A tribute to one of Belgium’s leading graphic novelists, who created a mysterious world in black and white, dominated by silence and shadow. The exhibition dedicated to Didier Comès, organised by the King Baudouin Foundation which manages his artistic legacy, opened on 25 September at the BELvue Museum.
Didier Comès was one of Belgium’s leading comic book authors, a master of black and white and the fantastical. The characters in his stories are outsiders, excluded from society, but he brought them out of the shadows and endowed them with dignity and normality. It is this aspect featured in the exhibition.
Didier Comès had phenomenal success at the start of the 1980s with the publication of Silence, a graphic novel that marked a whole generation of readers. The story, of a simple-minded deaf-mute, exploited by the landowners of Beausonge but whose conscience is awakened by a witch, is inseparable from that of Comès’s own life, for he was marked by various forms of rejection and exclusion.
Master of silence, Comès died in 2013, without ever having had the honour of a major exhibition in Brussels. The King Baudouin Foundation wished to remedy this, by promoting the artistic heritage of his works, graciously donated to the Foundation by his brother and sisters in order to safeguard his work in the absence of a will.
In the company of Pratt and Chabouté
Curated by Thierry Bellefroid and Eric Dubois, the exhibition opens its doors to the public on 25 September at the BELvue museum in Brussels. Over 50 original artworks, mostly ‘mute’ (strips without dialogue), are presented alongside original artworks of Corto Maltese, the most famous comic book of Hugo Pratt – Comès’s great friend and fervent supporter of mute boxes – like those of Christophe Chabouté, the comic book author who has often been spoken of as the spiritual son of Comès.
In parallel, Casterman has published a book on the theme of D’Ombre et du Silence by Comès.
The exhibition is a project realised in partnership with the Maison Autrique in Brussels, where there is a second exhibition, also devoted to Didier Comès. ‘Comès à huis clos’ (Comès behind closed doors) plunges the visitor into the atmosphere of Comès’s book Eva and pays tribute to the fantastical and psychological universe of Didier Comès.
Practical details
Exhibition ‘Comès. D’Ombre et de Silence’
BELvue Museum, Place des Palais 7, 1000 Brussels
From 25 September 2020 to 3 January 2021
Opening times: Monday to Friday 9h30 to 17h. Saturday, Sunday and during school holidays: from 10h to 18h.
Entry is free, but reservation is obligatory via www.belvue.be
Exhibition ‘Comès à huis clos’
Maison Autrique
Chaussée de Haecht 266, 1030 Schaerbeek
From 25 September 2020 to 2 May 2021
Opening times: Wednesday to Sunday 12h to 18h. Closed on public holidays.
Reservation obligatory via www.autrique.be
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