Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum Blog

Contact: Caitlin McGurk
The Ohio State University
Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
1813 N High St.
Columbus OH 43210-1393
614-292-0538
cartoons@osu.edu

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 11, 2015

Upcoming Exhibition and Reception at The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum

GRAPHIC DETAILS:

CONFESSIONAL COMICS BY JEWISH WOMEN

March 28, 2015 – July 5, 2015

Columbus:  The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum will celebrate Women’s History Month with the opening of Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women, a groundbreaking touring exhibition providing the first in-depth look at a unique and prolific niche of graphic storytelling – Jewish women’s autobiographical comics.

While the influential role of Jews in cartooning has long been acknowledged, the role of Jewish women in shaping the medium is largely unexplored. This exhibition of original drawings and reproductions—curated by Sarah Lightman and Michael Kaminer; traveling exhibition conceived by Zachary Paul Levine and Yeshiva University Museum—presents the powerful work of 18 U.S., Canadian, and international artists whose intimate, confessional work has influenced the world of comics over the last four decades, creating an entirely new genre.

Spotlighting the raw, revealing voices of Jewish women and their singular presence in graphic storytelling, the exhibition illuminates the intersection of experiences that make these diaristic comics so compelling. By turns funny, outrageous, poignant and embarrassingly intimate, the works in Graphic Details reflect the artists’ individual journeys, refracted through a distinctively Jewish lens in a pop culture art form.

Many of the original artworks on display have never been exhibited in public until now. Artists run the gamut from pioneering Wimmen’s Comix and Twisted Sisters artists of the 1970s and 1980s to the superstars of the new generation. Participating artists include: Vanessa Davis, Bernice Eisenstein, Sarah Glidden, Miriam Katin, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Miss Lasko-Gross, Sarah Lazarovic, Miriam Libicki, Sarah Lightman, Diane Noomin, Corinne Pearlman, Trina Robbins, Racheli Rotner, Sharon Rudahl, Lauri Sandell,Ariel Schrag, Lauren Weinstein, and Ilana Zeffren. This iteration of the exhibit also includes selections from The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum collection.

The public is invited to the opening program and reception for Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women,  scheduled for Sunday, April 19 in The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum’s Jean and Charles Schulz Lecture Hall and museum galleries. The program features special guests Trina Robbins, Sarah Glidden, Miriam Katin, and curator Sarah Lightman

1:30-2:45 – Sarah Lightman: Curator’s Tour – Museum Galleries

3:00 – 3:30 – Trina Robbins – Artist Talk – Jean and Charles Schulz Lecture Hall

3:30 – 4:00 – Sarah Glidden – Artist Talk – Jean and Charles Schulz Lecture Hall

4:00 – 4:30 – Miriam Katin – Artist Talk – Jean and Charles Schulz Lecture Hall

4:30 – 4:45 – Break

4:45 – 5:30 – Roundtable/Q&A moderated by Sarah Lightman – Jean and Charles Schulz Lecture Hall

5:30 – 7:00 – Catered exhibit reception – Will Eisner Seminar Room / Museum Galleries

 

This event has been made possible through the generous help of our co-sponsors:  Department of English; Project Narrative; Popular Culture Studies; Melton Center for Jewish Studies; Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Department of Arts Administration, Education & Policy; Humanities Institute; and Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD); and Department of Comparative Studies

About the curators:

Sarah Lightman is a leading voice in the field of autobiographical comics. She is an internationally exhibiting artist, curator and author of numerous academic articles and editor of the first book on Jewish women and comics: Graphic Details: Jewish Women’s Autobiographical Comics in Essays and Interviews (McFarland 2014). She is a director of Laydeez do Comics and is working on her graphic novel The Book of Sarah which will be published by Myriad Editions.

Michael Kaminer is a New York-based writer who collects original cartoon art. His story for the Forward on autobiographical comics by Jewish women became the inspiration for Graphic Details. Michael is the restaurant critic for the New York Daily News, and contributes to The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Observer, and other media.

Also on display March 28-July 5 at The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum: World of Shojo Manga! Mirrors of Girls’ Desires

http://cartoons.osu.edu/events/world-of-shojo-manga-mirrors-of-girls-desires/

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About the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum:  The BICLM is one of The Ohio State University Libraries’ special collections. Its primary mission is to develop a comprehensive research collection of materials documenting American printed cartoon art (editorial cartoons, comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, sports cartoons, and magazine cartoons) and to provide access to the collections.  The BICLM recently moved into its newly-renovated 30,000 sq. ft. facility that includes a museum with three exhibition galleries, a reading room for researchers and a state-of-the-art collections storage space.   The library reading room is open Monday-Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday 1 – 5 p.m. The museum is open Tuesday-Sunday from

1 – 5 p.m.  See http://cartoons.osu.edu/ for further information.