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An explosive exhibition of art by a celebrated cartoonist chronicling America's march toward right-wing authoritarianism. Museum of Degenerates invites you to a delirious display of art by one of contemporary America's most original and incendiary political cartoonists. Eli Valley's extraordinary work is a scathing indictment of the entire American polity, with a particular focus on the issues of Israel and Judaism at a time when these have moved to the center of public debate and action. In these pages, Valley tips a homburg to German expressionists such as George Grosz and Otto Dix who featured in "The Exhibition of Degenerate Art," a 1937 Munich show that sought to ridicule the work of artists critical of Hitler's fascist regime. In an aesthetic that is strikingly original, Valley also draws on early twentieth-century American Yiddish cartoons and the work of artists who created the helter-skelter exuberance of MAD comics in the 1950s. Valley's own art, accompanied here by extensive descriptions of its genesis and context, is a howl of protest against the political, cultural and media elites driving America into an authoritarian abyss. Here is anger, pure and hot, expressed in exquisite detail and, often, disturbingly funny.
A propos de l'auteur
Eli Valley is the author of the critically-acclaimed
Diaspora Boy: Comics on Crisis in America and Israel. His work has appeared in
Jewish Currents,
The New Republic,
The Baffler,
Gawker, and
The Chapo Guide to Revolution (Atria, 2018).
Résumé
Museum of Degenerates is a lush showcase of Eli Valley’s critically-acclaimed art capturing America in a state of ongoing cataclysm and making the provocative case that the entire political class has been complicit in the reactionary waves currently overwhelming the country. Unlike most political cartoons, Valley’s art is a howl of rage against the political, cultural and media elites driving America into an authoritarian abyss.
Inspired in equal measure by early 20th century Yiddish cartoon art, Weimar-era expressionist woodcuts, and the free-for-all lunacy of early MAD comics, Valley’s distinctive style has energized the left and enraged the most worthy targets of our time. No single artist has captured our new era in all its horror and grotesquerie quite like Valley, whose comics have served as both mirror and lightning rod for a country in crisis.
Museum of Degenerates highlights Valley’s art, both black and white and full-color masterworks, from the past seven years of American strife. Including rare works and art appearing in print for the first time, the collection will be framed by notes on individual drawings as well as a lengthy introduction in which Valley explores his personal artistic vision in a time of unprecedented national crisis and links his work to earlier periods of antifascist art. Museum of Degenerates will feature some of the most indelible images from any artist working today, available in one place for the first time.
Préface
- Author appearances in New York and other major cities throughout the Northeast.
- Leverage the author’s extensive social media following to promote the book. He has a following of 111.6K on Twitter.
- Pitch reviews and interviews to a wide array of publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, New York Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Boston Review, The Guardian, The London Review of Books, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, The Washington Post, The Baffler, The Nation, Literary Hub, Artforum, Hyperallergic, BOMB Magazine, The Comics Journal, and more.
- Pitch television, radio, and podcast interviews with On the Media, Fresh Air, Vox Conversations, Hyperallergic Podcast, The New Yorker Radio Hour, The Stacks, Vox’s Longform, NPR’s Here & Now, It’s Been a Minute, and more.
