Animated future: Cartoon Art Museum draws plans for its next incarnation.
S.F. institution carries on as it hunts for new home
Andrew Farago still has his old Cartoon Art Museum phone number — three-digit extension included — even though the brick-and-mortar museum doesn’t technically exist anymore.
When the museum lost its lease on Mission Street last year after its rent doubled, it was easy to assume the story had ended. But if anything, the 31-year-old institution — the only one in the western half of the country dedicated exclusively to comics, cartoons and animation — has been more visible in San Francisco.
Cartoon Art Museum curator Andrew Farago has reached out in S.F.
“Busy is good. It absolutely beats the alternative,” says Farago, who continues to work as the museum’s curator. “We didn’t just want to sit around and wait for things to happen. You can’t let people forget that you’re still around, and still doing your work.”
The Cartoon Art Museum will be present at this weekend’s San Francisco Comic Con, working with Allan Lavigne of the Bronze Armory Studios to present a room full of Lavigne’s superhero costume replicas and creations. The Cartoon Art Museum just ended a Mazetoons exhibition at the Children’s Creativity Museum. The organization in July cohosted a Salute to Chuck Jones at the Castro Theater, and continues to host cartooning classes.
The museum is on the steering committee for the San Francisco Comics Fest which begins Nov. 2, and Farago says the museum is working with the San Francisco Public Library, in hopes of developing an exhibition next year.
Farago stops short of saying the museum’s loss of its longtime home, and the current search for a replacement, has turned out to be a good thing. But if and when it does get a new space — Farago is optimistic that will happen next year — the setback could end up making it a much stronger organization.
“We knew that we would really need to reach out to the community, and work with other institutions in our old neighborhood, and really throughout the Bay Area,” Farago says. “That was always the plan. To ramp up our educational programming, and take the opportunity to form some partnerships that we never really had the time or resources to develop when we were managing our own space full time.”
The museum boasts thousands of original art pieces in its collection. It has strong allies in the comics, animation and political cartooning world. But it seemed like a death knell when the museum finally lost its longtime location at 655 Mission St., just around the corner from the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the recently reopened San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
But along with the condolences, Farago says the museum heard from sympathetic arts organizations, nonprofits and others with concrete offers to help. They were offered office space just a few blocks from their old location at the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, a nonprofit that gives assistance to new and growing businesses.
Farago notably talks about the museum in the present tense, except one slip, which he quickly catches, when he refers to the last months at the old museum location as a “farewell tour.”
“I shouldn’t use that term because it sounds like we’ve gone away,” Farago says. “It was great. We had a very nice outpouring of support from the community. A lot of people did reach out to us — people who want to make sure they’re there on day one at the new space.”
San Francisco Comic Con should give the museum plenty of visibility. The first-time convention features celebrity guests including “Jessica Jones” star Krysten Ritter, “Doctor Who” co-star Jenna Coleman and Ian McDiarmid, who played Sith Lord Emperor Palpatine in the “Star Wars” movies.
San Francisco costume maker Lavigne is a longtime friend of the museum and contributed to exhibitions as recently as last year. Farago says co-hosting a room full of costumes at a convention is a first for the museum, but the type of thing they might continue to try when they have a new space.
“He’s incredibly creative and enthusiastic,” Farago says. Lavigne “says he’s going to surprise us, but he’s expecting to bring some Batman costumes, probably Captain America. He said maybe we’ll see Hawkman if it fits in the van.”
Farago has less detail about the a new museum, but says “it looks like it’s coming together.” He expects it will happen in 2017, and that it will be in San Francisco.
“We’re getting the wheels turning, and thinking about how we can become a better museum now,” Farago says. “We want to keep this momentum going, even after we’re settled into the new space.”