Comic strips and cartoons in art

French touch at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest

Different ways in which comic strips and cartoons have been used by French and international contemporary artists can be seen in the Animations/fictions exhibition presented at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) in Bucharest. The project is a curatorial research over a group of works from the Fonds National d'Art Contemporain (FNAC) consigned to the MNAC and runs until the end of August.

The exhibition’s guiding principle is how cartoons have appeared in citational form and how they use different approaches: initially in the Pop Art style before becoming removed from animation. The featured artists express highly sophisticated concepts in a comprehendible language. They refer to contemporary concepts in images, borrowing childhood iconography and creating images inspired by Walt Disney or mangas. The artists’ work goes beyond connotations of an all-pervasive subculture, mass culture and media in today's globalized world and all these images remain powerful vectors for often dramatic events. They reveal an adult awareness of the gravity of the present day through a child's wide-eyed gaze.

This selection of works, all highly varied in their form and message, also highlights how contemporary figuration draws on its close ties with the various genres of popular culture, switching it towards a different area.

In the context of the exhibition, a number of parallel events (lectures) have been organized to take place at the MNAC or at the Institut Français in Bucharest, which is also hosting a programme of residencies for French artists in 2008.

Curator of the exhibition is Ruxandra Balaci.