Exhibition Spotlight: The Jewish Comics Experience

Full disclosure: I am not a diehard comics reader or collector as an adult. I was a big X-Men fan as a kid. I collected in order to read fun stories and was also convinced by adult comic book store owners that one day I would get rich "investing" in first editions (I did not get rich). As an adult I usually waited to buy anthologies on Comixology when they were on sale. But then the company was purchased by Amazon and they just folded it into Kindle, and... I digress. Honestly, it's just not as fun reading them on an tablet or phone screen.

All that goes to say, I was really excited to see comics as the main story in the newest exhibition at the Capital Jewish Museum, JewCE: The Jewish Comics Experience. Of course as an adult I enjoy deciphering the meta-meaning in comics. The recent TV show X-Men '97 not so blatantly made lots of parallels between discrimination, segregation, and oppression happening to characters on screen with what is and has happened in the real world. The metaphors for the struggle of marginalized communities were nuanced and made the show compelling to watch, even for being "just a cartoon."

I mention the X-Men cartoon television show, because the basis is obviously the X-Men paper comics. That world was initially co-created by Stanley Martin Leiber, also known as Stan Lee. Alongside Lee, Moses Goodman, Hyman Simon, and Jacob Kurtzenburg (aka Jack Kirby) paved the way for the company now known as Marvel Comics to become one of, if not the top venues for storytelling though comic books in the world. Those histories and more are explored in the Jewish Comics Experience, which covers 100+ years of Jewish cartoons, comics, and graphic novels (for the purposes of this post, I'm just referring to all of those as comics).

The exhibition highlights Jewish comic writers, illustrators, and characters -- the obvious and subtle. At the same time, displays track the evolution of some of the most universally beloved characters like the X-Men, Superman, and Fantastic Four.

"Comedy" makes you laugh, but often the stories told with paper and color ink evolved from strictly fun comedic tales into stories that featured more serious content with sustained adventures featuring ongoing main characters. The Captain America comic book cover featuring a literal punch out of Hitler is as real as it gets. But even before the U.S. entered World War II, Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster developed Superman, a crusader for the innocents, in 1938. A character that is still beloved and among the most known comic superheroes of all time. To note: the Superman character has a new movie to be released in summer 2025. The legacy lives on. Comics aren't always "an escape." Nor just a coping mechanism. But the content within help shape, and are shaped by human consciousness, feelings, and experiences.

Onomatopoeia stylings abound in this exhibition space, and the exhibition art & signage really sets the tone for the subject matter. Clearly the exhibition designers borrowed from the comic book cannon of lettering, colors, and typeface. An interactive gallery at the end of the exhibition is titled Superhero Headquarters. Here, even the museum's youngest visitors can use props and costumes to imagine themselves as a character (hero? or perhaps villain???). For the more pen-to-paper types, there is a storyboarding prompt with a little inspiration for the creative folks that visit the museum and are ready to make art right now.

JewCE: The Jewish Comics Experience is open through March 23, 2025. As a special exhibition, admission is $10. General admission to the Capital Jewish Museum (without tickets to JewCE) is free. The other main exhibitions, What is Jewish Washington? and Connect. Reflect. Act, are very, very good and should be part of any visit. 575 3rd Street NW.

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Autumn in Northeast DC

Exploring the Union Market area of Northeast DC.

Exhibition Spotlight: "I’ll Have What She’s Having”: The Jewish Deli

Learning through food histories is a fascinating & compelling way to explore the past and learn about peoples, regions, and cultures. For instance, a few years ago I wrote a 60 minute food histories of DC program for a client and through this strictly food-based research, I learned so much more about the District of Columbia itself. A new exhibition at the Capital Jewish Museum titled "I’ll Have What She’s Having”: The Jewish Deli encapsulates all of that same sentiment and more.

From exploring the effects of 20th century immigration, to defining the actual foods served in delis, to surprisingly relevant modern day pop culture movie references, this exhibition is more than just a food history. It showcases how American Jews, through delis, created new American food traditions, ensured continuity of important established traditions, and practiced a time-tested, cross cultural social exercise — sitting down together to have a meal.

Of course, since this is the Capital Jewish Museum —as in Washington, DC— there is a solid emphasis on the DC area history in deli culture from present day and years past. That includes the suburbs of Washington, too. Not to mention the existing interactive computer display of delis and other Jewish owned business, schools, places of worship, and significant sites in the ongoing exhibition (Connect. Reflect. Act.).

