P R E S S
R E L E A S E S 2000
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July 6, 2000
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MacArthur Award Winner Ben Katchor to Present Carfare City
(July 6, 2000 -- North Adams, MA) Ben Katchor will present Carfare City on Thursday, August 3, at 8 pm. In this slide show performance the renowned comic strip artist offers up his unique utopian municipal plan. The first part of Carfare City investigates the processes we use to navigate the streets of a large city. Then Katchor offers a radical plan for urban redesign in which private and public space is intertwined by means of an electric streetcar system that runs through every residential and business unit. Carfare City first appeared in Katchor's The Evening Combinator, a story the producers of Jumanji have optioned to turn into a Hollywood film.Recent MacArthur Award winner Ben Katchor has been an innovator in comics since he was a teenager. His strips have been syndicated all over the country, appearing in the Forward, Metropolis Magazine, and dozens of other newspapers, developing a large cult following. His works include Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer; The Cardboard Valise; and The Jew of New York. He was formally trained in representational figure painting and drawing at Brooklyn College and the School of Visual Arts where he now teaches a class on cartooning.
Katchor has received the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. He was the subject of a lengthy profile by Lawrence Wechsler, entitled A Wanderer in the Perfect City, which appeared in The New Yorker and in 1994 was named "Best Cartoonist" by New York Magazine. Katchor collaborated on a series of radio dramas for National Public Radio with another 2000 MacArthur winner, David Isay. Samuel Ball, director of the film Ben Katchor: The Pleasures of Urban Decay says Katchor "is the heir to a rich Jewish-American tradition of graphic storytelling, following in the footsteps of Ben Shahn, Will Eisner, Harvey Pekar, and Art Speigelman."
Tickets to Carfare City are $5 and are available by calling the MASS MoCA Box Office at 413.662.2111 or online at www.massmoca.org. Tickets may also be purchased in person from 10 - 6 daily at MASS MoCA at 87 Marshall St. in North Adams, Mass.
MASS MoCA also presents The Carbon Copy Building, Ben Katchor's collaboration with the legendary, eclectic, and uncompromisingly funky Bang on a Can. This innovative opera is a dynamic trip through the gritty side of urban life. The opera, featuring Katchor's hand-drawn sets, is directed by Obie Award winner Bob McGrath. The Carbon Copy Building will show twice, Friday and Saturday, August 4 and 5, in MASS MoCA's Hunter Center for the Performing Arts. Both performances are at 8 pm. Tickets are $28 for orchestra seating and $22 mezzanine.
For Immediate Release
Contact: Katherine Myers
(413) 664-4481 x8113
katherine@massmoca.org
MASS MoCA 87 Marshall Street North Adams, Mass. 01247 413.MOCA.111