Broken Frontier

As part of the celebrations surrounding the opening of its new bookstore and gallery in Seattle, Fantagraphics is hosting an exhibit of original works from its famous MOME artists through January 31.  Curator Eric Reynolds talks to Broken Frontier about the event.

BROKEN FRONTIER: Fantagraphics just published the sixth volume of MOME.  Is this the first gallery show of work by MOME artists?  Why now, and why this volume?

ERIC REYNOLDS: It is the first gallery show, although Giant Robot had what was more or less an unofficial MOME show last year in NYC, featuring Martin Cendreda, Gabrielle Bell, and a few others from the book. I don't anticipate an exhibition to accompany each volume.
That would drive me nuts. Editing the series takes enough time, and art exhibitions are a lot of work and responsibility.

The reason we did one this time around was pretty simple: it's the first volume that's come out since Fantagraphics opened its gallery and storefront in Seattle this winter. When we were lining up ideas for exhibitions in the space, MOME was just about the first thing I thought of.

BF: Why have a gallery show of art that tells stories?  Did you display complete sequences, or specific panels, or did you do a combination?

ER: That's a good question, and one I struggle with a lot in the few comic art exhibitions I've curated as well as many I've attended. I actually don't think comics function so well in a gallery setting. Some comic art that sings in print falls flat on a wall, and vice-versa, really.

Generally, when curating a show of comic art I tend to focus on pages that work well as single-images, taken by themselves, whether they be cover art, one-page strips, splash pages, etc. That's not an approach that would necessary lend itself to editing an anthology of comics. There is some conflict there. For this show, I was a little more open to pages that I felt were simply representative of the anthology, perhaps even at the expense of making a show that would be better received by a typical gallery (i.e., non comics reading) audience.

BF: About the process of selection: who was involved, and how did you make your decisions?

ER: It was fairly simple. I wanted to include everyone who was a core MOME contributor from the start, as well as a couple who came later, but who I hope will eventually be people who really help define MOME's identity, like Tim Hensley and Zak Sally. So, once I had that list together, which took about five minutes, I just went through all of the issues and made some specific suggestions in some cases as to which stories/pages might work best in the gallery setting, and some more general suggestions in other cases, letting the artist make the final choice if I didn't feel strongly about it.

BF: As I see it, an advantage of an exhibition in a gallery space over a print volume is the freedom to show pieces of varying sizes and shapes.  Are the pieces all originals, or were special pieces produced for display?

ER: All the pieces are originals from the first seven issues. Although comic art sometimes doesn't function perfectly on a wall, especially if it's a narrative page taken out of context, I think there is value in looking at these originals. I think the MOME show is a testament to this.

Even as the content is taken out of context when a page is placed on a wall, the process is given context by showing so many pieces of varying sizes and mediums. The viewer gets a far greater perspective into what the artist puts into each page, which is important sometimes when you consider that a cartoonist might slave for weeks over a page that takes about eight seconds to read. You get a more clearly defined sense of the sophistication of the thought process behind a comic, from conception to execution.

BF: You indicate another advantage of an exhibition, the opportunity for people to see a panel or sequence of panels with the original textures, lines, strokes and colors intact.  These qualities are lost in mass printing.

ER: Right, exactly.

BF: Which pieces in the exhibit benefit in particular from this opportunity?

ER: Often, even the slickest artwork in print can be a relief map of pencil, ink, white-out, and scratching in original form, and seeing this means to an end is often surprising. Looking at the originals for the MOME show, there were numerous things that surprised me (bear in mind that prior to the show, I'd never seen any of these originals, either—all the artists send digital files these days): how small Jeffrey Brown's originals are (a bit smaller than reproduction size), how delicate John Pham's nib line is, how rich Andrice Arp's gouache colors are in original form compared to print, how furiously messy Zak Sally's pages are, and just how much beauty Sophie Crumb can suck out of that shittiest of writing instruments: the ballpoint pen.

BF: Was the opening well-attended?  Who among the New Guard were present?  Did you have music?  If so, what did people listen to?

ER: The opening was fairly well-attended. Unfortunately, we had one major conflict to deal with: the same night, at the exact same time, the Seattle Seahawks were playing a playoff  game about a mile down the road from us. We had our opening scheduled for weeks, but the game was only scheduled a week ago or we never would have done it at the same time. The problem was, people who wanted to watch the game didn't want to come to the art show, and people who hate football didn't want to go anywhere near the stadium, so we had a much  lighter turnout than we would have had otherwise. Fucking jocks! [Laughs]

But, that said, it was still a solid event, and funnily enough, it got kind of packed for about a half-hour during halftime of the game. Andrice Arp, Gary Groth and myself were the only MOME people in attendance. The staff of Georgetown Records provided the music, spinning vinyl from their eclectic collection.

Head over to the Fantagraphics blog where Eric Reynolds has posted some pictures of the MOME Exhbition’s opening night.