UPM book about R. Crumb in Museums

I was happy to hear that The Comics of R. Crumb: Underground in the Art Museum has been submitted to the University Press of Mississippi by the Editor, Daniel Worden. It looks to be a great collection of different views on the way Crumb is represented in exhibitions.

My own contribution, Viewing Crumb: Representations of R. Crumb in Art Museums, discusses what role Crumb plays in contemporary art and in a wide range of museum exhibitions, such as High & Low (MoMA, 1990), Masters of American Comics (Hammer & MoCA LA, 2005), Compass in Hand: Selections from the Judith Rothschild Contemporary Drawings Collection (MoMA, 2009), The Phonus Balonus Show of Really Heavy Stuff (Corcoran Museum, 1969) Underground Classics (Chazen Museum, 2009), and Graphic Masters: Dürer, Rembrandt, Hogarth, Goya, Picasso, R. Crumb (Seattle Art Museum, 2016). The chapter also explores Crumb’s influence on contemporary feminist artists both negative (Trina Robbins) and positive (British artists Margaret Harrison and Rebecca Warren).

R. Crumb. God Wants me to Draw. Ink drawing on placemat. (2003). Collection of MoMA. Displayed with a Fritz the Cat book cover in the exhibition Compass in Hand:Selections from the Judith Rothschild Contemporary Drawings Collection .

[Update 12/2020] In July, 2019 I participated in a roundtable discussion of this book at the Comics Studies Society’s annual conference at Ryerson University in Toronto, July 25 -28. The book includes contributions from José Alaniz, Ian Blechschmidt, Paul Fisher Davies, Zanne Domoney-Lyttle, David Huxley, Lynn Marie Kutch, Julian Lawrence, Liliana Milkova, Stiliana Milkova, Kim A. Munson, Jason S. Polley, Paul Sheehan, Clarence Burton Sheffield Jr. , and Daniel Worden. Preorder now for May 2021 release.