Bouzouki Music: Allan Sekula and the Comics

Abstract

In 2015, art historian Sally Stein made the gift of the Allan Sekula Library to the Clark Art Institute in memory of her husband Allan Sekula (1951–2013). An internationally known artist, photographer, filmmaker, and writer, Sekula is recognized as a public intellectual, trenchant art critic, and critical theorist. He is also known for the social commentary, criticism, and activism that informed his life and work. This article considers a representative sample of comic and graphic novel titles found in the Allan Sekula Library and provides an analysis of complementary materials in the Allan Sekula Archive now held by the Getty Research Institute. From the dark heroism of the worker in the early books-without-words of Giacomo Patri and Frans Masereel to the vulgar staccato bouzouki and priapic productions of Robert Crumb and S. Clay Wilson, the author examines the comic, manga, and graphic materials used by Allan Sekula as both subject and “object of interest” in his physical installations, films, essays, and teaching. [This article is a revision of a paper presented at the “How to Develop a Comic Book and Graphic Novel Collection” session at the ARLIS/NA conference held in New Orleans, Louisiana, in February 2017.]