January 10, 2001

MASS MoCA Features Comics in Three Dimensions With Bubbles 'n' Boxes 'n' Beyond

(January 10, 2001 -- North Adams, MA) An exhibition of fourteen comic artists from Switzerland, Canada, and the United States entitled Bubbles 'n' Boxes 'n' Beyond will open in MASS MoCA's Michael & Agnese Meehan Gallery on February 17, 2001 and run through June 16. These artists use comics to shock, delight, amuse, and entertain, while providing serious social commentary. This witty walk on the dark side also takes comic strips beyond their traditional two-dimensional form as the artists create complete installations in three dimensions. The installation, a network of plastic corridors, corrugated channels, and altered partitions through which the audience can weave from one artist's work to the next, is radically inventive, recalling the "cells" of a comic strip.

The centerpiece of the exhibit is an installation called La Grande Famiglia, created by Thomas Ott and Daniel Affolter. Ott's scratchboard portraits of sinister family members adorn the walls of an eloquently offensive apartment, inhabited by a fictitious maturing Mafioso named Marcello La Lupara.

Julie Doucet's intimate portraits, German Lessons, features women and amputees who sit surreal in everyday settings surrounded by hand-scrawled German text. The fun house also includes Karoline Schreiber's supine canvas comics, Judith Zaugg's boxes of light, Richard McGuire's revolving mobile of panels and Helge Reumann's pop-up circus carts, submarines, and police wagons. Carrie Golus draws adolescent narratives awash in a mix of simple and ill thoughts, with titles like She's Hideously Ugly, while Kevin Pyle's political cartoons refer to a covert medical program.

Artists also include Gregor Gilg who illustrates the everyday lives of people caught on the same tramway in Poland. Nadine Spengler's oversized animal-shaped Pez dispensers and David Mazzucchelli's tale of a female protagonist who finds independence outside the boundaries of Japanese culture are also featured. J. Otto Seibold introduces digitally conceived figures, and RenŽe French's twisted and violent fairy tales leave viewers longing for Little Red Riding Hood's passive wolf.

This exhibition cements the idea that underground comics have become one of the most courageous art forms today, and moves Sunday's warm and fuzzy "funnies" towards PG-17. This is MASS MoCA's first collaboration with the Swiss Institute. Partial funding for Bubbles 'n' Boxes 'n' Beyond is provided by the Swiss Institute.

MASS MoCA, the largest center for contemporary visual and performing arts in the country is located at 87 Marshall St. in North Adams, Massachusetts. The galleries are open from 11 am ö 5 pm everyday except Tuesdays. Admission is $6 adults, $4 students/seniors, $2 children 6 ö 16, and free for children under 6 and MASS MoCA members at all times.

For Immediate Release
Contact: Katherine Myers
(413) 664-4481 x8113
katherine@massmoca.org