Heroes, Freaks, and Super-Rabbis (The Jewish Dimension of Comic Art)
Jul 13th, 2010 by apartmentblogger
If you take the words ‘Jewish’ and ‘Comic’ can you make any connection right away? You might be surprised to hear that many cartoon heroes such as Superman, Batman and Spiderman were created by Jewish cartoonists. In fact, the majority of the people who were responsible for the development of comics and graphic novels belong to the Jewish faith. Since the 30th of April the Jewish Museum in Berlin hosts an exhibition that is dedicated to tracing back the history of comics. This exhibition is a collaboration between the Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme in Paris, the Joods Historisch Museum in Amsterdam and the Jewish Museum Berlin.
At the end of the 19th century immigrants were coming to New York from all over the world but many were East European Jews. Comics started out as an entertaining way to learn about American culture. Later on the creation of super hero characters marked the beginning of the integration of Jewish people into the American life. Not only did the superhero characters have superhuman powers but they were also a symbol for American patriotism that the immigrants related to.
The exhibition has several different segments that will focus on one aspect of comic art: Immigrants, Superheroes, EC Comics, Underground and Graphic Novel. Marcus Kaiser and Tobias Katz (KATZKAISER, Cologne, Germany) designed the exhibition architecture and Matthias Görlich (Studio Matthias Görlich, Darmstadt, Germany) the graphic work for the exhibition walls.
You will be able to visit the exhibition until the 8th of August at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. For more info visit http://www.jmberlin.de/comic/?sprache=en.
Berlin has much more to offer than this exhibit so this should only be one stop on your trip. To rest up for all the things you plan to do rent Apartments in Berlin because even superheroes need some good sleep every now and then.
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