For the first time in its history, the famous French art show ArtParis will also include an exhibition on comics art. ArtParis is basically a modern version of the salons in the 19th century (with perhaps a little less Absinthe – Joe), and aims to give a representative overview of recent trends and evolutions in contemporary visual art.
Its venue, the quite daunting Grand Palais at the Avenue Churchill (where the multi-million pound Yves Saint Laurent art sale was held recently – Joe), as well as the equally impressive list of participating galleries and artists, give the show an authoritative, even canonising aura: once a work of art or a movement has been represented at the salon, it matters in the world of art.
Jean-Marc Thévenet, the former director of the festival of Angoulème (he had to quit this position when he started combining it with a similar one at the Le Havre modern art festival), paid a visit to the festival for the first time in three years, and was struck by the amount of new books, new authors and especially the way in which new cartoonists continually aim at breaking out of a fixed page layout or album concept, and demand a complete graphical and visual freedom to present their story or message. He noticed a similar tendency in modern French art to question any preconceived rule or dogma.
As a result, Thévenet created a presentation of contemporary artistic trends in comics, with works by celebrated alternative cartoonists such as Winshluss (whose Pinocchio was chosen as best book of the year in Angoulème) and Conrad Botes, but also relatively unknown artists, such as Joanna Hellgren or Ilan Manouach.
(cover to Pinocchio by Winshluss, published Les Requins Marteaux/Ferraille)
Whether or not all this is a good thing, is the subject of quite heated debate in French comics circles. When Didier Pasamonik published a short interview with Jean-Marc Thévenet on ActuaBD last week, a forum quickly sprung up with people defending initiatives to introduce comics in the ranks of art, while others want comics to be valued for their own merits. And even though this type of discussion has been going on for as long as there has been critical interest in comics, it never tires seeing people getting caught up in it.ArtParis runs from March 19th to the 23rd; full details (including a PDF on the BD section, in French of course) can be found on the official site.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:57 am
If I may — I have commented on this specific outing on du9 (http://www.du9.org/Vues-Ephemeres-Mars-2009, in French though). For me, the question there was more about the carefree way the whole manifestation explained the inclusion of comic arts in its ranks: basically, it sells for lots of money, and that seems enough for them as legitimation.
(my own gripes were definitely with this condescendant tone, especially in the light of the crass ignorance of comic books that stemed from the press release of one of the art gallery exhibiting there)
There’s been a lengthy exchange around the subject in the comments of my column, the discussion also turning to the much more interesting Quintet exhibition at the Museum of Mordern Art in Lyon, featuring Chris Ware, Joost Swarte, Blanquet, Francis Masse and Gilbert Shelton.