Archive | Exhibits

Cartoon Art Museum moving to Fisherman’s Wharf

By Jesse Russell on November 3, 2016 in Bay Area Comic News, Exhibits

After a lengthy search, the Cartoon Art Museum finally has a new home. The museum will move into an 8000-square-foot space at 781 Beach Street in San Francisco. The new venue will provide space for a gallery, classroom, bookstore, and library. The new museum location won’t open until 2017, so in the meantime, the Cartoon Art Museum will continue to produce comic art focused events around the city.

The new location will allow the Cartoon Art Museum to continue its core mission of “the preservation and exhibition of cartoon art in all its forms.” The organization has more than 7,000 pieces of original art in its collection that, unfortunately, has been squirreled away out of the public eye during the search for a new space.

Tonight! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate Visual History Reception and Book Launch

By Jesse Russell on June 14, 2014 in Bay Area Comic News, Exhibits

The Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission Street in San Francisco, will be celebrating 30 years of mutated turtles tonight with a reception for the venue’s current Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles exhibition. This evening’s event will also act as a launch party for Cartoon Art Museum Curator Andrew Farago’s new book Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate Visual History. A long list of guests related to TMNT will be on hand this evening, including: “Turtles artists Mark Bode, Ken Mitchroney, longtime Mirage Studios staffer Molly Bode, IDW writer and editor Bobby Curnow, and Nickelodeon’s Ciro Nieli, Irineo Maramba, Felipe Smith, and Megan Casey.”

One of the highlights of this exhibition is the museum is showcasing all of the original art work from the very first TMNT issue by creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. The exhibit also includes cells from the original TMNT television series and art from recently published series.

The exhibit runs until September 14. Tonight’s reception is from 7 p.m. until 9 p.m.

Time lapse of David Choe’s mural for OMCA’s Giant Robot exhibit

By Jesse Russell on April 14, 2014 in Exhibits

The end of this week will see the kick-off for the Oakland Museum of California’s SuperAwesome: Giant Robot and Art exhibit (read more here). To coincide with the show David Choe has painted a mural. Below is a time lapse captured by Giant Robot.

Exhibit: Celebrate Giant Robot with little robots at OMCA

By Jesse Russell on April 7, 2014 in Exhibits

SuperAwesome

The 20th anniversary of the Asian-American pop arts and culture magazine Giant Robot is coming to the Oakland Museum of California in the form of a three month long exhibit. To kick off the exhibit the museum and magazine will be hosting a “preview” party on April 18 which will feature music, food, art and much more. As part of the exhibit Giant Robot will be unveiling a series of little robots customized by some of the finest artists working today. Chicago artist Jeremiah Ketner has posted a preview of his robot on his blog.

If you’re a member of OMCA an exclusive preview starts at 3 p.m. with the public preview starting at 7 p.m. SuperAwesome: The Art of Giant Robot coincides with the exhibit Vinyl: The Sound and Culture of Records. In addition to robots there will be an Oakland record swap sponsored by Record Store Day and Amoeba Records.

You’ll also find custom robots by the following artists: Aaron Brown, Spanky Stokes, Mark Nagata, Katsuya Terada, Gary Ham, Julie West, Jason Limon, Okkle, Reactor 88, Stasia Burrington, Junko Mizuno, Yukinori Dehara, Bert Gatchalian, Kano, Mari Inukai, Jay222, Scott Wilkowski, Yoskay Yamamoto, Edwin Ushiro, Jeni Yang, Dril One, Valley Dweller, and Scott Tolleson.

Jeremiah Ketner’s Giant Robot

Exhibit: Spoke Art Gallery pays tribute to David Lynch

By Jesse Russell on March 6, 2014 in Exhibits

The owls are not what they seem.

Never in my life have I wanted to attend Paris Fashion Week, but reading The 405’s description of Kenzo’s fashion show is making me reconsider my lack of interest in high fashion. Kenzo designers, Humberto Leon and Carol Lim, literally turned heads on Sunday by tapping David Lynch’s Twin Peaks as inspiration for their Autumn/Winter 2014 line. In case that doesn’t make the clothing line intriguing enough the design duo had Lynch direct the atmosphere for the Kenzo show. In addition to the models doing their turns on the catwalk to a soundscape provided by Lynch there was an unsettling screaming head that looked like a grownup version of the Eraserhead tadpole baby. According to the 405’s post this is the third time these particular designers have used Lynch as a muse.

Kenzo’s designers aren’t the only artists mainlining Lynch this week. Starting March 8, San Francisco’s Spoke Art Gallery, 816 Sutter Street, will open In Dreams: An Art Show Tribute to the Films of David Lynch (hat tip to the Last Gasp blog). The exhibit, which runs until March 29, will showcase art inspired by Lynch’s entire body of work from the Great Northern Hotel to Arrakis.

More than 50 artists will be contributing to this group show and a preview of some of the work can be seen on the Facebook event wall. The open reception is March 8 starting at 6 p.m. It promises to be a crazy clown time.

The list of artists can be found below and at the Spoke Art Gallery website.

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TR!CKSTER plans month long one-year anniversary celebration

By Jesse Russell on October 5, 2013 in Exhibits, Signings

TR!CKSTER, 2631 Ashby Avenue in Berkeley, is planning a month of events to celebrate their one-year anniversary. The comic boutique, which specializes in creator-owned publications, let loose a torrent of events on their twitter account last week. Here’s the breakdown:

October 11: Halloween show!
October 18: The Gallery Girls return to TR!CKSTER for a “Witch and the Cat” themed drawing event from 6:30 p.m. until 9:30 p.m. More information at Facebook.
October 19: An opening reception at 5 p.m. for Alina Chau who’s promoting her new book Pickle, the Little Bird Who Doesn’t Tweet. Chau will be signing and showing off original work.
October 26: Monster bash celebrating the first year! Costumes encouraged!
October 27: Brian Schirmer is shooting for a Kickstarter hat trick for the final book in his Ultrasylvania series. As of this writing he’s only $300 short of his goal with more than 20 days left. He;ll be at TR!CKSTER signing copies of the first two volumes.

