Bang! Thwack! Plop!
Comics: an Influence on Contemporary Art
June 14, 2011 - July 28, 2012
Art and comics have a complex relationship. This exhibition explores that relationship by featuring the intersection of comics and art with specific attention on how certain themes and stylistic forms have crossed over from the genre of comics into the world of visual art. Many professional artists have drawn and/or published comics and even worked in a cartoon style while others have used actual comics as material for their assemblages or collages. The exploding popularity of comics, mostly through animation and graphic novels, shows us that the graphic, or comic, impulse has become a compelling means of artistic communication. Bang! Thwack! Plop! points toward a growing interdisciplinary trend in the arts that allows for a flow of ideas between media and form, creating a liberation of high art. This exhibition opened in mid June of 2011 and is on display in the museum's upper gallery with the official opening reception held on October 31st, 2011.
Bang! Thwack! Plop!
Comics: an Influence on Contemporary Art
Exhibition Logo

Bang! Thwack! Plop! Comics: an Influence on Contemporary Art, January 16 - June 11, 2012. Installation view 1, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art. Utah State University. Logan, Utah. Photograph by Andrew McAllister, March 2012

Hap Sakwa, Mad Hatter Teapot, 1994, Ceramic applique over wood vessel, 11.56 inches, Museum Purchase with the Nora Eccles Treadwell Foundation.

Clay Spohn, Rolling Forts, Flying Fort and Anti-aircraft Net, 1942, Graphite and gouache on paper, 17 x 33 inches, Gift of the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation.

Bang! Thwack! Plop! Comics: an Influence on Contemporary Art, January 16 - June 11, 2012. Installation view 2, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art. Utah State University. Logan, Utah. Photograph by Andrew McAllister, March 2012

Enrique Chagoya, Codex Canibalius Insulae, 1994, Mixed Media on Amate paper, 12.5 x 117.5 inches, Gift of the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation.

Bang! Thwack! Plop! Comics: an Influence on Contemporary Art, January 16 - June 11, 2012. Installation view 3, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art. Utah State University. Logan, Utah. Photograph by Andrew McAllister, March 2012

Bang! Thwack! Plop! Comics: an Influence on Contemporary Art, January 16 - June 11, 2012. Installation view 4, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art. Utah State University. Logan, Utah. Photograph by Andrew McAllister, March 2012

Clay Spohn, Untitled Drawing (3 of 3), ca.1948, 5 x 6 inches, Gift of the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation.

Bang! Thwack! Plop! Comics: an Influence on Contemporary Art, January 16 - June 11, 2012. Installation view 5, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art. Utah State University. Logan, Utah. Photograph by Andrew McAllister, March 2012

Helmi Dagmar Juvonen, Tlingit Whale, ca.1953, Linocut, 17.75 x 31.75 inches, Museum Purchase with the Dorothy Wanlass Endowment.

Joseph (Joe) Clower, Untitled, 1964, Gouache on posterboard, 23.75 x 19.75 x 2 inches, Gift of the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation.

Bang! Thwack! Plop! Comics: an Influence on Contemporary Art, January 16 - June 11, 2012. Installation view 6, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art. Utah State University. Logan, Utah. Photograph by Andrew McAllister, March 2012

Bang! Thwack! Plop! Comics: an Influence on Contemporary Art, January 16 - June 11, 2012. Installation view 7, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art. Utah State University. Logan, Utah. Photograph by Andrew McAllister, March 2012

Bang! Thwack! Plop! Comics: an Influence on Contemporary Art, January 16 - June 11, 2012. Installation view 8, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art. Utah State University. Logan, Utah. Photograph by Andrew McAllister, March 2012

Michael Frimkess, For Popsicle Pete, 1991, Stoneware, 20.125 x 5.75 x 5.75 inches, Museum Purchase with the Nora Eccles Treadwell Foundation.

Gronk Nicandro, Deathflesh, 2009, Ink and gouache on cardboard, 20.75 x 16.75 inches, Gift of the Kathryn C. Wanlass Foundation.















