Curator, Roxana Marcoci: Welcome to Comic Abstraction: Image-Breaking, Image-Making. I’m Roxana Marcoci, curator of the exhibition. This installation features works by thirteen contemporary artists who have used comic source materials as the starting point for making abstract art. They take images from slapstick, comic strips and films, cartoons, caricature and animation as the basis for their paintings, sculpture, drawings, and video installations. Abstracting these highly recognizable images often implies a political or social critique, allowing the artists to comment on highly charged issues in surprising, provocative ways.
Each of us brings our own associations to the experience of looking at these abstractions. At times, the source may seem evident only in the title of a work. In other instances, the comic motifs retain their visual potency even when totally abstracted, because familiar comic characters, style and narrative structures are so deeply imprinted in our collective consciousness.
On this audio program, you will hear about a selection of the works included in the exhibition, often in the artist’s own words. Please join me as we look at the different modes of Comic Abstraction.