At the very beginning of Si Lewen’s “The Parade,” the series of untitled antiwar works on artist’s board that forms the pulsing heart of a new exhibition curated by the cartoonist Art Spiegelman, four sketchy, ecstatic boys and girls stride into the endless possibility of unmarked white gesso.
In the second panel, a family leaning out their window catches sight of someone waving a flag.
The flag itself is also faint and white, but the family is surrounded by an ominous black shadow.
And as that single flag turns into a parade, and the parade acquires rifles, swords, black banners and German helmets, Lewen’s painting and drawing — he made “The Parade” around 1950 with a mix of crayon, ink, paint and graphite — gets denser and darker.
Persons:
Art Spiegelman