Comic Future
27 September 2013–2 February 2014
Opening: 27 September, 6–8pm
Ballroom Marfa
108 East San Antonio Street
Marfa, TX 79843
Curated by Fairfax Dorn
Artists: Walead Beshty, Liz Craft, Aaron Curry, Carroll Dunham, Arturo Herrera, Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, Erik Parker, Sigmar Polke, Peter Saul, Dana Schutz, Michael Williams, Sue Williams
Comic Future features work by artists who employ the language of various and discordant approaches such as abstraction and figuration to twist representation of their immediate environment, thereby imbricating a skewed, often apocalyptic vision of the future.
Showcasing works from the 1960s through 2013, the exhibition surveys political satire and cultural commentary through styles ranging from capitalist realism to contemporary pop art. The works include early drawings by Sigmar Polke; collage by Walead Beshty; video by Paul McCarthy; painting by Carroll Dunham, Dana Schutz and Michael Williams; new works by Peter Saul, Sue Williams and Erik Parker; and sculpture by Aaron Curry, Liz Craft and Mike Kelley. A Ballroom-commissioned site-specific public wall installation by Arturo Herrera will complete Comic Future.
Drawing from the art-historical lineage of cubism, graffiti, cartoons, figurative painting and gestural abstraction, and appropriating subjects from mythology, advertising, print culture and consumerism, Comic Future is as much about the breakdown of the human condition as it is about the absurdities that define the perils of human evolution.
To inaugurate Comic Future, Ballroom Marfa will host a weekend of festivities including an opening on September 27 from 6 to 8pm. The reception also features a performance by New York’s Devin Gary & Ross, the visually inclined trio of cartoon animator Devin Flynn, photographer and sign painter Ross Goldstein; and illustrator, designer, and all-around Renaissance eccentric Gary Panter (and art director for Pee-wee’s Playhouse). Devin Gary & Ross will be joined by special guest Kramer: musician, composer, record producer and founder of the New York City record label Shimmy-Disc. Following the opening reception, Ballroom Marfa will host a free community dinner under Marfa’s shade structure. There will be an exhibition walkthrough with the artists on Saturday, September 28 at 11am.
Comic Future has been made possible through the support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; National Endowment for the Arts; the Brown Foundation, Inc., Houston; the Meyer Levy Charitable Foundation; Texas Commission on the Arts; Foundation for Contemporary Arts; and generous contributions by Tim Crowley and Ballroom Marfa members.
