|
Bush Leaguers ‘hang’ at the Katzen
By April Fehling
Joel Pett, Lexington Herald Leader
When the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC) made plans to hold its 50th anniversary conference in Washington, D.C., this summer, association president Rob Rogers went looking for a serious local venue to host their exhibit, Bush Leaguers: Cartoonists Take on the White House.
AU alumnus Nate Beeler ’02, cartoonist for the Washington Examiner, suggested the Katzen Arts Center and Rogers, exhibit curator and an editorial cartoonist with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, soon discovered that Jack Rasmussen, director of the AU Museum at the Katzen, has a special interest in political-themed art and cartoons.
“Most art institutions don’t want to go near politics,” Rasmussen said. The Katzen, in contrast, has been more open to political themes. “We’re a museum and we’re in a university. They [AU] are very supportive of what we do here.”
Rogers described both the exhibit, 99 cartoons featuring President Bush, his cabinet, and other White House advisors, and the AAEC’s 50th anniversary as a tribute to the First Amendment freedoms that enable editorial cartoonists to mock their government without fear.
Jeff Stahler, Columbus Dispatch
The significance of these freedoms was not lost on a recent visiting delegation of five Iranian artists and curators. Participants on a State Department–sponsored program to observe U.S. art institutions, the visitors toured the museum the day the exhibit was installed. “They were just amazed,” Rasmussen said. “It’s characteristic of the best of who we are. It shows how we’re
different.”
Neither Rogers nor Rasmussen are concerned that the exhibit focuses solely on the Bush administration. “Political art is an art of opposition to the status quo,” Rasmussen said. “It’s dissent, it’s critique. This questioning of authority—that’s always been the role of the political cartoonist.”
Rogers agrees. “Editorial cartoonists have to be critical of those in power no matter what party you’re from. That’s what we get paid to do,” Rogers said. “If this was an exhibit that happened in the ’90s you would have seen a bunch of Bill and Monica cartoons.
“There are conservative [cartoonists] represented in the exhibit. But their cartoons are not cheerleader cartoons, because that doesn’t make good cartoons,” he said. “One cartoon by a very conservative guy shows Bush chipping away at his own base.”
It is precisely the exhibit’s focus on timely and difficult issues that makes Bush Leaguers compelling, Rogers said. “We have a war going on. We have all kinds of things that people are outraged about right now, and most of them can be tied back to the administration.”
One local resident, a regular museum visitor, commented “We all live in Washington,” she said. “We all know what’s going on. You have to take it with some humor.”
Steve Kelley, Times Picayune (New Orleans)
That sentiment is precisely what continues to make editorial cartooning relevant, said Rogers.
It’s a shame, he said, that newspapers across the country are shifting full-time staff cartoonists to freelance consultants in response to continuing shifts in the industry. “A lot of us have made an indelible impact on the communities where we live through local cartooning. Having an editorial cartoonist is not just an extra thing. We’re vital to the face of the newspaper, we help create an identity for the paper, and we have a local impact in the community.”
Bush Leaguers runs at the AU Museum at the Katzen Arts Center through July 29. Admission is free. For more information call 202-885-ARTS (2787).
Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Constitution
|
