Angoulême International Comics Festival has introduced the programming for its 51st version happening January 25-28, 2024 and it’s as soon as once more an astonishing lineup – with the unique art work of Riad Sattouf, Lorenzo Mattotti, Moto Hagio AND Hiroaki Samura gracing galleries collectively for one weekend solely. Added to all of it will likely be spotlights on crucial rising star of the Franco-Belgian comics circuit Nine Antico, a showcase of the scriptwriting course of and work of Thierry Smolderen, and extra. Official exhibition catalogues from 9ᵉ Art Editions will likely be produced for Lorenzo Mattotti and Moto Hagio.
In addition to the announcement of the exhibitions, Angoulême 2024 debuted the unique poster designs by Riad Sattouf, Hiroaki Samura – that includes his iconic Blade of the Immortal protagonist – and rising star Nine Antico. And to prime all of it off – the eagerly awaited Official Selections of prime books up for the very best awards within the Franco-Belgian business have been launched (a full breakdown of which will likely be lined in a separate submit).
In a press launch, Angouleme FIBD inventive director Marguerite Demoëte mentioned,
“The promises of the Festival’s 50th edition make way to those of the 51st, under the sign of movement and resolutely focused on engaging with young people, fostering creative endeavours, encouraging transversality, and fostering dialogue across various art forms. From the intimate yet political ‘Grand Prix’ winner Riad Sattouf to the settings of voyeur Nine Antico and Lorenzo Mattotti’s vibrant runner figures, Angoulême showcases different eras. Perspectives circulate and open up to a world on fire as the subtlety and wit of comics, a lively, creative, limitless medium, continue to startle, arouse, and challenge readers.”
Concluding,
“We aim to weave a dynamic connection among comic readers, authors, and professionals, among book pages and exhibition walls towards new horizons, perspectives, and creative practices. For its 2024 edition, the Festival is set on carving a new course whilst honouring the trodden paths.”
Angouleme International Comics Festival (Festival worldwide de la bande dessinée d’Angoulême aka FIBD) is among the focus occasions of world comics and sits on the bastion of the Franco-Belgian publishing scene, taking on a whole medieval French city some 100km from Bordeaux, France. Founded in 1974, it as we speak attracts over 200,000 guests yearly – together with hundreds of pros (publishers, creators and extra) from across the globe – making it the third largest comics occasion on this planet after Lucca Comics & Games in Italy, and Comiket in Tokyo, Japan.
A Breakdown of the Big Exhibitions for FIBD 2024
- Riad Sattouf, 2023 Grand Prix recipient, will function headliner – however as a substitute of a profession retrospective (which admittedly he already had a reasonably stable one on the Paris Pompidou Centre in 2018-19) it is going to be a deep dive into his critically profitable autobiographical magnum opus The Arab of the Future which concluded with its sixth quantity in November 2022 [note: only four have been translated into English by Two Roads Books/John Murray Press between 2016 and 2019]. It will happen within the city’s Vaisseau Moebius.
- Moto Hagio (The Poe Clan, The Heart of Thomas, Otherworld Barbara) will get the large profession retrospective on the Angouleme Museum. The ‘God of Shojo Manga’ – exploring how her 50-year profession has left an indelible mark on Shojo Manga.
- Hiroaki Samura can have his first ever main exhibition – focusing largely on the work of grand opus Blade of the Immortal – promising over 100 plates and illustrations of the landmark sequence that ran in Japan from 1993 to 2012 in Kodansha’s seinen manga journal Monthly Afternoon, and have become a global hit. It will likely be in Espace Franquin.
- Paris Olympics tie-ins: Italian comedian artist and illustrator Lorenzo Mattotti can have a themed exhibition on the Angoulême Museum to coincide with the Paris 2024 Olympics – The Art of Running/Catching the Race [‘L’Art de Courir, Attraper La Course’] – showcasing points of his portfolio centred on the theme of human movement. Another Olympic themed exhibition on the pageant will likely be Starting Line(s): No Point in Running? [‘Ligne(s) de départ rien ne sert de courir?’] which asks 4 members of the following era of comedian artists (Lisa Blumen, Nina Lechartier, Jérémy Perrodeau and Chloé Wary) to provide work associated to working.
- Prolific comics author (and comics scholar) Thierry Smolderen can have a particular exhibition at Vaisseau Moebius his work in collaboration with artists and the method of writing for comics
- Nine Antico can have her personal profession retrospective contained in the Saint-Simon Hotel unfold throughout two flooring. Her work has commonly obtained crucial reward and a lot of awards – together with her most up-to-date guide Madonnas & Whores already receiving a prize in latest months.
