Dave Eggers Curates 'Captioned Art' Exhibit

Shit on You
George Schneeman (with Ron Padgett)
mid-1970s, ink on illustration board, 3.75 x 6"

Dave Eggers, the acclaimed author and founder of that nice little literary magazine McSweeney's, takes on the role of art curator with this new exhibit titled Lots of Things Like This, opening tonight at 6 p.m. at apexart. The show includes about 100 works by a range of artists, writers, poets, musicians, and playwrights, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Leonard Cohen, R. Crumb, Shepard Fairey, David Mamet, David Shrigley, William Steig, and Kurt Vonnegut.

While you'll be tempted to call the show "cartoon art" (lots of crude drawings with funny text scrawled on them), Eggers says he prefers the term "captioned art."

Explains Eggers, "The works in this show are usually found in galleries, not newspapers or magazines, and so we have something interesting to think about: Is humor allowed in art, and in what forms? Are captions allowed in art, and why? And most importantly, why doesn’t David Shrigley spell better?"

Those expected to be in attendance at tonight's party include Eggers himself as well as contributing artists David Berman, CM Evans, Paul Hornschemeier, Maira Kalman, Quenton Miller, Tucker Nichols, Ron Padgett, Peter Saul, and Olga Scholten.

From 6 to 8, apexart 291 Church Street, 212-431-5270, apexart.org, free