Trina Robbins, She Draws Comics, Secession 2002

Since the sixties, the cartoonist and pop historian Trina Robbins has been a central figure in the women's comics scene in the US. She plays numerous roles: artist, producer, active networker and, in recent years, also a chronicler of the women's comics movement. The exhibition that she has put together for the Secession, She Draws Comics, displays the diversity of women's comics production in the USA with a broad selection of both historical and contemporary original drawings, comics and zines. The exhibition conveys historical and biographical backgrounds, but without leveling the diversity of individual approaches, and it illuminates aspects of production and distribution within the framework of emancipatory do-it-yourself strategies, the emphatic formulation of individual positions, and the industrial comic market.



Trina Robbins, She Draws Comics, Secession 2002

Although comics are a medium frequently used in art, the collection shown here was created outside the art context. Nevertheless, various threads and connections may be identified in the exhibition, which also tie into current discourses in the field of art. Different stations of a feminist language are evident in the exploration of topics of production and situatedness in the sense of a counter-public sphere.



Trina Robbins, She Draws Comics, Secession 2002

The spectrum of approaches ranges from science fiction and fantasy (Donna Barr), soap opera (Dale Messick), bitingly humorous newspaper strips (Nina Paley) to the genre of autobiographical comics, whereby the latter seems to dominate at the present. The author's stories deal just as much with conventional circumstances as with the unrelenting disclosure of psychological encroachment (Debbie Drechsler, Phoebe Gloeckner, Penny Van Horn). The picture-text stories are an ideal medium for discussing social and political commitment and expressing personal experiences at the same time (Jessica Abel, Julie Doucet, Leanne Franson). In their diversity, the ways of living presented in the comics reflect changes in the self-awareness of women and the changing ways of dealing with the politics of identity in recent decades. Even the titles, Tits & Clits in the seventies or Girlhero, Actiongirl and Slutburger in the nineties reflect the goal of defining the depiction and representation of women beyond stereotypes in the way concepts and terminology are taken over and reinterpreted.



Trina Robbins, She Draws Comics, Secession 2002

The exhibition offers a glimpse into women's production of comics in the USA, and Trina Robbins stands for this emancipatory intention with her entire life story. She is one of the protagonists of the underground comix movement. She published her first comics in the early sixties in New York (East Village Other). In 1968 she moved to San Francisco, the birthplace of underground comix, where she continuously collaborated in creating networks and platforms for women's production of comics, for example as founder of the Wimmen's Comic Collective and as editor of the anthology It Aint Me Baby. Women's Liberation. These collectives provided the framework for the first comics series that dealt with feminist topics like abortion, coming out, and sexuality.



Trina Robbins, She Draws Comics, Secession 2002

In order to prove that even comics that do not reduce their female characters to full-breasted sex wonders can be commercially successful, Trina Robbins drew and authored stories like Meet Misty, GoGirl and contributed stories to Barbie, which provided especially young girls with an alternative to the supermen and superheroes and their female appendages spawned by the male fantasies of power so favored by the industry. For instance, the mother and daughter team of the Go-Girl comics drawn by Ann Timmons not only battles against evil, but also with the problem that super powers and the ability to fly neither make them rich nor help them to win a relatively commonplace flame.



Trina Robbins, She Draws Comics, Secession 2002

Trina Robbins has published a large number of books and magazines, including From Girls to Grrrlz - A History of American Women's Comics from Teens to Zines (1999), an extensive documentation of the women cartoonist scene that she co-founded and strongly influenced. This book became the basis for Robbins' first presentations in Europe, which took place in 2001 at the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart and in conjunction with the exhibition First Story - Women Building/New Narratives for the 21st Century in Porto. Her most recent publication, The Great Women Cartoonists (2001), forms the point of departure for the exhibition at the Secession.



Trina Robbins, She Draws Comics, Secession 2002


PUBLICATION
For the catalogue comic book published on the exhibition, She draws Comics, Trina Robbins invited 28 colleagues to produce a comic book together, reflecting and representing different positions along a script drafted by Robbins. "The result I think, is the visual voice of Cartoonist Everywoman between covers. We are here, and we draw comics" (Trina Robbins, March 2002)

TRINA ROBBINS She draws Comics 40 pages authors: Matthias Herrmann, Trina Robbins Comics: Trina Robbins, Penny van Horn, Lee Binswanger, Joan Hilty, Lauren Weinstein, Leanne Franson, Fly, Isabella Bannerman, Sharon Rudahl, Lark Pien, Roberta Gregory, Paige Braddock, Molly Kiely, Anne Timmons, Mary Fleener, Sabrina Jones, Donna Barr, Caryn Leschen, Diane DiMassa, Joyce Chin, Leela Corman, Mary Wilshire, Marie Severin, Sandra Bell-Lundy, Joyce Farmer, Katherine Arnoldi, Carol Tyler and Julia Green, Stephanie Piro Secession 2002, ISBN 3-901926-41-0 ___________________ available in the shop

EXHIBITION DESIGN
In order to emphasize the publicizing aspect of the exhibition, the graphic artists team of Toledo i Dertschei was invited to design the exhibition. The graphical supporting structure that they developed for this exhibition equally makes use of the material of paper and the characteristic typographical elements of comic, integrating the broad spectrum of styles and stories into a reading theater.


Artists in the exhibition include:
Jessica Abel, Katherine Arnoldi, Isabella Bannermann, Valerie Barclay, Donna Barr, Alison Bechdel, June Brigman, Lee Binswanger, Ariel Bordeaux, Paige Braddock, Odin Burvick, Joyce Chin, Anna Maria Cool, Leela Corman, Julia Green, Diane DiMassa, Colleen Doran, Julie Doucet, Debbie Drechsler, Jan Eliot, Joyce Farmer, Mary Fleener, Fly, Ellen Forney, Ramona Fraydon, Leanne Franson, Phoebe Gloeckner, Roberta Gregory, Ethel Hays, Marian Henley, Lea Hernandez, Joan Hilty, Fran Hopper, Dorothy Hughes, Sabrina Jones, Molly Kiely, Fay King, Virginia Krausmann, Kathryn LeMieux, Caryn Louise Leschen, Marty Links, Sandra Bell Lundy, Lee Marrs, Barbara (Willy) Mendes, Dale Messick, Martha Orr, Nina Paley, Rina Piccolo, Lark Pien, Stephanie Piro, Barb Rausch, Lily Renée, Trina Robbins, Sharon Rudahl, Mary Schmich, Ariel Schrag, Kelly Seda, Marie Severin, Christine Shields, Barbara Slate, Leslie Sternbergh, Hilda Terry, Anne Timmons, Carol Tyler, Penny Moran Van Horn, Lauren Weinstein, Mary Wilshire

 

AYSE ERKMEN   CAROLINA CAYCEDO

EXHIBITION PROGRAM 2002

 
For further information and photographic material please contact:
 
Pia Leydolt
Secession, Association of Visual Artists Vienna Secession
Friedrichstraße 12, 1010 Vienna
Tel: +43-1-5875307-21, Fax: +43-1-5875307-34
presse@secession.at