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I haven’t written adequately about the “Cartoon Polymaths” show currently up at Parsons, the NYC art school that teaches design and illustration. It is a concise but museum-level show about cartooning and cartoonists that really sets a new standard for how these subjects can be covered. Aside from showing movies and puppets and small Marischal-designed houses, it also has its own NEON SIGN. Wow. Curator Bill Kartalopoulos really outdid himself and got Parsons’ taleted design crew on board with a fantastic installation.

Anyway, if you haven’t gone yet, tonight is the night to see a talk with pioneering artist Richard McGuire, who was multimedia before it was in fashion. Deets below.

An Evening with Richard McGuire
Moderated by “Cartoon Polymaths” exhibit curator Bill Kartalopoulos

Friday, February 18, 7:00 p.m.
Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Auditorium
Sheila C. Johnson Design Center
66 Fifth Avenue at 13th Street
New York, NY 10011

Richard McGuire, whose work is featured in the “Cartoon Polymaths” exhibit running through April 15 at the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, has pursued an extraordinary multidisciplinary career. He is the founder and bassist of the seminal No Wave band Liquid Liquid, which helped define the underground sound of downtown New York in the early 1980s. He is the author of several ground-breaking comics including the classic short story “Here,” published in Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly’s RAW Magazine in 1989, and widely acknowledged as an influential breakthrough work. He is the illustrator of numerous ingenious New Yorker covers, a children’s book author and toy designer, and the director of the animated short “Micro-Loup” and the closing segment for the award-winning animated anthology film “Fear(s) of the Dark,” among many other projects. On Friday, February 18, Richard will discuss his career and his working process, demonstrate the numerous ways Liquid Liquid’s signature song “Cavern” has been appropriated and utilized in various areas of popular culture, show drawings from his forthcoming book-length version of “Here,” and answer questions in this special spotlight event moderated by “Cartoon Polymaths” exhibit curator Bill Kartalopous.

This event is free and open to the public. The gallery will remain open following the event with Richard McGuire so that guests may visit the “Cartoon Polymaths” exhibit.

Upcoming public events will feature Jacob Ciocci of Paper Rad and cartoonist R. Sikoryak. For more information about the exhibit, please visit: http://newschool.edu/parsons/subpage.aspx?id=59621

The Sheila C. Johnson Design Center is an award-winning campus center for Parsons The New School for Design that combines learning and public spaces with exhibition galleries to provide an important new downtown destination for art and design programming. The mission of the Center is to generate an active dialogue on the role of innovative art and design in responding to the contemporary world. Its programming encourages an interdisciplinary examination of possibility and process, linking the university to local and global debates. The center is named in honor of its primary benefactor, New School Trustee and Parsons Board Chair Sheila C. Johnson. The design by Lyn Rice Architects is the recipient of numerous awards, including an Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects.

Exhibit curator Bill Kartalopoulos is a part time lecturer at Parsons The New School for Design, teaching “Comics History” in the Art and Design History and Theory Department and “History of Illustration” and “Reading Graphic Novels” in the Illustration Program. He is a co-organizer and the Programming Director for the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival, the Programming Coordinator for SPX: The Small Press Expo, and a member of the Executive Committee for ICAF: The International Comic Art Forum. He is a Contributing Editor for Print Magazine, a comics reviewer for Publishers Weekly, has previously curated exhibits of work by cartoonists Kim Deitch and R. Sikoryak, and is a frequent public speaker.