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MONSTER* at the MUSEUM
Georgia Museum of Art Celebrates Patrick Dean
By Hillary Brown arts@flagpole.com
Editor's note: Hillary Brown is a longtime Flagpole contributor who
also serves as director of communications at the Georgia Museum of
Art.
for Flagpole, plus many, many other things. There was no
need to borrow from anyone else, but figuring out exactly
what could fit in the gallery and still cover as many bases as
possible was hard. Patrick and his family were kind enough
to allow me into their home and let me go through boxes
and folders, snapping terrible reference photos with my
phone and monopolizing their very valuable time.
There is so much I would have liked to put in the show
that I couldn’t, but it does include student works from his
time at UGA: two intaglio prints that feel more like draw
ings than etchings, crowded with figures and buildings
that aren’t quite square, and a color drawing from Monster
Opera, his thesis project at UGA, an unpublished children’s
book. All three of these provide plenty to look at: a man
fighting a crab with a cleaver, a neglected artist’s model, a
creepy face in a window, a lovingly but speedily rendered
rotating air vent, a Georgian’s view of New York City as a
claustrophobic’s nightmare.
There are only two originals of his Flagpole strips
included, but Flagpole Production Director Larry Tenner
was kind enough to supply a PDF of every single one, which
is accessible on an iPad for visitors to flip through. Still,
they show how his work changed during the nine years he
drew for Flagpole, as well as how it didn’t.
The first one, from October 1997, was a no-brainer,
featuring his recurring cowboy character having an art
opening, during which he opines, “Ah’s love renderin’ that
inner soul of mankind’s sufferin’ transhendental society!!!”
Like a lot of Patrick’s jokes, it’s as
serious and sincere as it is funny,
accurately referring to Egon
Schiele, whose knottily rendered
hands and feet Patrick echoes in
his own work. The other, from
July 2006, is both an EC Comics
tribute, complete with the size
and structure of the panels and
the detailed cross-hatching, and,
of course, a joke about scamming
some free tea. It’s more assured,
more complexly shaded and a bit
looser, but definitely recognizably
from the same brain and hand.
A selection of sketchbooks show
that brain and hand at work.
The show also includes a large
number of Patrick’s Flagpole
covers. Featuring downtown
Athens, the Twilight Criterium,
the Murmur trestle, a bunch of
bars, students, townies and tons
of monsters, they are funny, joy
ful and smart. They show what’s
changed and what hasn’t—a lot,
in both cases.
Finally, it includes two of his
most recent works, both from
last year and addressing his dis
ease. One of them shows him
as Frankenstein’s monster to
explain his then-lurching walk
sans cane—a particularly good
choice, given Davis’ legendary
rendering of the same character.
It’s important to remember that
that monster is assembled from
human components. In Mary
Shelley’s book, he talks and rea
sons. Patrick’s always been inter
ested not only in monsters but
in the overlap between them and
humans. The title of the exhibi
tion refers to an episode of “The
Twilight Zone,” “The Monsters
Are Due on Maple Street,” in
which the monsters turn out to
be the humans who already live
on that street. In other words,
to quote Pogo, “we have met the
enemy and he is us.”
That appreciation of our collective monstrousness and
humanity, which exist side by side, is part of what makes
Patrick’s work great. Come spend some time with these
works, and you’ll feel both more clear-eyed about and more
forgiving toward your fellow humans. ©
The Georgia Museum of Art hosts 90 Carlton: Winter on Thursday, Jan.
30. See georgiamuseum.org for more information.
1 moved to Athens in 1996 to go to school, and one of
the things that defines those early years in this town
for me is Patrick Dean’s art, which started running
in Flagpole the following year. Raised on Creative Loafing in
Atlanta, I gravitated quickly to
Flagpole, and although it took me
years to grasp its insider’s view
of local politics, at least I sort of
got the cartoons. Sometimes the
strip didn’t make all that much
sense, especially when it became
a months-long musical with no
clear end in sight. No matter. It
was still fun to read, something I
looked forward to in every issue.
Later, I started going to
Fluke, the comics and zine fest
that Patrick organized with his
friend Robert Newsome. There,
I bought some of his original
works on chipboard colored with
marker, framed them, hung them
and moved them from house
to house. I realized how much I
loved comics and started writing
about them regularly.
I got to know Patrick in 2012,
when the Georgia Museum of Art
asked him to serve as guest cura
tor for the exhibition “Beyond
the Bulldog: Jack Davis.” I knew
Patrick was a fan of Davis’ work
and could see the clear influence,
but he really dug in and made it
an excellent show, reaching out
to many lenders and selecting
incredible original works. He also
gave a thoughtful talk on Davis’
career. I kept following his work,
including the signs he made at
Trader Joe’s, which were as cre
ative and funny and well-drawn as
anything else he ever did.
Hearing that he’d been diag
nosed with amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis—ALS, also known as
Lou Gehrig’s Disease—last year
made me sad, but more than that,
it made me angry. What in the
hell kind of universe was this in
which someone who was such a
contributor to it could receive
that generally speedy death
sentence? Then, former Flagpole
editor Richard Fausett called the
museum with a brilliant idea:
Why not do a show of Patrick’s work—not to memorialize
him, but to celebrate him and what he’s meant to Athens?
We bit, and fast. “The Monsters Are Due on Broad Street:
Patrick Dean” is on view through Mar. 29—the day after
Fluke 2020.
The hardest thing about putting together this exhibition
was the limited number of works we could select. Patrick
still has the original work for all the covers and strips he did
12 FLAGPOLE.COM | JANUARY 22
2020
