opening September 9th and running through December 5th, 2008.

Kim Deitch: A Retrospective will display original comics pages and other work covering the artist's entire career to date, beginning with full-page comic strips drawn for the East Village Other in the sixties up to recent graphic novels including The Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Alias the Cat, Shadowland, and Deitch's Pictorama. The exhibit will also feature rarely seen work including elaborate preparatory
drawings, hand-colored originals, animation cel set-ups and lithographs.

Kim Deitch was born in Los Angeles in 1944, the eldest son of Oscar-wining animator Gene Deitch (Tom Terrific, Munro). Deitch studied at the Pratt Institute, traveled with the Norwegian Merchant Marines and worked at a mental institution before joining the burgeoning underground press in 1967. As an early contributor to the East Village Other and the editor of Gothic Blimp Works, Kim Deitch was a charter member of the underground comix scene that exploded with the 1968 publication of Robert Crumb's Zap #1. Forty years later, he stands alongside Crumb, Bill Griffith, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, and Art Spiegelman as one the most notable and prolific artists to emerge from that milieu. In addition to his comic books and graphic novels, Deitch's work has appeared in venues including RAW, Weirdo, Arcade, Details, the L.A. Weekly, McSweeney's, Nickelodeon Magazine, and The New Yorker.

"Kim Deitch's career spans the entire post-war history of avant-garde comics, from the underground to the literary mainstream," said exhibit curator Bill Kartalopoulos. "Deitch brilliantly weaves vast intergenerational narratives that enfold a deep history of American popular entertainment. Distinctions between fiction and reality blur in his meta-fictional world just as real madness bleeds into the visions and schemes of the artists, entertainers, and hustlers who populate his stories. The result is a rich narrative tapestry as compelling and as breathtaking as Deitch's densely layered, tightly woven, and intricately detailed black and white comics pages."

Deitch's body of work stretches outward from comics to embrace a spectrum of visual-narrative modes, including extra-textual single images and illustrated prose modeled after Victorian illustrated fiction. His most recent book is Deitch's Pictorama, a collection of illustrated fiction produced in collaboration with brothers Seth and Simon Deitch. The exhibit includes several examples of Deitch's
career-long experimentation with text/image modes.

MoCCA will publish an original poster and 1" button featuring the "Sunshine Girl" character who stars both in Deitch's earliest and most recent work. The Museum will also host a series of talks and events related to the exhibit.

MoCCA is located at 594 Broadway, Suite 401, between Houston and Prince. New York, NY 10012
Phone: 212 254-3511
MoCCA is open to the public Monday through Saturday from 12 – 5 pm, Sundays 12 – 3 pm.
Suggested Donation: $5
The opening reception is free and open to the public.
For more information please visit: http://www.moccany.org