Marc Bell's Hot Potatoe: Fine Ahtwerks: 2001-2008

“A gifted . . . cartoonist . . . The delight of his work is in the play of a free-associating and funny imagination.” –Ken Johnson, The New York Times Marc Bell’s Hot Potatoe seamlessly combines more than a decade’s worth of comics activities with a lifelong devotion to, as Bell calls it, “Fine Ahtwerks.” Part artmonograph, part comics collection,Hot Potatoe is filled with mixed-media cardboard constructions, watercolor drawings, altered found texts, and Bell’s most intense, dizzying comics from the contemporary avant-garde comics anthologies Kramers Ergot and The Ganzfeld. Bell’s works have their roots in draftsmanship, typography, and old-fashioned gags, but morph into assemblages that connect his images into real space. His comics are funny, seat-of-thepants narratives that give the characters an inner life.Represented by the Adam Baumgold Gallery in Manhattan, Bell is one of the leading lights in the new emphasis on drawing in the art world. He comes on like a stepchild of R. Crumb, Ray Johnson, and Basquiat, armed with a dashing and looping rapidograph.