Photo by Sarah Golonka Photography.
“The world was in pretty bad shape. I felt that the world desperately needed a crusader, if only a fictional one.”
Written in large white ink on a wall above 1939’s Superman #1—encased in glass and featuring the Man of Steel in his classic blue and red superhero suit—that quote from Superman co-creator and Jewish American comic book writer Jerry Siegel sets the powerful tone for the massive 2026–2027 exhibition Inventing America: The Comic Book Revolution.
In a space in the nearby spring 2026 exhibition Outsiders, Outcasts, Rebels, and Weirdos: Punk Culture 1976–86, handmade black and white concert posters for West Coast punk bands like the Weirdos, which included Jewish members, cover bright orange walls. “There were tons of Jews in punk, more than people admitted in those days,” says photographer Jenny Lens, in a quote on a wall. “Jews are rebels and underdogs who never stop believing in their dreams.”
“Pop culture—the things that people created, enjoyed, and shared with others, whether comics, music, a play, or a movie—is inherently communal,” says Skirball Chief Curator Cate Thurston. “It’s fun, and fun allows you to tell hard and subversive stories. We're leading with something you might know and like, and then asking you to think critically about that while you're having fun.”
Thurston notes that until recently, pop culture was underserved in museum spaces. There's room for the Skirball to carve out a niche and inject the museum’s mission, she says.
“We want to be a place of meeting and joy for everyone without losing our core Jewish identity,” says Thurston. “We also hope our audience will mirror what LA looks like. The largest buckets of the population, age-wise, are people under 15 and ages 25 to 54. Museum audiences nationally skew older than that. That community is important to us. Pop culture is a way that we can reach future generations of visitors and continue to have our longtime audience excited. It serves everyone.”
Inventing America and last year’s Jack Kirby—celebrating the life and career of the iconic Jewish creator of characters including Captain America, the X-Men, and Black Panther—were both approved in 2023 as part of a suite of Skirball comics exhibitions, says Thurston.
“Kirby is a micro lens into a macro story,” says Thurston. “Inventing America is a macro lens—a big story that includes a lot of folks.”
Co-curated by Skirball Museum Deputy Director Michele Urton and guest curator Patrick A. Reed, Inventing America features original artwork and artifacts, and highlights how comics—through World War II, 1960s civil rights movements, and pop art and hip-hop—reflected an increasingly complex and diverse society. The exhibition showcases work by visionary creators, including immigrants and Jewish Americans, and pop culture figures, including Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, Archie, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Jack Kirby, co-curated by Urton, Reed and Professor Ben Saunders, featured more than 100 objects, including Captain America Comics #1, depicting Captain America punching Adolf Hitler, and Kirby’s military uniform during World War II. It traced Kirby’s experiences as a first-generation American, a soldier, a successful commercial artist shaped by antisemitism, a mentor, and a proud Jewish family man.
“We knew that comic books was a rich place to go because there's a strong Jewish thread and great storytelling, and it has a popular audience,” says Urton. “The exhibitions are designed to build on one another but also live separately.”
Inventing America purposefully integrates different lived experiences, says Reed. It includes the story of Holocaust survivor Lily Renée, one of the first female artists to break into the industry, with a framed page, in the exhibition, from Rangers Comics #40 that she did pencils and inks for. There’s the story of All-Negro Comics, the first comic book created entirely by Black writers and artists, and featuring only Black characters, released in 1947.
“Everyone knows about Stan Lee as the guy who appears in the Marvel movies, but recognizing the work he did as the editor and publisher of Marvel Comics and the viewpoint he gave for the company was something we wanted a chance to talk about,” says Reed. “There's that balancing act of making the exhibition accessible and deepening and enriching some of those things that visitors are already familiar with.”
In a punk-ish twist, Outsiders, Outcasts, Rebels, and Weirdos, co-curated by Thurston and guest curator Michael Worthington, and timed to the 50th anniversary of punk, came together in six months, a shorter timeline than the two-year timeline of other Skirball pop culture exhibitions.
Featuring 500 objects and pieces of ephemera, it highlights the stories of punk rockers, including Jewish punks, that include members of the Ramones, the Dictators, Bad Religion, and the Patti Smith Group. The exhibition’s main lender, Andrew Krivine, grew up as a Jewish kid in New Jersey, visited his cousin’s punk clothing shop BOY London in the 1970s, fell in love, and became an avid punk collector, says Thurston.
Since its May opening, the exhibition has drawn a large audience of 1,300 visitors each weekend, from band members to fans in their 30s and 40s, and teenagers.
“That wasn’t something any of us expected,” says Thurston. “It’s allowed us to frame a conversation not happening in Jewish museums. Punk isn't neatly packaged. It’s rebellious.”
Diane von Furstenberg, which made its US debut at the Skirball in 2024 as a sweeping and colorful retrospective of the fashion designer’s career from the 1970s—including the origins of her iconic wrap dress—to today, was originally curated by Fashion & Lace Museum Head of Exhibitions and Publications Nicolas Lor and premiered at the Brussels museum.
As coordinating curator of the Skirball exhibition, Thurston added new artifacts that shed light on von Furstenberg’s personal history as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. The new exhibition also included more than twenty additional silhouettes.
“What excited us was the democratic nature of Diane’s clothing,” says Thurston. “That feminist story was super important to us. Diane says the wrap dress can go on in a couple minutes to get you to the boardroom and can go off in a couple minutes… if you so choose.”
Future pop culture exhibitions in active development at the Skirball include another comics exhibition and one on Jewish humor and comedy, says Thurston.
Solvej Schou is an award-winning writer and communications specialist. She works as Occidental College’s Director of Strategic Communications and Public Affairs. She previously served as a staff senior writer at ArtCenter College of Design, Entertainment Weekly, and The Associated Press. Her work has also been featured in The New York Times and Los Angeles Times, among other outlets.