One of the nation’s most ribald and bawdy comic artists has taken on a new subject: the Bible.
Namely, Robert Crumb has painstakingly illustrated all of Genesis, the first book of what many consider the world’s most sacred text.
Crumb – who’s known for his racy, sexually charged and controversial illustrations, most of them done decades ago – doesn’t shy away from graphic scenes in his new biblical illustrations. In fact, he embraces all the sex, violence, betrayal and gore that we sometimes forget is layered throughout the Old Testament.
The exhibition “The Bible Illuminated: R. Crumb’s Book of Genesis” opens Saturday at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and runs through Feb. 7. Meanwhile, “The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb” has just been published by W.W. Norton & Company. It’s 224 pages, rendered in black and white and in comic-book format.
Crumb – who rarely does interviews – explains in the beginning of his illustrated “Book of Genesis” that he was inspired to take on this project, which took five years to complete, because Genesis is “a powerful text with layers of meaning that reach deep into our collective consciousness, our historical consciousness, if you will.”
At the same time, he doesn’t believe the Bible is the word of God. “I believe it is the words of men,” he writes in his introduction.
Nevertheless, Crumb has taken the exact words of Genesis – as they appear in the King James Version and in Robert Alter’s respected 2004 translation, “The Five Books of Moses” – and transformed them into finely illustrated panels. In all, 207 of the original ink and correction fluid on paper drawings are on view at the Hammer.
“It’s amazing to see all the originals,” said Ali Subotnick, curator of this exhibit. “He is a wonderful draftsman. It’s great to see up close the hand of the artist.”
According to Subotnick, also a curator at the Hammer, Crumb started with the goal of telling the story of Adam and Eve. But then a friend dared him to do the whole book of Genesis, and he took on that challenge.
Crumb, who now lives in France, spent years researching images of period clothing, architecture, styles, faces, animals and landscapes.
“He really had to dig into these different sources,” Subotnick said, referring to dozens of yellow folders Crumb compiled during his research. A friend also gave him piles of pictures from old movies, including Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments.” He studied the wardrobe of the characters, and even gives God a Charlton Heston-esque appearance.
Just as the book of Genesis does, Crumb tells the stories of creation, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, Noah’s ark, Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob wrestling with an angel.
He doesn’t make up words, narrative or dialogue, as other comic-book versions of the Bible have done to streamline or modernize old vernacular, he says.
“He didn’t alter the story; he didn’t alter the words,” Subotnick said. “He didn’t have to go crazy with it, because the story’s got all that juice right there. No embellishment needed.”
In a few cases, some old words and phrases – which have lost their meaning in this era – remain in Crumb’s illustrations.
“He has maintained the authenticity of (the original text),” Subotnick said. “I was shocked by some of the stories, the incest in particular.”
Apparently, they don’t tell you everything in Sunday school.
FROM UNDERGROUND TO MAINSTREAM
Orange County art enthusiasts should be familiar with R. Crumb. In July and August, the Grand Central Art Center exhibited a retrospective of his work titled “R. Crumb’s Underground.” Curated by Todd Hignite, the show featured more than 50 illustrations, plus a video and new work.
That Santa Ana exhibit traced his career from the early 1960s, when he drew greeting cards; to the late ’60s, when he created zany, irreverent characters such as Fritz the Cat, Mr. Natural and Angelfood McSpade; to the ’70s and ’80s, when he developed his popular “Keep on Truckin'” images and portraits of jazz and blues greats.
Once viewed as controversial, offensive and demented, Crumb’s work has slowly shifted into the mainstream of culture and contemporary art.
A 1994 documentary by Terry Zwigoff, titled “Crumb,” did much to rehabilitate his career and image, as did acquisitions of his work by major museums and art institutions from the ’90s to the present. Juxtapoz magazine and the “lowbrow” art movement have embraced him as one of their key heroes.
In November 2005, the Hammer Museum and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, included Crumb in a large group show of accomplished comic artists titled “Masters of American Comics.”
Now Crumb is back at the Hammer, and, like a fine wine, he seems to have mellowed a bit with age.
Compared to his wild and crazy youth, his drawings are still intricate, still graphic, yet they appear significantly more controlled, precise and adherent to original source material.
‘A STRAIGHT ILLUSTRATION JOB’
Visitors to the Genesis exhibit (or readers of Crumb’s book) may be surprised by a few things: how much drinking and sex there is in the text; how cruel God is sometimes; and how long Genesis actually is.
The book contains 50 chapters and includes the stories of the Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, and Joseph and his brothers who sold him into slavery. Crumb warns on the cover of his book: “Adult supervision recommended for minors.”
The artist seems aware that his drawings may attract some criticism. “If my visual interpretation of the Book of Genesis offends or outrages some readers, which seems inevitable considering that the text is revered by many people, all I can say in my defense is that I approached this as a straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes,” he writes in his introduction. “That said, I know that you can’t please everybody.”
It’s clear from Crumb’s explicit illustrations – which include nudity and people killing each other – that the Bible and Genesis in particular are not G-rated; not even PG.
At the end of the book, Crumb postulates in a commentary that Genesis is not only a compilation of Hebrew stories and wisdom, but Sumerian myth and other legends from Mesopotamia.
The artist is expected to attend a private reception this month at the Hammer. He will also appear Oct. 29 at Royce Hall in a discussion with the art editor of The New Yorker, Françoise Mouly. “An Evening with R. Crumb” starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $36-$60.
