Mignola's Pinocchio at SOI NY

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It’s interesting that two masters of the comics/fantasy genre created new versions of the classic Pinocchio tale around the same time. Concurrently with Colleen Doran Illustrates Neil Gaiman, the Society of Illustrator’s main gallery is showing Picturing Pinocchio: Mignola Makes a Marionette. a beautiful display of art from Mike Mignola’s version of the story for Beehive Books (March -July 8, 2023). Like Doran’s Chivalry, Mignola’s Pinocchio was conceived and produced during the Covid shutdown. On the lower floor are selections from the Society’s vast collection of works on paper curated by Mignola. The text that follows is from the Society’s website:

“Deep in the midst of pandemic lockdowns, a plan was hatched: a new illuminated edition of Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio, engineered to unDisnify one of the strangest, most startling pieces of fiction ever to be beloved by generations of children worldwide.

The seed was planted by cartoonist and author Mike Mignola (Hellboy), who had been pondering his own take on the puppet for decades. With the world closed up due to COVID, he teamed up with idiosyncratic publisher Beehive Books and holed up in his studio to create a portfolio of over fifty original illustrations re-envisioning Collodi’s tale. When author Lemony Snicket (A Series of Unfortunate Events) got wind of the project, he couldn’t resist joining, offering elaborate hand-typed annotations of his own maddening encounter with this singular text.

Pinocchio, though one of the most popular literary works of all time, is somewhat paradoxically ill-remembered. Collodi originally published the story as serialized installments in a children’s magazine. The original series ended with Pinocchio hung from a tree, dead by the hands of assassins, and was continued only because of an outcry from readers who couldn’t stand to see such a beloved character reach such a dismal end.  This is the true nature of Collodi’s tale — who better than Mike Mignola to illustrate the unremitting darkness and strange whimsy that characterized this bizarre children’s classic?

This exhibition will feature his full portfolio of yet-to-be-published Pinocchio illustrations, including drawings, paintings, process work and other ephemera of Mignola’s pandemic Pinocchio project. The Land of Toys, the City of Catchfools, the Blue Fairy, Fire Eater, the feline Assassins – as seen through the eyes of a modern master of illustration and storytelling.”


Memory: Designing Home: Jews and Midcentury Modernism, CJM

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I found my old blog last week and have decided to update and restore some posts I had about interesting exhibits of the past before they are lost forever. Today’s entry is about an exhibit called Designing Home: Jews and Midcentury Modernism, which was on view at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco over the summer of 2014. It was a show about how European Jewish emigres networked together around a core of design institutions across the US, inspiring a new look for architecture, furniture, textiles, dinnerware & utensils, Judaica, and graphic design.  The institutions singled out in the show were MoMA, Walker Art Center, Institute of Design (Chicago), Black Mountain College (NC), Case Study House/Art + Architecture magazine (LA), and Pond Farm (Guerneville, CA). There were many artists included in this survey and about 200 works on display; I took a few photos of graphic design elements I found inspiring. The CJM has a page on its site with videos, press releases, and short essays.

New York 1962-1964

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New York 1962 - 1964, on view at the Jewish Museum (NY) July 22, 2022 - January 8, 2023, is an ambitious show that succeeds on all fronts. It recreates parts of exhibits curated by the JM’s forward-thinking director Alan Solomon that were the first to feature “the new art,” art that broke away from abstract expressionism to show work inspired by the artist’s lives and experiences. It sets the scene with installations of streetscapes, department stores, poetry readings, living rooms, kitchens, and news broadcasts (including the Cuban Missile Crisis, the JFK assassination, and MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech).

Solomon was the first curator to organize a retrospective of Rauchenberg and Johns. This relationship continued when Solomon was selected to curate the US display at the 34th Venice Biennale (1964), where Rauchenberg won the Grand Prize. The gallery showing news interviews with Solomon and Italian critics and all the art sent to Venice was a real treat. The show excels at reminding visitors what a turbulent time the early 60s were in US culture, ending with an extensive presentation of work about the struggle for Civil Rights.

More information about the curator, Germano Celant (September 11, 1940 – April 29, 2020), former artistic director of fondazione prada in Milan.

Memory: San Diego Comic-Con Museum 2019 & 2021

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March 2019

In the spring of 2019, the museum had a “soft open” event and a gallery show of art created for Comic-Con posters and souvenir books from the collection of Jackie Estrada. This event coincided with San Diego Comics Fest. At this point, only one gallery in the front of the museum was open.

July 2019

During Comic-Con 2019, Batman was the first character inducted into the Museum’s Character Hall of Fame. The Batman show, curated by Michael Uslan, had an impressive array of props, a video game arcade, and a special effects room where visitors could hit a punching bag and see 1966-style sound effects appear on the walls. On the lower floor were the winners of the museum’s cos-play contest.

November 2021

After California emerged from the Covid shutdown, San Diego Comic-Con did a Special Edition of the convention over the Thanksgiving weekend. The museum had exhibits of Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek, the Art of Charles Addams, and a costume exhibit. There are a lot of long shots, as I was trying to document the recent remodel of the space as well as the exhibits.