Art show with Aline Kominsky-Crumb and Dominique Sapel

The Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art (MoCCA) announced “Miami Makeover: Almost Anything for Beauty”, an exhibit featuring the work of Aline Kominsky-Crumb and Dominique Sapel. They "set out to entirely re-imagine their body image. Donning new outfits, wigs, jewelry, nails, makeup and padding in just the right places, the two artists remade themselves in the image of a modern Miami woman."

Aline: "My parents moved there twenty years ago and some of my best memories are of the many hours I spent with my mother visiting the beauty parlor, Hair Magic, and the beautician, Cookie, who performs miniature miracles there on a daily basis. The 'look' there is big blond hair, big lips, and big tits, and you can always count on there being some personal philosophy and practical tips thrown in.

"Being a cartoonist, I wanted to find a way to capture this atmosphere and these fabulous women -- the creators and their creations! I am fascinated by their idea of beauty and by what women are willing to do to achieve it. As a 63-year-old woman raised in the Five Towns of Nassau County on Long Island, logically I should be 'one of them,' but I was touched at age 8 by some divine intervention and was propelled in a very different direction- I became an artist/observer. Still, there’s a part of me that is curious and can identify with this 'other type' of female."

(Photo of Aline Crumb by Seth Kushner)

MIAMI MAKEOVER: Almost Anything for Beauty

• [gigasquid]

  I’m also an artist/observer and I notice what is almost always missing from the beauty game is that it is always non-sense. If all the BS pumped out by the beauty schills is looked at carefully, none of it makes sense.
  Why? The old Native American Indians, as well as other ancient cultures, had a concept they called the Long Body. The Long Body view of humans did not try to obfuscate or lie about getting old and death. They did not spin a whole lot of faerie tales about what I call “implied immortality” but accepted that like a flower, you will grow old, wither and die.

  No amount of plastic surgery, botox, the endless exploitation of women with beauty products will change the fact of your own withering and ending.

  In the light of that, perhaps beauty is something totally different than the rubbish we’re fed.

  Thanks for your article!