Peter Kuper’s love of insects has found a new home. The cartoonist’s illustrated exhibit Monarch’s Journey is now open at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and it is included with any museum admission.
A migration told in comics art
Every autumn, monarch butterflies begin a roughly 3,000-mile migration from the northern United States and Canada to the mountain forests of central Mexico. Monarch’s Journey follows that trip through Kuper’s bold illustrations, which wrap the walls near the museum’s butterfly research collection on the second floor of the Gilder Center. A video of monarchs in motion plays alongside the artwork.
The museum describes the exhibit as a blend of art, storytelling and science. Kuper’s panels show the butterflies crossing fields, forests and cities, and the growing challenges they face as more of their route is reshaped by human activity, before they gather in huge clusters for the winter in Mexico.
From Insectopolis to the museum
Kuper, an award-winning graphic novelist and environmentalist, has been drawing bugs for years. His graphic novel Insectopolis explored the insect world, and he previously filled the New York Public Library with an insect installation. The Comics Beat’s Heidi MacDonald, who attended a press preview for the exhibit, which opened this past weekend, called that NYPL show “the best comics-related installation I have ever seen” and described the new space as quite immersive.
She also highlighted the threat at the heart of the story: milkweed, the plant monarch caterpillars depend on, keeps losing ground to human development.
Planning a visit
The American Museum of Natural History is at 200 Central Park West and is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas. If you want to see live butterflies too, the Davis Family Butterfly Vivarium holds up to 80 species, including monarchs, though it requires a separate ticket.
It is a big moment for a cartoonist to have work on the walls of one of the world’s best-known science museums. New York’s comics scene has plenty going on this fall, including the first BODEGA CAT Awards at the Brooklyn Expo of Comics in November.
