Art Spiegelman disses Jersey

[John Junk]

This guy cons the museum circuit of America into crowning him and his buddies "Masters of American Comics" and then gets all cranky when they won't put him in the big fancy New York museums. This from a guy whose whole early impetus was that deifying and fetishizing painting/sculpture/et. al in the museum institution had killed fine art, thereby making comics the more valid form of expression.  All he's been doing since Maus is getting his friends sweet gigs illustrating the New Yorker and carting around old comics pages like ancient sarcophagi. Not only that, he can't fathom a trip to Newark to look at art, as if it isn't like 20 minutes from Manhattan.  I know it's tough living in the shadow of no towers, but maybe if you left the damn island once in awhile you'd realize there's an entire world outside of NYC.

http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-et-spiegelman19sep19,0,3435880.story?coll=cl-art

[emilyrides]

That's really too bad, I always like Art Spiegelman's work, but now I hate his guts.  Newark is my hometown, and  realise there are some enormously shady aspects of the city, but the Newark Museum is fantastic.  It isn't the Met, but it's in a beautiful building with nicely manicured grounds reminiscent of a folly garden. They have a first rate collection of 20 C. painting and sculpture and impressive collection of Jersey-ana. Brick City forever!