Dear Shaded Viewers,
Sauve qui peut! is the current exhibition at the David Zwirner Gallery and it is up until March 26th. If you are American there is a 100% chance you know of the R. Crumb comic books which took off in the early 70’s with Fritz the Cat, Mr. Natural and Keep on Truckin. R. Crumb was a pioneer in the world of comic books that were reflective of society and extremely personal and referential. In 1971 R. Crumb met his wife, an established comic book illustrator. I had the opportunity to talk to Aline Kominsky-Crumb, you can listen to our chat in the video above, she told me that a friend introduced her to R. Crumb because she looked like the female character in his cartoons. They’ve been together for the past 50 years. In 1981 their daughter Sophie Crumb was born and in 1991 they moved to France. During the COVID 19 lockdown they all dealt with the lockdown by working together on cartoons that dealt with relevant topics that society is dealing with now, and all in an extremely intimate way. Topics include the vaccine, which R. Crumb is totally against and abortion, also how Americans look at the French. Sophie has lived in France since she was 10 or ll years old so she is really more French than American.
” La Famille Crumb” at Le Musée de Sérignan (now Musée régional d’art contemporain Occitanie), France took place in 2007 with Robert, Aline, Sophie and uncles.
The Crumb’s have lived in the south of France for the past 31 years.
Along with the ‘group’ work, each of the artists expose their own work. There is a documentary projected in one of the rooms and I recommend you watch it when you visit the gallery. I liked what he said about how he was rejected by females until he became famous, then they found him attractive. Isn’t that the way it goes….so transparent.
R. Crumb was born in Philadelphia in 1943 and his work is as relevant now as it was 50 years ago.
David Zwirner
108, rue Vieille du Temple
75003, Paris, France
Later,
Diane
