Sarah Boxer Writes on Masters Exhibit

There's a lot of interesting material in this Artforum piece about seeing the Masters of American Comics exhibit -- soon to open in Milwaukee as the first stop since its opening run -- as a response to issues raised in criticism of 1991's "High and Low" show. As much as the idea of comics as art has a history, this is one of those epochal moments, and Sarah Boxer digs at the issues involved in a fun, engaged manner.

I imagine without having done my rounds yet that most people will concentrate on the article's second major series of points, about the lack of women in the show and the portrayal of women within the show. I didn't find this as convincing or interesting -- arguments that turn on the assertive phrase "No wonder... " tend to be more eye-rolling than eye-opening from my perspective. The observations themselves are solid, just not the conclusions. In the end, whatever criticism you apply to the Masters show becomes largely untenable when you take it to the necessary step of "And that is why Artist X should be in there instead of Artist Y." To have changed anything about the Masters show without being able to make that formulation, the curators would have been as guilty of the same indictment made eloquently against "High and Low" -- that the comics picked were selected in order to embrace a more flattering idea of art instead of celebrating excellence where and as it's found, even if it's on the walls of the boys' clubhouse.
 
posted 2:10 am PST | Permalink
 

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