Graphic Details at the Oregon Jewish Museum

Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women

From Aline Kominsky-Crumb and Diane Noomin to Ariel Schrag and Sarah Glidden, Boundary-Breaking Artists Take Spotlight in New Exhibition

October 17, 2012 - February 17, 2013

Opening Reception: Tuesday, October 16, 5:30 - 7:30 pm 

A provocative, funny, and edgy exhibition, Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women makes its Portland debut after successful runs in New York, Washington DC, San Francisco, and Toronto. It takes an in-depth look at a vibrant and prolific niche of graphic literature – Jewish women’s autobiographical comics. While the influential role of Jews in comics has long been acknowledged, the role of Jewish women in shaping the medium has yet to receive the recognition it deserves. This exhibition of original drawings, full comic books and graphic novels presents the powerful work of artists whose intimate and complex work has influenced the world of comics over the last four decades.

Featuring original art by 18 influential creators, Graphic Details showcases material from female comic book legends ranging from the pioneering Wimmen’s Comix and Twisted Sisters artists of the 1970s and 1980s to the superstars of the more recent generations. These are not the Sunday funnies — the work is ingeniously inventive, engaging, and self-deprecatingly honest. Visually and literarily, very little is left to the imagination and with striking intent to redefine what everyone thought they knew about comic books.

Many of the cartoons in Graphic Details have their first public showing in this exhibit. The artists, who hail from the U.S., Canada, Israel, and the UK 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; Laurie Sandell; Ariel Schrag; Lauren Weinstein; and Ilana Zeffren.

Sarah Lazarovic, Abstained!, 2007

“Portland, home to a large number of comic book enthusiasts, is the perfect west coast city to highlight the powerful work of these artists. The Oregon Jewish Museum is honored to showcase these artists and their place in the world of graphic storytelling and Jewish autobiography,” said Judith Margles, Oregon Jewish Museum Director. The Bay Area Reporter in San Francisco said this:  “Think of the twitchy, witty neurosis of Woody Allen, or the acid, barbed intelligence of Lenny Bruce, but with XX chromosomes.”

Graphic Details is co-curated by Michael Kaminer, a New York journalist and collector whose December 2008 story on confessional comics in The Jewish Daily Forward provided the impetus for the show. His collaborator, Sarah Lightman, is an award-winning artist, curator and arts journalist based in London who is researching her Ph.D. on Autobiography in Comics. “That Jews have had such a tremendous impact on comics has been widely noted. But the spotlight mostly has been trained on male-created superheroes,” said Kaminer. “These female anti-heroes, I would argue, are just as brave and deserve equal appraisal.” 

Ilana Zefferen, Pink Story, 2005

Traveling exhibition conceived by Zachary Paul Levine and Yeshiva University Museum. Sponsored by The Jewish Daily Forward.

A collectible exhibition catalogue published by The Jewish Daily Forward will be available for free during the run of the show and includes essays by comics experts Federica Clementi; Paul Buhle; Ranen Omer-Sherman; Sarah Jaffe; Ariel Kahn; and artist Trina Robbins. Full artist bios are also available at www.forward.com/graphic-details.

Oregon Jewish Museum will host several public events and programs throughout the run of Graphic Details, which closes on February 17, 2013. 

Location: Oregon Jewish Museum, 1953 NW Kearney Street, Portland OR 97209, 503.226.3600Hours: Tuesday to Thursday: 10:30 am–4 pm; Friday: 10:30 - 3 pm, Saturday-Sunday: noon – 4 pm. Admission: Adults: $6; Seniors and Students: $4; Members and Children under 12: Free; Students: Free with valid ID. 

Vanessa Davis, September 12, 2005, Toys in Babeland, 2005

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About the Oregon Jewish Museum

The Oregon Jewish Museum, the Pacific Northwest’s only Jewish museum, was founded to preserve the rich cultural heritage of one of Oregon’s earliest immigrant groups. 

The Museum is dedicated to the preservation, research, and exhibition of art, archival materials, and artifacts of the Jewish people. It is an important repository of communal history, the steward of artifacts, and the narrator of the story of the Oregon Jewish experience.  To do this, the Museum brings innovative exhibitions and Jewish programming to the region, building a dynamic institution that embraces Jewish identity and community. OJM seeks to be a springboard for dialogue about identity, culture, and assimilation, and to provide Jews and non-Jews alike with opportunities to understand the Jewish experience as a paradigm for pluralism. The Museum is a community-wide gathering place for exhibitions, public and education programs, and performances, ranging from films to chamber music. It is the storehouse for archival documents, artifacts, oral histories, and photographs concerning the history of the Jews in Oregon and works to discover and collect all materials that may help to illuminate this history.  

Oregon Jewish Museum

1953 NW Kearney Street

Portland, OR 97209

Hours 

Tuesday – Thursday: 10:30am – 4pm

Friday: 10:30am – 3pm

Saturday and Sunday: 12pm – 4pm 

Admission

Adults: $6

Students and Seniors: $4

Children 12 and under: Free