Comic Abstraction: Image-Breaking, Image-Making - Exhibition Overview

Aug 20, 2026

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Comic Abstraction: Image-Breaking, Image-Making is a 2007 MoMA exhibition exploring how artists transform the visual language of comics, cartoons, and animation into abstract works. Featuring 13 international artists, the show examines social and political themes including war and global conflicts, the loss of innocence, and racial stereotyping, using strategies such as erasure, blurring, and reconfiguration. Through paintings, drawings, and multimedia installations, the exhibition highlights how popular imagery retains visual power even when abstracted.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryComic

FormatPDF

Pages6

Reading Time2 min

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Comic Abstraction: Image-Breaking, Image-Making

Exhibition scope and themes

Featured artists and curatorial perspective

Artistic approaches and selected works

MoMA PRESENTS COMIC ABSTRACTION: IMAGE-BREAKING, IMAGE-MAKING, AN EXHIBITION OF CONTEMPORARY ABSTRACT ART INSPIRED BY COMIC STRIPS, CARTOONS, AND ANIMATION Works by 13 International Artists Explore a Wide Range of Social and Political Themes Comic Abstraction: Image-Breaking, Image-Making March 4–June 11, 2007 Special Exhibitions Gallery, third floor NEW YORK, February 27, 2007—Comic Abstraction: Image-Breaking, Image-Making, an exhibition of more than 30 paintings, drawings, sculptures, video and sound installations inspired by comics, cartoons, animation, slapstick, and caricature, examines the ways in which artists have used the vernacular language of these art forms as a springboard for abstraction, creating works of art that engage with a range of social and political themes. Comics have frequently tackled thorny issues, yet they have generally been interpreted as positive expressions of popular culture. While many exhibitions have explored the impact of comics in art, they have focused on figuration and easily identifiable pop characters and themes. This show approaches the topic from a different angle by looking at how artists have abstracted comics to address perplexing questions of war and global conflicts, the loss of innocence, and racial stereotyping. The diverse cultural backgrounds of the 13 featured artists—Polly Apfelbaum, Inka Essenhigh, Ellen Gallagher, Arturo Herrera, Michel Majerus, Julie Mehretu, Juan Muñoz, Takashi Murakami, Rivane Neuenschwander, Philippe Parreno, Gary Simmons, Franz West, and Sue Williams—are evident in the highly personal nature of their critical perspectives. Comic Abstraction also underscores the way popular imagery, which is deeply imprinted in our collective consciousness, carries an extreme visual potency even when completely abstracted. The exhibition is organized by Roxana Marcoci, Curator, Department of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art, and will be on view in the third-floor Special Exhibitions Gallery from March 4 through June 11, 2007. Ms. Marcoci explains,“Comics, from Disney’s cartoons to Japanese manga and anime, serve as an empirical reservoir for humorous characters and stories. By abstracting images from comics, through varied strategies such as erasure and blurring, artists intensify the ambiguity between what is seen and what is represented. Abstract work based on comics offers a new model for examining the power of images—the way they circulate in everyday life, the stories they purport to tell, and the mythologies that lurk beneath their surfaces.” This exhibition creates a dialogue with various themes, a strategy that allows a fuller exploration of the interplay among the works and the artists’ distinct approaches to comic abstraction . From Julie Mehretu’s cartoon explosions seen in intricately layered paintings that portray the changing histories of civilization to Arturo Herrera’s wall painting made by slicing andreconfiguring the pages of Walt Disney coloring books, and from Ellen Gallagher’s seductively Minimalist paintings permeated by “blackface” signs culled from minstrel performances to Rivane Neuenschwander’s overpainted comic strips, the works suggest ways in which political concerns can be confronted with humor. Paintings and drawings are included in the exhibition, as well as installations such as Arturo Herrera’s site-specific mural-size wall painting Untitled (2001); Blossom (2000), Polly Apfelbaum’s psychedelic, shimmering “floor painting” made of synthetic velvet pieces; Juan Muñoz’s sound installation Waiting for Jerry (1991); Philippe Parreno’s playful installation of helium-filled balloons, Speech Bubbles (1997); and Gary Simmons’s large-scale chalk drawing boom (1996/2007) . Polly Apfelbaum’s (American, b. 1955) abstract works are made of malleable pieces of dyed velvet. Blossom, a large, circular floor installation constructed from hundreds of pieces of fabric, is inspired by the popular animated television series The

FAQs

What is the focus of the MoMA exhibition Comic Abstraction: Image-Breaking, Image-Making?

The exhibition examines how artists use comics, cartoons, and animation as a starting point to create abstract art that engages social and political themes.

Which themes does the exhibition address?

The show addresses war and global conflicts, the loss of innocence, and racial stereotyping, reframing comics as more than positive pop culture.

Where and when was the exhibition presented?

It was on view in MoMA’s third-floor Special Exhibitions Gallery from March 4 through June 11, 2007.

Aug 20, 2026

Upload by Hazel