TR!CKSTER
2631 Ashby Ave
Berkeley, CA
(510) 665-8900
Tumblr: trickstertrickster
Twitter: @thetrickstore
Facebook: TheTRICKSTORE
Tue-Sun: 11 a.m.-7 p.m.

The Cartoon Art Museum teases Sandman 25th Anniversary exhibition

By Jesse Russell on September 18, 2013 in Exhibits

The Cartoon Art Museum will be saying “farewell” to Metropolis on September 29 and “hello” to The Dreaming on October 5. In conjunction with the 25th Anniversary of Sandman the museum will be featuring a Sandman exhibition running from October 5 until March 16. There’s currently very little information available regarding the exhibition beyond a small teaser on the museum’s website. Starting on October 30, Vertigo will be launching a new Sandman miniseries featuring the art of J.H.Williams III. The new series will tell the story of Dream before he was imprisoned by the Order of Ancient Mysteries in 1916.

The addition of Sandman to the exhibition roster makes it a big year for Sam Keith at the museum. From February until June the museum featured a retrospective for the artist best known for his groundbreaking series The Maxx. Keith, the artist on the first five issues of Sandman, has been credited (along with inker Mike Dringenberg) by series author Neil Gaiman as having one of the most important roles in the series by helping to create “the look.”

We’ll have more information on the exhibition as it becomes available.

Public hearing scheduled on museum proposals for Crissy Field

By Jesse Russell on September 16, 2013 in Exhibits

On September 23, the public is invited to hear presentations from the three finalists being considered for the mid-Crissy Field site in The Presidio. Final presentations will be made regarding the Lucas Cultural Arts Museum, The Presidio Exchange, and the Bridge/Sustainability Institute. This meeting will allow the three groups to present their final proposals to the public and respond to questions. There will be a final public meeting on the designs with the Presidio Board of Trustees on October 24. The September 23 meeting is at 6:30 p.m. at Herbst in the Presidio, 385 Moraga Avenue.

Crissy Field is part of Golden Gate National Park and looks out over the Bay toward the Golden Gate Bridge. The proposals are being considered for a space that was formerly a Commissary during the area’s previous life as a military base. Due to it’s status as the largest national park within an urban setting the Presidio Trust is required by Congress to follow strict guidelines in conjunction with the National Park Service when planning development. Developing the 100,000 square-foot Commissary into museum space is one of the primary objectives of the plan established in 2002.

All of the proposals would be excellent use of the coveted space, but I’m particularly interested in the Lucas Cultural Arts Museum due to it’s focus on visual storytelling and inclusion of “comic art” in the proposal. From George Lucas’ introduction to the proposal:

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Sarah Clark brings baseball to the Cartoon Art Museum

By Jesse Russell on September 12, 2013 in Bay Area Comic News, Exhibits

Panel from Sarah Clark’s “Season Ticket Diaries”

At the start of this year’s baseball season Oakland-based illustrator Sarah Clark found herself with season tickets to the A’s. Seeing so many games in her future she decided to document her summer of baseball through short comic strips called “Season Ticket Diaries.” She’s currently up to her 18th game of the season which documents the August 4 showdown with the Texas Rangers. Clark has been tapped to be the next “Cartoonist-in-Residence” at the Comic Art Museum on September 21. Visitors to the museum will be able to view her illustrations, watch her work, and ask questions. She’ll be at the museum between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., which also happens to be the same time the A’s will be playing the Minnesota Twins. Be sure to thank her for choosing to spend part of her day at the museum instead of at the ball park.

More information on Sarah Clark is available at sarahclarkart.net. You can follow her on Twitter @sjeanetteclark.

Comic Art Museum
655 Mission St.
San Francisco, CA 94105
415-CAR-TOON
Website: www.cartoonart.org
Twitter: @cartoonart
Facebook: cartoonartmuseum

Cartoon Art Museum Curator Andrew Farago profiled in Washington City Paper

By Jesse Russell on August 30, 2013 in Bay Area Comic News, Exhibits

Neal Adams cover for Action Comics 419

Want to know more about what goes into curating San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum? Curator Andrew Farago was recently profiled by DC’s alt-weekly Washington City Paper. Farago gives insight into what it means to be the curator at one of the few museums in the country dedicated specifically to the medium of comics. Next weekend the museum will be closing out it’s 75th anniversary celebration of Superman and during the interview Farago cited his exposure to the Smithsonian’s exhibit during Superman’s 50th anniversary as possible panting the seeds for the possibilities of comics in museums.

“As a kid who grew up near Cleveland, Superman’s hometown, that’s always been an important connection for me. And my first exposure to comics in a museum setting was when my sixth grade class visited Washington, D.C. during Superman’s 50th anniversary, where we saw the Smithsonian’s Superman exhibition, and that must have planted the seeds for me going into museum work. I made sure to include the “I Am Curious—Black!” comic book in our current Superman: A 75th Anniversary Celebration show, since I saw that as a kid and was thoroughly confused by it. I felt an obligation to baffle the next generation of Superman fans with it, too.”

The full interview can be read at Washington City Paper.

The Superman exhibit runs until September 8. While at the museum be sure to check out the exhibits dedicated to Will Eisner and San Francisco-based illustrator Roman Muradov.

Comic Art Museum
655 Mission St.
San Francisco, CA 94105

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