Claudia Acosta has co-curated with Scout Lee an exhibit called “Weird Rings True” : Cartoon Marginalia Resurfaced from the Abc No Rio Zine Library.
The exhibit opens Saturday 12/2 6-9 PM and is viewable through the 17th during gallery hours Fridays 4-7 and Saturdays and Sundays 2-6 at Project Reach 39 Eldridge Street, 4th Fl., New York, NY 10002.
Wedged in indents, pouring out from the margins of band interviews, anarchist diatribe, confessional poetry and autobiography, make-it-yourself guides – comics, comix, and comic art are deeply embedded into the visual language of zines. Outside of the underground comix cannon cemented over the last few decades, semi-unknown or anonymous zine makers have drawn cartoon versions of themselves, of other people, of funny animals and talking inanimate objects in their work for just as long. Some of the cartoonists featured in this exhibit may not have identified themselves as cartoonists at the time, or even as artists; some may have published small runs in sporadic bursts under pseudonyms in small towns; some may view these works as parts of a past life. One foot in the scene, the other out somewhere else. In this exhibit, we want to resurface the raw bits of independent, irreverent art in our zine collection, the underbelly of an already marginalized format.