Response to Miami Book Fair Event #1

     On Saturday the 19th I attended the panel where Art Spiegelman and Charles Kochman discussed and celebrated Si Lewen's work titled "Parade: An Artist’s Odyssey". During this panel I learned that wordless stories quickly gained popularity after World War I and how Frans Mazreel and Lynd Ward were prominent pioneers of this genre; to me, this new piece of knowledge reinforced the belief that great art results from times of turmoil. Spiegelman briefly told Si Lewen's life story and the part that caught my attention was when Spiegelman revealed that Lewen was once a very successful painter but the darkness from his experiences with war caught up; this darkness that returned prompted Si Lewen to turn his back on the commercial galleries to make art that fulfilled his personal goals. An ideology that Si Lewen proposed to Spiegelman is that, "Art is not a commodity, art is priceless"; by following this idea, Lewen was able to paint more prolifically than ever, or as Spiegelman would put it, "better in many ways".
     Upon receiving permission from Si Lewen himself to remaster "Parade: An Artist’s Odyssey", Spiegelman decided to introduce the new version of the book in an accordion fold format. Not only did this format catch my attention because of our recent workshop in class, but the reason behind it helped me further understand relationships between narrative and the structure in which it is presented in. Si Lewen's intention for the book was for the " pictures to talk to each other" and the format does just that. Another thing that stuck to me was the actual gist of the narrative in "Parade: An Artist’s Odyssey"; the images in this book tells a story about "man's perpetual desire to destroy himself, about a generational affair with love and war, eventually people get exhausted and move on, and then it starts up again, a new parade towards destruction and war", said Spiegelman. It's amazing how this story is still so relevant in present day. 

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I got the chance to talk to Art Spiegelman himself on Sunday. We
talked about Si Lewen's idea that "pictures talk to each other" and he
gave me some advice for my art practice.