The annual New York destination for alternative sequential art, the MoCCA Festival, arrives early this year - it's on this weekend at the 69th Regiment Armory. Each year artists and publishers look forward to the event as if it were a love fest, and this one's no exception. Here's the talk from the street: Steven Guarnaccia, Illustration Program Chair at Parsons the New School … Read the full Story >>
Was it plagiarism or a case of artistic license? South African photographer Graeme Williams says he was astonished when he walked into a Johannesburg art fair recently and saw a photo he'd taken in 1990 -- a shot of black schoolchildren taunting white policemen after the release of Nelson Mandela. The artwork, which had been altered to some degree, was credited to the artist … Read the full Story >>
I'm holed up in my living room with my laptop, writing this issue of DART, and trying not to be distracted by the beautiful autumn light that inevitably arrives with the return of Standard Time. That makes it countdown time to the launch of American Illustration 26 and American Photography 23. And Mark Heflin is putting the finishing touches on the displays that … Read the full Story >>
Peter Kuper, a charter friend of DART, will be enjoying a career retrospective exhibition opening next Thursday at Scott Eder Gallery, in Brooklyn. As if he didn’t already have enough to do, I sent him a page of questions. Here’s what he wrote: Q: What were you doing immediately before you picked up a pencil to make your first drawing? A: At age four or … Read the full Story >>
February 2nd, Groundhog Day, is Candlemas in the Catholic faith, or El día de la Candelaria in Mexico. It is forty days after the birth of Christ, as well as the midpoint between the solstice and the equinox, and a sacred day in the Aztec calendar as the beginning of the agricultural cycle. It is difficult to discuss La Candelaria without looking back to Christmas and the Epiphany (Día de los Reyes, January … Read the full Story >>
When award-winning graphic novelist, illustrator, and long-time DART contributor Peter Kuper first spent time in Oaxaca, Mexico back in 2006, he fell hopelessly in love with the majestic monarch butterfly. During his first two-year stay, he regularly posted his richly illustrated Oaxaca Journal—which later became the acclaimed book, Diario de Oaxaca. It was almost inevitable that his fascination with our six-legged … Read the full Story >>
Peggy Roalf: Which came first, the pencil or the pen? David Cruz: First came the pen. At elementary school I use to populate my history books with ink drawings, and I also liked to delete some words to change the meaning of the texts, which made them more fun. My notebooks were always full of drawings from my imagination. PR: Please describe your work … Read the full Story >>
The 2017 Summer Invitational: Pimp Your Sketchbook, in which artists show their personal work and open a window onto their creative process, continues with Peter Kuper, who lives and works in New York, and practically wrote the book on sketchbooks. Spread from Amman (with a little bit of Petra on the lower left) Thanks to an invitation to teach a comics workshop, I had the … Read the full Story >>
Photography marches onward. And looks to the past. This week we spotlighted a new report about falling sales in the camera market -- due in no small part to the rise of smartphone photography. Along with that news came a list of the 25 worst professions now, with "Photographer" ranked at number 25 because of diminishing employment prospects and falling wages --both of which … Read the full Story >>
When is an anteater not an anteater? When it's stuffed. Brazilian photographer Marcio Cabral was recently stripped of a prestigious award in the 2017 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition because his winning image featured a taxidermy anteater. The news shook the wildlife photography community and made headlines in newspapers and blogs around the world. Even talk-show host Conan O'Brien weighed in with some … Read the full Story >>
Award-winning graphic novelist Peter Kuper combines his appreciation of classic architecture with a lifelong fascination with insects in the new exhibition INterSECTS: Where Arthropods and Homo Sapiens Meet, opening January 14, 2022 in the third-floor Stokes Gallery of The New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Kuper, a longtime DART subscriber and collaborator, met me by … Read the full Story >>
Peter Kuper is, luckily, an artist who needs no introduction. I say this because his long and varied career is impossible to summarize in a paragraph. Whether celebrating his life-long fascination with the universe of bugs, in Insectopolis, or satirizing the political nature of human inhumanity in World War III Illustrated, Peter’s work begins with research—scientific, literary, political, psychological and you … Read the full Story >>
The word "Mexico," says Enrique Samson, is roughly translated as "at the navel on the moon." That is the title of a personal series of photographs Samson has been working on - a project, he says, that explores the cultural complexities of his native country. While Samson's specialty is architectural photography, his series on Mexico, done as part of an MFA thesis project at … Read the full Story >>
Arriving at the Lexington Avenue Armory this weekend is the 10th edition of the MoCCA Fest—presented by New York City’s own Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art. And this year the prestigious Klein Award (named for MoCCA founder Lawrence Klein) will go to Gary Panter at a presentation on Saturday afternoon. For anyone in the dark about what could be New York’s loudest and most vibrant art show … Read the full Story >>
"Since her death in 1954, Frida Kahlo has become an iconic figure in the art world and beyond. It's hard to sum up her impact, because it spans art, culture, politics, and social issues. Her unique vision and fearless self-expression have made her a 'Goddess' figure whose legacy continues to grow, inspiring new generations of artists, activists, and admirers around the world." So notes … Read the full Story >>
Josef Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is arguably one of the most significant works of fiction in the modern era. First serialized in Blackwood’s Magazine in 1899, at the height of European imperial wealth and corruption, the novella, which can be read on a slow evening, set the stage for 20th-century masterpieces such as William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, and later, Francis Ford … Read the full Story >>
Peter Kuper, award-winning illustrator, comics artist and co-founder of World War 3 Illustrated, will launch his long awaited book Insectopolis: A Natural History, at the opening of an exhibition of the original work at Society of Illustrators this week. Peter is a long-time contributor to DART, going back to his first stay in Mexico, in 2006, when he fell in love with Monarch … Read the full Story >>
In editorial photography, being in the right place often means having the right portfolio online. For Michael Toolan, a Mexico City-based photographer, this proved true when Saveur magazine discovered his work during a search for talent in the region. What followed for Toolan was a journey into the highlands of Chiapas to peel back the layers of a region whose culinary traditions are as … Read the full Story >>
What do trees tell us? It depends, of course, on whether we are listening to them. The new book "Wise Trees," from landscape photographers Diane Cook and Len Jenshel, opens with a quotation from William Blake: "A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees." In the book's introduction, the writer Verlyn Klinkenborg notes that trees trees allow us to think … Read the full Story >>
Talks / Discussions / Screenings / and Beyond Tuesday, August 16 Takuro Hinokio | Live Painting performance/with Jasmine Lee on Cello, 7-10 pm. Ouchi Gallery, 170 Tillary Streeet, Brooklyn, NY Info Wednesday, August 17 Screening: Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972), 7pm/sundown. Socrates Sculpture Park, 32-01 Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, NY Info Thursday, August 18 Sarah Singh + Rey Paris ? … Read the full Story >>
