Picks of the Week
The picks of the week from around the web.
Sebastiano in Berlin — Some Thoughts
I’ve just returned from a short visit to Berlin where I had the opportunity to visit the German iteration of the large Sebastiano del Piombo retrospective that showed in Rome earlier this summer. Since the article I wrote after having seen it there was a more general assessment of Sebastiano’s art and career, I figured I would append a few comments on specific works here.
As I wrote about the Rome show, it was hampered by a terribly overconceived installation — amongst the worst I’ve seen — so I’m happy to report that the Berlin display goes the obvious and straightforward route that so many exhibition designers fail to grasp these days: hanging the pictures on the wall and lighting them well. The Gemäldegalerie’s exhibition rooms have their limitations, which results in an at times slightly illogical hang where early and late pictures are juxtaposed for no other evident reason than the purely logistical, and certain works such as the strange Spezia Adonis pictures (see below) hang on opposite sides of the room instead of next to each other, which would obviously have been preferable.
Also, several works weren’t able to travel to Germany. The Genova Giacomo Doria, the Pitti St. Agatha, the National Gallery Portrait of a Woman as St. Agatha, the Barcelona and Harewood Female ‘Colonna’ Portraits, and — most sadly — the San Giovanni Crisostomo Altarpiece aren’t there. As partial compensation, the beautiful Kimbell Head of a Woman tondo and an exquisite, richly saturated small Portrait of Clement VII from a private collection, which to me looks bona fide, are included. While sad, these omissions are understandable, and that the curators have actually managed to secure for both venues such major works as the San Bartolomeo organ shutters, the Kingston Lacey Judgment of Solomon, the Viterbo Pietà and the Burgos altarpiece is in itself hugely impressive. Also, the display of drawings is, as promised, entirely different.
The Graphic Novel Tradition?
Over at the Comics Journal message board, an interesting discussion of the term ‘graphic novel’ and what it may be used to designate is currently buzzing. Amongst the participants is Eddie Campbell, the first cartoonist to take the term seriously since its ascendancy as a marketing gimmick. Expounding persuasively on its usefulness to describe a certain movement in his How to Be an Artist (2001) and even going so far as to write a manifesto for same, he now reckons the term broken through misuse in the media and the larger cultural context they reflect.
Initially, I was sceptical of the term, and I remain so to an extent. Already shortly after its first signifcant use, by Will Eisner for his comic A Contract with God in 1979, it started becoming corrupted as different opportunistic publishers started releasing the same genre stories they had been putting out for decades in slightly more book-like formats and calling this ‘graphic novels.’ Needless to say, this tendency has more or less taken over now, with the term being used left and right to market a wide variety of comics, most of which have little to do with what Eisner intended for the form.
Campbell may be right that reclaiming the term for a certain kind of comic is a lost cause, at least when it comes to the cultural mainstream, but I’m not sure that means we should just give it up. If nothing else, it may yet prove to be a valuable term in comics scholarship and who knows what its eventual fate will be in the cultural discourse of the future?
Reads: Lynda Barry
The highly esteemed Lynda Barry recently released What It Is, a combination of coming of age artistic autobiography, ruminations on art and creativity, and imaginary instruction manual for novice storytellers and artists. It’s a lovely looking book, as always impeccably produced by Drawn & Quaterly.
Barry has a highly developed aesthetic sense; the lavish collage work that makes up most of the book displays a finely tuned sense of colour and design, most of the juxtapositions of drawings, photos and assorted clippings making harmonious sense. That said, I don’t get what the big deal is.
Watching the Funnies
Tom Spurgeon of the indispensable Comics Reporter did something interesting yesterday. He put out an open critical challenge: ‘What is Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen about?’ Lots of comics readers and critics, including yours truly, have responded, and a good number of the answers are interesting, either in themselves or in what they tell us about the book’s general critical reception.
Also, my post on the groupkill syndrome amongst current Marvel heroes has set off a debate on the issue and its motivations in Secret Invasion over here, while the blogger Rich provides commentary and some continuity context.
Picks of the Week
The picks of the week from around the web.
Reads: Dash Shaw
Just finished Dash Shaw’s Bottomless Belly Button, which I picked up after having been following the online serialisation of the still-in-progress “Bodyworld” for a while. Shaw is good, and he seems to really be hitting his stride. One thing is dropping a 700-odd page comic seemingly out of the blue, another is for it to be actually convincing.
For syns skyld
Den danske tegner Rikke Lindskov Loft, alias ‘Gwennafran’, har netop postet et indlæg ovre på Seriejournalens board, hvor hun kommenterer dele af den etablerede danske tegneseriekulturs forsømmelse af den nye mainstream: mangaen. Ansporet af Simon Petersens kommentar i sin seneste klumme om, at de unge manga-inspirerede tegnere glimrede ved deres fravær på forsommerens tegneseriefestival Komiks.dk, skriver Gwennafran bl. a.:
Picks of the Week
The picks of the week from around the web.
Skrull Kill Crew
A good deal is being written about the entertaining but rather haphazardly structured and at times unintentionally puzzling summer event from Marvel, Secret Invasion, but I haven’t seen anyone mention the one thing that immediately bothered me about the series: the completely unassuming and natural way in which the superheroes kill the Skrull enemies en masse.