Exhibition in photos: 50 ans, 50 oeuvres, 50 albums 1973-2023 at the 50th Angoulême International Comics Festival

50 ans, 50 oeuvres, 50 albums 1973-2023. Anne-Hélène Hoog and Lucas Hureau. Angoulême. Musée de la bande dessinée de la Cité internationale de la bande dessinée et de l'image.  January 25 - May 31, 2023.

The 50th edition of the Angoulême International Comics Festival was commemorated at the Cité internationale de la bande dessinée et de l'image with a temporary exhibition that offered a retrospective glance at the artists and the works that have been consecrated by the festival through their Grand Prix and Best Album awards. Taking up the eastern walls of the permanent exhibition room, visitors were treated to a chronological recap of the festival's role as an international comics arbiter of taste through the display of original pages and publications of its prize winners, courtesy of MEL Publisher and the comics museum’s own collection. Each of the Grand Prix winners was individually represented with a framed page of original artwork from their oeuvre, while the winners for the Best Album award were displayed in their original editions for the years that they were published.

The simplicity of the installation offered a variety of avenues for visitors to consider the history of the festival. From a visual and aesthetic perspective, the exhibition provided a glimpse into the dominant and evolving styles that would shape the festival's vision of an institutionalized bande dessinée culture. From an international perspective, one could trace the moments when the festival's borders expanded to recognize artistic excellence outside of France for its Grand Prix. One can also trace the paucity of female artists being consecrated by the festival for the equivalent of its lifetime achievement award, a glaring omission which the festival itself has learned to admit and attempt to rectify by changing the Grand Prix voting process.

The ebb and flow of how the festival awarded its best album awards over the years along these lines is also highlighted. When the award was first given in 1976, the prizes were divided into categories that distinguished them by genre (realist and humor) and by geographic linguistics (French and foreign language). By 1980, the Best Album award was rechristened as the Alfred and reserved for a single work until 1986 when the prize was split again to be given to a French and a foreign language work. This practice continued after the Alfred award was renamed again to be the Alph' Art award in 1988. By 2002, the Alph' Art prize returned to being awarded to a single work, and the the prize would eventually become known as the Fauve d'Or.

During the festival, a makeshift printing press was installed at the entrance of the exhibition, and several artists that have been recognized by the festival and its awards were invited to contribute lithographs and engravings for visitors. At the time of my visit to the exhibition, I saw Florence Cestac and Edmond Baudoin prepare their plates.

For visitors who wished for a deeper overview of the 50 years of the festival beyond the main prize winners, the exhibition offered no accompanying catalogue. However, the book to get in this context is easily Le 50e by Philppe Tomblaine which offers a year-by-year breakdown of the winners, the exhibitions, the scandals and the memorable anecdotes. It serves as the perfect companion to the surface appreciation of 50 years of the festival offered by the exhibition.  

-Nick Nguyen

All photos taken by Nick Nguyen.

P.S. For the completists, please find below a collection of all the photos of the exhibition that I managed to take to give readers an idea of the spatial layout and organization of the exhibition.