Keep scrolling for a detailed up of the posters and extra information on every introduced exhibition.
THE POSTERS
THE EXHIBITIONS
[Note: Quoted exhibition synopses translated from French via DeepL]
Riad Sattouf, The Arab of the Future, A Work of the World [‘L’Arabe du future, Oeuvre-Monde‘]
Location: Vaisseau Moebius, January 25 to May 5, 2024
Curator: Caroline Broué
“Riad Sattouf, winner of the 2023 Grand Prix on the Angoulême Festival, is inviting guests to the 51st version of the Festival into his world by way of the gates of his newest work: L’Arabe du futur (The Arab of the Future).
“Launched in 2014 and completed in less than a decade, Riad Sattouf’s groundbreaking work The Arab of the Future offers an infinite number of possible readings. That’s why the exhibition devoted exclusively to it is an invitation to reread it through the eyes of the world. Emphasis is placed not only on the autobiographical dimension of the series, which centres on the young Riad and his family, but also on what it reveals about Riad Sattouf’s acuity as an author and what he gives us to see, understand and analyse about the contemporary world.”
“More objective than reverential, the exhibition brings to life the characters, places (mainly Brittany and Syria), customs, eras and cultural differences between the West and the Eastern Mediterranean that run through the six volumes of the series…”
Moto Hagio, Beyond Genres [‘Moto Hagio, Au-Delà des Genres’]
Location: Angoulême Museum, January 25 to March 17, 2024
Curators: Léopold Dahan & Xavier Guilbert
“The Angoulême Festival is devoting an distinctive retrospective to Moto Hagio, the revolutionary, multi-award-winning creator whose lengthy profession has been marked by variety – of themes, of genres – and an absolute thirst for freedom.
“Fascinated by manga from an early age, Moto Hagio made her debut in 1969 in the pages of the girls’ magazine Nakayoshi. But it was in 1971, after joining the magazine Shôjo Comic, that she made her mark with the story November Gymnasium [precursor to The Heart of Thomas], influenced by the writings of Hermann Hesse. At a time when women’s fiction was struggling to free itself from the influence of Osamu Tezuka, Hagio began a veritable revolution in the shôjo manga landscape, with stories whose ambition and seriousness stood out from the rest of the genre.”
“…Celebrating a career spanning more than fifty years, the Moto Hagio, Beyond Genres exhibition will look back at the history of shôjo manga and present the essential role played by the author in its true (re)invention in the early 1970s. Organised around three key themes (“the end of innocence” or the development of a shôjo manga centred round characters on the daybreak of adolescence; “the age of possibilities” or using science fiction and fantasy in a speculative exploration of roles, genders and relationships in imaginary societies ; and “the time of consequences”, the place tales are set in a context that’s now rooted in up to date actuality), this retrospective is an invite to find a physique of labor whose place within the historical past of the world of comics stays elementary.”
Hiroaki Samura, Body and Weapon [Corps et Armes]
Location: Espace Franquin, January 25 to twenty-eight, 2024
Curator: Fausto Fasulo
Exhibition centred round Hiroaki Samura’s landmark manga sequence Blade of the Immortal
“With the primary exhibition dedicated to Hiroaki Samura and his magnum opus L’Habitant de l’infini (Blade of the Immortal), the Angoulême Festival is paying tribute to the expertise of an artist whose affect shortly unfold past the borders of Japan and the manga medium.
“A virtuoso draughtsman and a genius of sequentialism, Hiroaki Samura (born 1970) shocked readers proper from his first sequence: with Blade of the Immortal, a samurai manga that stretches out insane choreography over thirty volumes revealed between 1993 and 2012, the creator betrayed a character that was willingly disruptive. With little curiosity in interval tales, he approaches the style with the insolence of a neophyte, dismantling its archetypes with refreshing impetuosity and instinct
“…Essentially centred on this monument to samurai manga, the Hiroaki Samura: Body and Weapon exhibition invites visitors to wander through a feudal Japan where blades and flesh face each other, touching and mingling, in a cruel and melancholy ballet recreated through a striking scenography. With over a hundred original plates and illustrations covering the entire series, this is the first major exhibition devoted to this seminal artist.”
Lorenzo Mattotti with Maria Pourchat, The Art of Running/Catching the Race [‘L’Art de Courir, Attraper La Course‘]
Location: Angouleme Museum, January 25 to March 10, 2024
Curator Marguerite Domoëte
A collaborative exhibition between the famend Italian artist Lorenzo Mattotti and the French novelist Maria Pourchat to coincide with the Paris 2024 Olympics, targeted across the theme of working.