I loved the mix of laying groundwork through immigration histories while showing present day ephemera that makes every individual deli that particular deli — uniforms, menus, equipment, signage, and advertisements. We have all seen these places in everyday city life, but the context and meaning make seeing the exhibition more of a journey. And of course, if you explore it all from beginning to end, you'll get to watch the namesake, payoff “I’ll have what she’s having” film scene in the final gallery. Admittedly a somewhat hilarious sounding clip if you haven't seen the movie and you hear it while making your way through the adjacent room in the exhibition.

“I’ll Have What She’s Having”: The Jewish Deli” is on view through August 20, 2024. As a special exhibition, it does require an entrance ticket of $15. The rest of the museum is free with timed ticket. Walk-ins are excepted as space permits. 575 3rd St NW.

Exhibition Spotlight: Brilliant Exiles

Josephine Baker est aux Folies-Bergère. Lithograph, 1936. ByMichel Gyarmathy (1908-1996).

Happy belated birthday Josephine Baker! The singer, dancer, and actor who captivated Paris in the 1920s was born 118 years ago this week, on June 3, 1906.

Baker was but one of many innovative and creative American women who moved to Paris in the early 20th century seeking personal autonomy along with professional agency and success.

Some of these “brilliant exiles” are profiled in the new National Portrait Gallery exhibition by the same name, “Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900-1939.” The exhibition is open through February 23, 2025.

Loïs Mailou Jones 1905-1998. Charcoal and chalk on textured paper, c. 1940. By Céline Tabary (1908-1993) .

Gertrude Stein 1874-1946. Oil on canvas, 1905-6. By Pablo Picasso (1881-1973).

The show is made up of nearly 80 works of art, mostly in the form of portraits. The portraits are of, and sometimes also by these Americans who shifted and elevated the Paris culture through literature, visual, arts, dance, drama, and philosophy.

Portraiture has a way of annunciating identity in a more evocative way than even the written word can. This exhibition does that in a simple way, letting the paintings speak for themselves.

Baker, like the other American women featured in the exhibition, did not leave the U.S. and land in Paris by accident or coincidence. Crushing legal and social limitations in the U.S. left little room for freedom expression for independent and talented women. Restrictions were based not on just gender, but sexuality, race, economic stratifications, and politics. Paris was not a panacea for all U.S. societal ills, but the artistic climate offered more independence, agency, and freedom to an extent that, for these women, the U.S. could not compare.

Mercedes de Acosta 1893-1968. Oil on canvas, 1923. By Abram Poole (1882-1961).

Baker herself moved to Paris in 1925. She did return to the U.S. for short stints in theatrical productions, and more extensively to lend her aid to the cresting civil rights movements in the 1960s. But by then she was a Parisian through and through, having gained French citizenship way back in 1937. Baker died in Paris, passing away in her sleep on April 12, 1975, just days after performing in a show marking her 50th year of her Paris debut.

This exhibitions is about more than Baker herself. The portraits that make up the show give a luminescent view into the personality, and dare I say, aura, of the people captured. This is high recommend to visit before the show closes in February of 2025!

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In Exaltation of Flowers: Rose- Geranium; Petunia-Caladium-Budleya; and Golden-Banded Lily-Violets. Katharine Nash Rhoades 1885-1965. Marion H. Beckett 1886-1949. Mercedes de Cordoba Carles 1879-1963. Tempera and gold leaf on canvas, 1910-13. By Edward Steichen(1879-1973).

New Works at the Gallery: Bisa Butler

This week I will be sharing some of my favorite new pieces on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery.

Up second is "Patternmaster" by Bisa Butler.

Octavia Butler is one of my favorite authors – but I’m not alone. She was a groundbreaking science fiction author and multiple award winning literary giant whose work perhaps has resonated more even after her passing in 2006.

Butler is known for complex world building while incorporating themes such as racial injustice, gender inequality, environmental degradation, genetic engineering, and human (and sometimes alien) evolution.

In that same world building vein, Bisa Butler (no relation) has used various materials to build this stunning portrait of Octavia Butler. The artist used cotton, silk, vinyl, lace, beads, rhinestones, and other materials that all come together to make a quilt. The quilt is the portrait. Bisa Butler’s layering of fabric and materials mimic the layering of human emotion, speculative fiction, and fantastical scenarios that make Octavia Butler's writing so engaging. Talk about the portrait matching the person. This is it.

Check out yesterday’s post on Roger Brown and stay tuned for the final post tomorrow.✌🏾