Cartoon vision

Nothing about the Columbia College Chicago’s brand-new A+D Gallery or its first exhibit, The Cartoonist’s Eye, looks rushed. The eclectic collection of comics—including works by artists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”), Art Spiegelman (“Maus”), Dan Clowes (“Ghost World”), and the curator himself, Ivan Brunetti, AB’89, who created the exhibit as a preview of his Anthology of Graphic Fiction, due out in September 2006 by Yale University Press—neatly lines the white walls or lies atop white blocks scattered throughout the gallery.

Yet the paint had been drying for only five hours by the time the gallery kicked off last night’s free opening reception. “The dry walls were sanded today and constructed just two days ago,” said gallery director Jennifer Murray, stopping briefly to talk as she threaded her way through the bustling crowd, meeting and greeting patrons. The gallery, affiliated with Columbia College’s Department of Art and Design, relocated to 619 South Wabash Avenue from 72 East 11th Street at July’s end. When Murray and her team arrived, the gallery office lacked a phone, an Internet connection, and furniture. Moving in and preparing an exhibit at the same time, especially an exhibit that had “not a lot of framed work,” Murray said, proved a challenge.

As curator, Brunetti selected the art, said Columbia College senior and photography major Sara Pooley, restocking the refreshments. The gallery team helped out with “errands” like hanging pictures and getting the glass for the frames cut. “It was a very small team for a lot of work,” she said, “but it all came together in the end.” At 6:30 the team got a break, as the crowd moved next door for “Brief Stories about Cartooning,” a lecture by cartoonist Seth—a.k.a. Gregory Gallant.

Hana Yoo, '07

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Photos (left to right): Outside the gallery; An Art Spiegelman work; A Peanuts sample.

September 9, 2005

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