“Exhibited for the first time at the Angoulême Festival, at the Musée de la Ville, Lorenzo Mattotti has seized upon the Cultural Olympiad – an artistic and sporting alliance as part of the Paris 2024 Games – to deliver a flamboyant and plural vision of the art of racing in the throes of change. A vision underlined by Maria Pourchet’s ardent writing.”
“…For the Festival, the humanities meet not solely round working as a sport, but additionally round working as an escape, in an animal and archaic model. L’artwork de courir. Attraper la course brings collectively round 100 drawings by Lorenzo Mattotti and quick fictions by Maria Pourchet. Where they meet, they echo the strides of runners who, for the reason that daybreak of time, from the humus of the forests to the tarmac of the large cities, have walked the earth.
“Lorenzo Mattotti’s sublime images, in all techniques and formats, bring the colours of the race to the walls of the Musée d’Angoulême. They show how drawing can take hold of a vast planetary movement, where the individual blends into the group or breaks away from it, favouring natural paths, away from stadiums and material constraints. In this dialogue between artistic expressions, we consider bodies, speed, repetition, training, primary movement, breath, momentum, and the idea of a race that is either impeded or emancipating.”
Thierry Smolderen, The Script is a Work in Progress [‘Les Scénario est un Bricolage‘]
Location: Vaisseau Moebius, January 25 to May 5, 2024
Curated by Thierry Smolderen & Jean-Pierre Mercier
Spotlight on the prolific comics writing work of Thierry Smolderen
“Thierry Smolderen gained the celebrated René Goscinny Prize for Best Scriptwriter at this 12 months’s Angoulême Festival for his album Cauchemars ex machina, which he co-created with artist Jorge González, and his work is now on present upstairs on the Vaisseau Moebius. A singular alternative to enter the internal world of a creator who wears many hats.
“Thierry Smolderen’s title is inseparable from the world of comics. For the previous 35 years, this native of Brussels has been amassing abilities associated to the ninth artwork: he’s by turns a scriptwriter, instructor, researcher, historian and theorist of comics. Much of his analysis is dedicated to the basic authors of the style, comparable to Winsor McCay, George Herriman, Milton Caniff, Hergé and Moebius. The work of the latter two was the topic of his very first theoretical essay, revealed in 1983, Les Carnets volés du Major – Les aventures d’Hergé et Moebius feuilletonistes [‘The Major’s Stolen Notebooks – The adventures of Hergé and Moebius as serial authors’]. Another key focus of his research was the protohistory of comics, culminating in what many think about to be his magnum opus, The Origins of Comics: From William Hogarth to Winsor McCay, revealed in French in 2009 [English edition published 2014].
“As a scriptwriter, Thierry Smolderen has distinguished himself in all types of style storytelling, from his first collaboration in 1984 with the illustrator Séraphine, for the sequence Hybrides (Temps Futurs, then Glénat), to Cauchemars ex machina (Dargaud) revealed in 2022, through which he re-examines the codes of the detective story. Between these two initiatives, he tried his hand at science fiction, journey serials, spy tales and biographies, delving into the life and work of the creator of Little Nemo (McCay, Delcourt, 4 volumes between 2000 and 2006, drawing by Jean-Philippe Bramanti) [note: complete English edition published by Titan in 2018].
“The exhibition mirrors Thierry Smolderen’s intuitive approach to scriptwriting, using disparate fragments he collects (notes, snapshots, film stills, etc.) from which he draws his inspiration. The composite setting of the exhibition features over a hundred plates by the author’s collaborators. As a fun and educational bonus, visitors can try their hand at the art of scriptwriting, with explanations of key concepts. Finally, a number of projects in the pipeline are presented, proof that Thierry Smolderen is an inexhaustible tinkerer.”
Nine Antico, Room with a View [‘Chambre avec vue’]
Location: Saint-Simon Hotel, January 25 to twenty-eight, 2024
Curators: Marguerite Domoëte and Cathia Engelbach
“Nine Antico first got here to the eye of the Angoulême Festival together with her first album, Le Goût du Paradis [‘A Taste of Paradise’], which was shortlisted for the Prix Révélation in 2009. Two years later, she was recognised with two titles within the Official Selection, Coney Island Baby and Girls Don’t Cry, and this 12 months she has been shortlisted once more with the album Madones et Putains [‘Madonnas & Whores’]. Nine Antico has made the Hôtel Saint-Simon her ultimate house, someplace between intimate theatre and fantasised landscapes.
