Saturday, March 29, 2008
Crumb's Chambers at the Frye
The Frye Museum in Seattle is home to of all sorts of Romantic 19th century paintings. An exhibit of these paintings collected by the Fryes and another noted Seattle art collector of their contemporary, Horace Henry stood alongside in strange and vivid contrast with a retrospective of the world's most noted (and notorious) underground comic book artist, Robert Crumb. The paintings that were in the Frye and Henry exhibit next to Crumb could be looked upon as the sort of the representational remnants of a much well-ordered 19th century, one dipped in Romanticism, not one overwhelmed with impressionism and trappings of 20th century. I couldn't walk away without exploring some questions because of the vast contrast in the two galleries. William Adolphe Bouguereau's pictures of young peasant girls felt less honest and more exploitive than Crumb's blunt explorations of his inner freak.
The Crumb retrospective at the Frye was laid out chronologically. but we first entered the last chamber of the four in the Crumb exhibit, centered with the bizarre yoga position of the She Devil, probably modeled by wife Aline and this turned out to be quite rewarding. This last room of the exhibit consisted of examples of Crumb's work with Harvey Pekar's American Splendor, his portraiture of early American jazz and blues musicians, including an exceptionally well-drafted multi-page strip of bluesman Charlie Patton. And, as always, there were some explorations of his libido and carnal preferences but even probably more Henry Miller on psychoactives than usual.
Since the exhibit was a retrospective approach, there were plenty of examples of the kind of what made him most famous: Mr. Natural and Fritz the Cat were there as were collaborations with other Zap! comic artists and later with his wife Aline. Comic art in a gallery setting takes time and close range to consume and appreciate. I found myself reading text but the deep blacks and famous Crumb cross-hatching would stand out so much more vividly than on print and take on a whole other level of impact. a video theatre of a Zap! comic collaboration with the likes of Spain and Speigelman and interview segments available via cell-phone helped give historical context, especially to the formative San Francisco years.
By the last room where we began our observation of Crumbit was quite apparent that a lot of folks who came in from the formal entrance had experienced enough of his twisted world and were glad to leave it, maybe to an even welcome return to sedate portraits and landscapes in the Frye/Henry overview.
I certainly enjoyed the Crumb show, organized and apparently first shown at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, a particularly edgy center for the arts. (Its show on makeshift devices that are made in prisons haunted me for days a couple years back--real heebie jeebie stuff, I assure you)
Yet, the ongoing benefit of the visit to the Frye, was in the Frye/Henry exhibit. It was the first time I had become aware, to my knowledge to Tonalism, brief off shoot of Impressionism predominant by landscape artists in California and elsewhere in the United States. There were just a couple of artists of this style represented, namely Georges Inness and Xavier Martinez, (one of his paintings to the right here) but both made a strong impression on me and this trend or movement of Tonalism is one I wish to expore further. With their emphasis on a particular tone or color, it seemed to me that they were trying to do something that felt like the 35mm predate of messing around with color film stock or various filters. Interesting how an ostensible visit to celebrate the shaking up of art and culture of the 20th century lead to a gateway to an aspect of the art of the 19th. I knew nothing about.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:30 PM
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