Artists: Boris Achour, Pierre Bismuth, Wim Delvoye, Gerard Deschamps, Erro, Pierre Huyghe, Bernard Joisten, Pierre Joseph, William Kentridge, Koo Jeong-A, Suzanne Lafont, Bertrand Lavier, François Letaillieur, Mac Adams, David Mach, Petra Mrzyk & Jean François Moriceau, Raymond Pettibon, Alain Sechas, Jim Shaw, Sandy Skoglund, Fabien Verschaere, Wang Du
On display on MNAC Animations / Fictions presents a curatorial research within the Fonds National d’Art Contemporain in Paris spotlighting different ways in which comic strips and cartoons have been used by international contemporary artists. Cartoons and comic strips have appeared in citational form initially in the Pop Art before becoming, at a later stage (from the 1990s onwards) and in a context removed from animation, an explicit source of inspiration.
The featured artists express highly sophisticated concepts in an easily understandable language. Borrowing childhood iconography or creating images referring ironically to Disney, Hannah&Barbera or mangas, beyond their connotations of an all-pervasive subculture, mass culture and media in today’s globalized world, the chosen works act as powerful vectors for sometimes dramatic events. They reveal an adult awareness of the gravity of the present day through a child’s wide-eyed gaze. Very different in their form and message, they also highlight how contemporary figuration draws on its close ties with the various genres of the popular culture, switching towards a different area.
Emphasizing the feedback reality-fiction, focusing on social, political and psychological issues, the works presented become the re-looked reflection of an aggressive reality difficult to endure.
A new Cahiers du Fonds National d’Art Contemporain dedicated to the exhibition will be published.
See more images from the show here!
