So, that happened...

So I was in Madison, Wisconsin, trying to get out of the rain.

Wait, no, let’s back up a bit.  I was on a train, reading Lawrence Weschler’s Uncanny Valley.  This got me thinking about trains and art and writing about trains and art.

In the process of doing that I wandered off, as I am prone to do, especially when considering Weschler’s own wanderings, and decided to attempt to explain why I don’t see a real, useful distinction between so-called “high” and so-called “low” art.

It’s almost impossible for me, a child of Calvin & Hobbes, to think about this subject without considering this particular comic strip:


(Source)

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So, anyway, I was in Madison, Wisconsin, trying to get out of the rain.

The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art rose, prow-like from across the intersection, so I decided to go in.  I’d been thinking about art, after all.  I’d just finished (but, not really, as it turns out) writing a post about how art shouldn’t be intimidating, as it’s really just a language and the best way to learn about art is to go expose yourself to some art and learn the language.

I decided to do just that.

The main gallery at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art at the moment is dedicated to the Chicago Imagists, a collection of artists who drew inspiration from the so-called “low” art, up to and including – wait for it now – comic books.

So what did I find when I entered the main gallery?  A set of prints by Ray Yoshida.  Specifically, they were prints made up of figures from comic books.


(Source)

Apparently, this sort of thing happens to Weschler all the time.