Comics artist R. Crumb recasts Bible's Book of Genesis

His hair flows back from his head and mingles with his long beard, and as he cups a swirling, black vortex in his hands, God begins “to create Heaven and Earth.”

 

Once difficult to imagine, this scene from the first paragraph of the Bible’s Genesis is brought to graphic life in comics artist Robert Crumb’s new “The Book of Genesis Illustrated.”

 

R. Crumb’s book, based word-for-word on the Book of Genesis, is currently being featured in an installation entitled, “The Bible Illuminated: R. Crumb’s Book of Genesis” at the UCLA Hammer Museum, where all 207 pages are on display. After passing through glass double doors from the Hammer’s interior courtyard, visitors are presented with a large stencil of the first page of Genesis. Each individually framed page is mounted in a sequence that follows the perimeter of the large square room, and then jumps to a circular wall in the middle of the space to take the viewer back to the entrance of the installation.

 

“[Crumb] researched extensively to figure out how he should depict the characters, their clothing, their domestic environments, the architecture,” said installation curator Ali Subotnick. “He really did stick with the original story.”

 

Crumb is famous for his role as a founder and participant in the “underground comix” scene. His subversive and bluntly profane comics feature original characters like Mr. Natural, a fetishistic and cynic guru, and Devil Girl, a voluptuous temptress. So why the decision to illustrate one of the most widely read and staunchly defended religious texts in existence?

 

“About 15 years ago he started researching Sumerian myths, which are closely aligned with many of the stories in the Book of Genesis, so it was a natural progression for him.”

 

The evidence of his research is present at the exhibit — the rotunda in the middle of the room not only contains copies of Crumb’s book, but also cases filled with photographs and sketches of ancient wheeled vehicles, landscapes, camels, goats, sheep, Middle Eastern men's and women’s faces and clothing, and Sumerian cityscapes. Notes next to pictures from “The Ten Commandments” (1956) and “Picture Stories from the Bible” (1943) explain that Crumb did not overlook pre-existing interpretations of the Old Testament when drafting his own work.

 

Did the outrageous themes from Crumb’s earlier work seep into his Biblical depictions? Subotnick says no. “The illustrations are not as outlandish and blasphemous as one might expect upon first hearing that Crumb has done the Book of Genesis. … [he] took a straight, un-ironic approach.”

 

Subotnick explained that she “jumped” at the chance to display his drawings when she was first approached by Paul Morris and the David Zwirner Gallery in New York, which represents Crumb. Along with the installation, there is also going to be a free public screening at the Hammer of “Crumb,” director Terry Zwigoff’s 1994 documentary based on Crumb’s life. The generally reclusive artist appeared on Oct. 29 at Royce Hall in “An Evening With R. Crumb,” in conversation with “New Yorker” art editor Françoise Mouly.

 

“It’s a rare opportunity to engage in a dialogue about God and the bible and contemporary art, and so we are extremely pleased to be able to put this work on view for the public,” Subotnick said.

 

Biblical scholars and first-time readers alike will walk away with a new understanding, or at least a new perspective, on one of the world’s oldest texts.

 

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