Comics Versus Art Book Launch
With author Dr. Bart Beaty
Wednesday, September 26th, 2012 @ 7PM
The Central, 603 Markham Street, Toronto
Free to attend!
Comics Versus Art: Comics in the Art World
by Bart Beaty
University of Toronto Press
ISBN-10: 1442612045
ISBN-13: 978-1442612044
On the surface, the relationship between comics and the ‘high’ arts once seemed simple; comic books and strips could be mined for inspiration, but were not themselves considered legitimate art objects. Though this traditional distinction has begun to erode, the worlds of comics and art continue to occupy vastly different social spaces.
Comics Versus Art examines the relationship between comics and the most important institutions of the art world; including museums, auction houses, and the art press. Bart Beaty’s analysis centres around two questions: why were comics excluded from the history of art for most of the twentieth century, and what does it mean that comics production is now more closely aligned with the art world? Approaching this relationship for the first time through the lens of the sociology of culture, Beaty advances a completely novel approach to the comics form.