Humor by Design: What Makes Us Smile?
By Diana Cook
Looking to combine laughs with a cultural experience? Last month, the year long exhibition “What Makes Us Smile?” opened at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Md.
Co-curated by humor visionaries, Matt Groening of “The Simpsons”, artist Gary Panter and AVAM founder Rebecca Hoffberger, “What Makes Us Smile?” features more than 1,000 works including jokes, costumes, toy assemblages and cartoons created by 90 artists and comedians with accompanying essays, factoids, quotes and blurbs that celebrate the history and science behind the gift of laughter.
Among the highlights: the embroideries of Chris Roberts-Antieau and an homage to MAD Magazine including the glittering, beaded, beetle-winged bed by Patty Kuzbida, comedian Michael Baldwin’s spectacular toy assemblages – created from five decades of dedicated dumpster-diving and the darkly funny cartoons of the late quadriplegic artist John Callahan.
