Robert Crumb
June 23–July 29, 2006
Munich
American artist and illustrator Robert Crumb is considered the founding father of underground comics. The movement started in the United States in the 1960s, where it emerged as a counterweight to the commercial comics industry.
Crumb draws his characters from social observations and current events, rendering them meticulously with an affectionate, if unsparing eye. It is a gaze he has also invariably turned on himself, to the extent that a number of his figures are recognizable alter-egos of the artist.
Crumb’s points of focus include the United States (the country of his birth, he is critical of the American way of life), sexuality and social satire. His characters, embodiments of the anti-establishment in the 1960s and ‘70s, have always drawn heavy controversy on account of their perceived sexual and political offensiveness. Comic strips show famed characters Mr. Natural, Angelfood McSpade, Honeybunch, and Fritz the Cat—loudmouthed, brilliant, drugged-out, anti-social, perpetually horny creatures—pursuing their erotic fantasies. Crumb has the characters live out his own fears, desires, fantasies, drug experiences, and fetishes, and often inserts himself as a figure in the scene.
The artist’s depictions of women as superwomen with monstrous legs and massive backsides have been a particular flashpoint, drawing accusations of sexism. Crumb has described the images as indicative of his fear of women—as further suggested by portrayals of himself as a skinny, lecherous old man or down-and-out loser.
A solo exhibition of Robert Crumb’s work at Sprüth Magers Projekte features a selection of drawings from the 1960s and ‘70s to 2003, in formats ranging from multi-page and shorter comic strips to vignettes, scenes with or without text, sketches, and type studies.
