Exhibition in Photos: Nicolas de Crécy: Le Manchot mélomane et Visa transit

Nicolas de Crécy: Le Manchot mélomane et Visa transit. Huberty & Breyne Gallery. Brussels. February 7-March 7, 2020.

Over the next month, the Huberty & Breyne Gallery in Brussels dedicates the entirety of its 1000 m2 display space to the work of Nicolas de Crécy for a selling exhibition. Featuring a collection of work that debuted at La Ferme du Buisson in France during the PULP Festival in 2017 but appearing now for the first time in Brussels, the exhibition is composed of two parts as indicated by its tautological title. 

The first part, "La Manchot mélomane" (The armless music lover), is an homage to the pianist Paul Wittgenstein - the brother of the famous philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein - who lost his right arm during the first World War. Through an impressive combination of sculptures, charcoals, oil paintings, and even installations, de Crécy evokes the imagined world of the pianist as a site of dialectic forces that constantly asks the visitor to contemplate the relationship of the individual pieces in the exhibition with one another.

Piano minéral (2015), made of wood, stones and pebbles

Le Manchot mélomane

Le Manchot mélomane

  The thirteen pieces that comprise Suite pour piano (2014). Water and aquatint etchings on paper.

 Suite pour piano as a sequential read from right to left.

Instrument de musique avec carte somato-sensorielle motorié (2015). Installation.

Obus en mouvement - 1914 (2015). Charcoal on paper.

Le Manchot mélomane

Le Manchot mélomane

Le Manchot mélomane

Le Manchot mélomane

The second part of the exhibition features original pages and drafts in pencil and aquarelle taken from de Crécy's recent bande dessinée album Visa Transit, published by Futuropolis. The work on display, presented in the back room of the gallery, offers a glimpse into de Crécy's creative comics process as he lays out the story of a road trip based on his memories of a pre-Fall of the Wall Europe.

Visa transit. Nicolas de Crécy. Futuropolis, 2019.

Visa transit

Visa transit

Visa transit

Tête blanche (2015). Sculpture, resin painted with oil.

Near the entrance hall of the gallery is the gift shop area, which offered several limited lithographs signed and numbered by de Crécy. A deluxe monograph book served as a catalog for the exhibition, covering the entirety of de Crécy's career leading up to the works on display.

Lithographic prints for sale and the de Crécy monograph book

Bibliographic monograph published by MEL Publisher (2016)

Table of contents of the monograph

The press communique for the show, as well as all of the works on display for Le Manchot mélomane et Visa transit, are available for closer inspection at the website of the Huberty and Breyne Gallery.

Nick Nguyen

All photos taken by Nick Nguyen

Exhibitions of the 47th Angoulème International Comics Festival: Robert Kirkman, Walking Dead et autres mondes pop!

The basement of the l'Alpha Mediathèque, located behind the Angoulème train station, provided a temporary home during the course of the festival for the first-ever retrospective in France of the work of American comics creator Robert Kirkman.  While Kirkman's career spans over twenty years that started at Marvel, he is primarily known for writing the massively popular Image comics series The Walking Dead (as well as being one of the five partners at Image Comics, serving as its Chief Operating Officer). 

However, this exhibition did not aim to present a retrospective of Kirkman's career in comics. Rather, it celebrated his work by focusing on four of his creator-owned titles at Image that have been translated into French.  Visitors were guided through the respective worlds of The Walking Dead, Invincible, Outcast, and Oblivion's Song (in this order) via a scenographic immersion and thematic exegesis for each series. The production values of the mise-en-scene were superb to the point that they tended to completely overshadow the presentation of the comics that these worlds were based on. Reproductions of select pages and panels from each of the series were stylishly arranged as elements of the decor as if they were not meant to be read but to be integrated into the environment. Large panels presented lengthy paragraphs of textual analysis to intellectualize Kirkman's key themes of power, the family unit, and the relationship between them when social communities are forced to reinvent themselves in order to survive. Key quotes taken from interviews with Kirkman are blown up and isolated on the panel walls to serve as punctuation of these arguments.

First section: The Walking Dead

First section: The Walking Dead

 

The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead.

Second section: Invincible

Invincible

Invincible

Third section: Outcast

Outcast

Fourth section: Oblivion's Song

Oblivion's Song

A final section offers the opportunity to revel in images that highlight Kirkman's use and exploration of gore and graphic violence in these series, especially within the confines of the themes being illuminated.

Robert Kirkman's Little Museum of Horror

The exhibition concludes with two walls that provide festival-goers with their first and only presentation of original pages of comic art related to Kirkman's work. Unsurprisingly, they are pages from The Walking Dead drawn and inked by Charlie Adlard, who is given text panels to speak about his influences and his chiaroscuro approach to the series.

From idea to paper

By the end, it is clear that the physical environments of this exhibition leave a far greater impression in illuminating Kirkman's work than the accompanying text that analyzes it. The text itself is far too verbose, hammering its points to the extent that it becomes ineffective compared to the scenography. That's not to say that the text does not offer worthwhile observations to thematically link Kirkman's work in order to present him as an auteur. It's just that this exhibition is better at showing rather than telling visitors what Kirkman's work is all about.

Nick Nguyen

All photos taken by Nick Nguyen  

Exhibitions of the 47th Angoulème International Comics Festival: Les mondes de Wallace Wood

Upstairs at the musée d’Angoulème in a set of rooms with classic French wall trimmings is the Angoulème Festival’s major retrospective exhibition on Wally Wood, whose title in English translates to The Worlds of Wallace Wood.

This is an intense overview of Wood's comics career that places the spotlight on his graphic virtuosity across a variety of genres, registers and formats. A staggering collection of original pages from his time at EC Comics, MAD, Marvel, Tower, DC, as well as his journeyman work in the undergrounds and sex comics, have been brought together and displayed on wall boards that function as enlargements of his comics panels, enticing the spectator to look closer at the design and details.  Each text box presents the essential metadata for the page and also provides an intelligent running chronology and commentary on his artistic development and vision over the different phases of his career.

 The exhibition is littered with close readings of Wood's work in this context, often presented with the display of a complete story through its original pages in order to savour the visual, technical and narrative details that are being simultaneously highlighted.

The complete set of original pages from"My World", from Weird Science #22, November 1953

The complete set of original pages from "New Orleans!", from Two-fisted Tales #25, October 1953

Several display tables were placed in each of the exhibition sections dividing his career to showcase the comic books and other ephemeral artifacts where his artwork would appear, offering an appreciative nod to the original publication context of this content. These tables also offered visitors the opportunity to look at some of Wood's pencil work for his character design.

 

As we all know, and what the exhibition doesn't shy away from, is that the end of Wood's career and life were not easy ones, leading to an end that is tragic mainly because of the genius that was on display in his earlier work. That said, this exhibition is anything but a downer. It's an intelligent celebration of the life and work of one of the most talented of the immediate postwar American comic artists with a heavy accent on his visual prowess. Not to be missed if you happen to be in Angoulème from now until 15 March 2020.

Nick Nguyen

All photos taken by Nick Nguyen

Angouleme 2020 in Photos #3: Trondheim

By Gerald Heng

Exhibits in Angouleme are generally comprehensive, overwhelming, crowded and only in French. Mr. Heng has braved the crowds to provide us with snapshots of the Festival so our readers can get a general impression. Catalogs for the major exhibits are on sale, but often sell out during the show. By today it will be almost impossible to move through these galleries.