“Nine Antico entered the world of comics by way of the joyous, madcap hustle and bustle of Parisian live performance halls. A fan of indie rock, she throws her sketches right into a pocket book whereas standing in entrance of the stage, her gesture topic to the impulse of the viewers and the pulsations of the subwoofers. When she’s not providing her drawings to the musicians on the finish of a live performance, she’s placing them collectively in a fanzine, Rock This Way, of which she self-published a handful of points within the early 2000s.
“A self-confessed autodidact, Nine Antico is now the creator of round ten works through which she explores a variety of genres, from autobiography to romantic biography, youngsters’s books and erotic comics. This baby of the Eighties, consumed the pictures and icons of American popular culture, enjoys summoning up references and ranging tones in her books and on display. At the guts of her script: girls, in all their states. Young or outdated, pin-up women or porn actresses, distraught lovers, dreamers or disillusioned, alone, in a duo or trio, groupies or amazons, observers or topics of all eyes, madonnas or whores, however at all times fiercely humorous and touching.
“With almost 200 pieces (notebooks, fanzines, personal archives, storyboards, etc.), including around a hundred originals, the exhibition showcases the richness of a body of work in which lightness and gravity are constantly in conflict…”
Shepherdess Warriors: The Grand Quest of Jonathan Garnier and Amélie Fléchais [‘Bergère Guerrières: La Grande Quête de Jonathan Garnier et Amélie Fléchais’]
Location: Chais Magelis (Quartier Jeunesse), January 25-28, 2024
Curator: Benjamin Roure
“Winner of the Fauve Jeunesse [Kids Prize] in 2022, the Bergères guerrières sequence [Shepherdess Warriors, English edition coming January 23, 2024 from Ablaze], the brainchild of scriptwriter Jonathan Garnier and cartoonist Amélie Fléchais, is on present within the Quartier Jeunesse within the type of a enjoyable exhibition. Young and outdated alike should be daring as they attempt to win the Shepherdess Warrior crest!
“…The Shepherdess Warriors exhibition invites young and old alike to embark on a less dangerous but just as thrilling adventure in the magical settings that make up the world of the series: from Molly’s seaside village, reminiscent of the Scottish coastline, to an Asian-style citadel, via the wizards’ forest and the dog breeders’ mountain hamlet. It’s up to visitors, immersed in a magical atmosphere that’s by turns eerie and luminous, to improve their skills and abilities in order to – who knows? – earn their title and don the cape of the Warrior Shepherdess!
“In the midst of these recreated lands, the exhibition also invites visitors to discover the creative work of its two authors, Amélie Fléchais and Jonathan Garnier, whose series, published by Glénat, touches on a range of important themes, such as the role of women in wartime, ecology, solidarity and heritage. The exhibition also takes a side trip, presenting original plates and drawings by the creators, and touching on some of their key influences, from fairytales to fantasy. Finally, a surprise awaits the brave visitor: the unveiling of projects based on the universe, such as an animated series. Ready for adventure?”
Starting Line(s): No Point in Running? [‘Ligne(s) de départ rien ne sert de courir?’]
Nouvelle Création (previously Pavillon Jeunes Talents), January 25-28, 2024
Curators: Marguerite Domoëte & Sophie Dusigne
“To mark the 51st version of the Festival, 4 artists and sketch authors are being invited to participate in a model new collective exhibition. Lisa Blumen, Nina Lechartier, Jérémy Perrodeau and Chloé Wary are within the beginning blocks, prepared to participate in a creative race filled with surprises.
“This 12 months, the Nouvelle Création house (previously the Pavillon Jeunes Talents) will likely be welcoming the very best of the following era of sketch authors for a model new and unique staff efficiency. The artists have been first assembled on a big beginning stage, after which it was as much as every of them to think about and draw their very own beginning line! It’s the sports activities race – on the coronary heart of a story and free format, expressed in all its concrete or symbolic kinds – that’s at stake right here.
“…Facing the creation itself, the backstage graphic worlds of each of the participants are presented: notebooks, roughs and preparatory work give a glimpse of all the questions that prefigure such an event and lead to the – sometimes missed – departures. Lastly, sound extracts from interviews accompany the creation, setting the pace of the artists and visitors caught up in the race, four unique voices that eventually intermingle, as the space given over to the performance blends together.”
Like this:
Loading…
Discussion about this post