Inventing America: The Comic Book Revolution;
Outsiders, Outcasts, Rebels + Weirdos: Punk Culture 1976-1986
Skirball Cultural Center
Through February 28, 2027; Through September 6, 2026
Although music and comics are different mediums and the exhibitions cover differing time spans, what is true of both is that when mainstream society denied opportunities to Jews, they found new mediums for self-expression that invigorated and impacted American culture. Here and there, there is even some overlap as the artists who made posters for bands sometimes made comics as well.
Inventing America: The Comic Book Revolution
As the Museum Director Sheri Bernstein told me at the press preview, Inventing America is the Skirball’s response to the upcoming 250th Anniversary of the founding of the United States. The exhibition covers the 20th Century to the present. Comic books often attracted artists and writers who were not accepted in advertising or graphic design jobs. Many of them were the Jewish children of immigrants, who in their superhero projections expressed their own love of country and American culture. Among the Olympians are Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (Superman), Bob Kane (Batman), Stan Lee (Spiderman and Marvel Comics), and Jack Kirby (Captain America), among many others.
Gallery Installation Images by smg photography: Sarah M. Golonka. Courtesy of the Skirball Cultural Center.
The exhibition seeks to connect the comics to historical moments in America and show how those conflicts and battles for a more inclusive society were often reflected in comics, and by the superheroes they created such as Wonder Woman and Black Panther. By the 1960s, as comic book heroes became mainstream with television adaptations, and even MAD magazine became an accepted entity, a new group of misfits began making underground comics and often used comics to tackle personal and social issues, such as in Art Spiegelman’s Maus, or even more recently with Alison Bechtel’s Fun House.
Gallery Installation Images by smg photography: Sarah M. Golonka. Courtesy of the Skirball Cultural Center.
This is a well organized, researched, and displayed exhibition where you get to see some great artifacts, and learn a great deal about the role comics have played in shaping America’s self-image.
Outsiders, Outcasts, Rebels + Weirdos: Punk Culture 1976-1986
Gallery Installation Images by smg photography: Sarah M. Golonka. Courtesy of the Skirball Cultural Center.
The Punk Culture exhibition does not seek to claim that Jews invented punk music (and God knows there were plenty of skinheads and Neo-Nazis in the mosh pit and in Punk here and abroad). However, the disaffected feelings of alienation and of being outsiders led many Jews to find a home in punk whether it was in The Ramones (Joey and Tommy Ramone), Suicide (Alan Vega, Martin Rev), The Dictators (Handsome Dick Manitoba, Andy Shernoff and Ross Friedman), Television (Tom Verlaine, Richard Hell), Blondie (Chris Stein) or the Patti Smith Band (Lenny Kaye), and New York Dolls (Sylvan Sylvain). Add to this the owner of CBGB’s Hilly Kristal and record label exec Seymour Stein, the Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren and you see how Jewish individuals were threaded through punk culture.
Gallery Installation Images by smg photography: Sarah M. Golonka Courtesy of the Skirball Cultural Center.
The Skirball exhibition is object and ephemera rich, with more than 500 objects on display, from handmade flyers, buttons, posters and zines, to photos and even clothes. For some of us at the press preview, seeing the exhibition was like having your life flash before your eyes, triggering madeleine-worthy recollections of New York in the late 70s, LA in the 80s, and of bands and the dark, dank clubs they played in. The exhibition is about a time, and an attitude where a group of outsiders challenged the status quo and seized the culture. Not a bad thing to be reminded of right now.
Cover image: Gallery Installation Images by smg photography: Sarah M. Golonka. Courtesy of the Skirball Cultural Center.
