“In this century, and moment, of mania, tell me a story.”

by   Posted on March 15, 2010 in Contemporary Art Issues & Images  and tagged ,

…”Tell me a story of deep delight.” This line from Robert Penn Warren seemed apropos considering our last class discussion on narrative content in visual art. As one of my favorite college English professors Dr. Ernest Suarez explained the above quotation, human beings are storytellers by nature.  This uniquely human concern with narrative was central to several exhibits I saw last week in New York. The Morgan Library currently is featuring a stunning exhibition Demons and Devotion: the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, and the Met has the Limbourg Brothers’ masterpiece the Belles Heures of Jean de Berry lavishly displayed. I’ll gush about those extraordinary works in a later post. What is germane to our purposes are examples of contemporary artists who are working with narrative structures and/or the book format.

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The Bible Illuminated: R. Crumb’s Book of Genesis was on view at David Zwirner.In these 207 ink drawings, Crumb chronicles all 50 chapters of Genesis in “an astonishing tapestryof masterly detail and storytelling, rendered frame by frame in meticulous comic book fashion,” according to David Zwirner’s press release.

Yun Fei-Ji’s work was on view at James Cohan. His traditionally rendered scroll-like ink drawings depict a narrative about the controversial Three Gorges Dam project, and incorporate text into the imagery.  Ji is a Chinese expatriate artist who – in his own words – uses landscape painting “to explore the utopian dreams of Chinese history, from past collectivization to new consumerism.” the_dance_aug_05feature_2b_S_O03





2 Responses

  1. I really like the Genesis stuff. I think the bible has a lot to draw inspiration from, and more and more I get this feeling that the world is ignoring it/neglecting it, so it’s good to see someone using it for their art.

  2. Thanks for the tips. I’ve often struggled in this area to create a campaign that works.

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