“Exhibition of Modern Art” by Jayson Musson at Salon 94 Bowery, New York

Exhibit of Abstract Art, by Jayson Musson was inspired by Modern Art set-pieces from the comic strip Nancy, created by the popular American comic illustrator Ernie Bushmiller who worked on the strip from the 1930ʼs-80ʼs. 

Throughout Nancyʼs long run, Bushmiller would intermittently poke fun at the then fresh works of modern art as well as modern architecture. The former depicted as works comparable to the dawdling of children, and the latter as simply nonsensical. According to Musson “Iʼm drawn to Ernie Bushmillerʼs antagonistic response to modernism and mainly his vitriolic caricature of it. Heʼs turned off by Modernismʼs seeming uselessness, itʼs sophistry, itʼs ʻshamʼ quality, and its ʻeasinessʼ. Buried in his response to the ʻfadʼ of the modern lays a particular kind of fear, the fear of someone witnessing the world change and not having a place in the new order of cultural value. In some ways Bushmiller spoke for a generation watching familiar systems of meaning expire. However, in Bushmillerʼs caricature of art, he drafted some perfect paintings. Where one would see a reductionist punchline, I see a perfection of form in Bushmillerʼs art gags. In his pejorative depictions of abstraction lay a symmetry, balance, and economy of form that is simply exceptional.” Photo Elise Gallant

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