Marlborough is excited to present a solo exhibitions of prints by the legendary comics artist Art Spiegelman. A towering figure in the underground comix scene of the 1960s and 70s, Spiegelman broke into the mainstream with his 1992 graphic novel Maus, a Holocaust allegory that became an international bestseller and a defining work of the medium. Subsequently, his work has been featured on the cover of the New Yorker magazine and countless other publications including the seminal avant-garde comix magazine RAW which he co-founded in 1980.
The exhibition encompasses over 30 years of editioned works in silkscreen, lithography, and offset printing, and engages his favored themes—comics as a medium of self-expression, the personal and political in history, and the triumphs and tragedies of New York.
While the graphic style varies from subject to subject, a mixture of humor and gravity are a hallmark. Not one to shy from the sensational (and the urge to keep comics once-dangerous reputation alive) there is an edge of provocation and grotesquerie, but also a tenderness. It is his unflinching humanity that connects us so deeply with his work and he manifests it powerfully with his deft hand and inventive compositions.