Reception:
Sat, April 6, 5pm

Fumetto presents Joann Sfar, one of the most influential comic artists of our time and probably one of the most productive. The 48-year-old artist has published over 160 books, scripts and screenplays, as well as works for both screen and television. His most celebrated character is probably the Rabbi’s talking and Torah-studying cat. Although the eighth and most recent installment of the chronicle has only just come out, its exemplary original drawings are already on exhibit in Lucerne to fill you with wonder. Sfar’s witty, humour-filled stories enchant those across generations. Men, monsters and vampires all take the stage against a backdrop of different cultures, philosophies and religions, all invigorated with blood, lust and art.

Concept: Jana Jakoubek

In cooperation with the Cartoonmuseum Basel

Reception:
Sun, April 14, 4pm

Handmade pictorial art from India seems to have supernatural powers. It is a phenomenon of a thousand faces, telling countless stories and appealing to all the senses. Fumetto provides a unique insight into the fabric of these contemporary and historical pictorial worlds. The powerful narrative language of forms is traditional in all regions of India, and is used today primarily to convey critical and revolutionary content. Artists disrupt the patriarchy, the caste system, the health system and the education system and are committed to opposing stigmatisation and discrimination in all its many forms through the strength and poetry of their drawings.

Avinash Karn (Madhubani art) Lokesh Khodke & BlueJackal, Renuka Rajiv, Aarthi Parthosarathy & the Kadak Collective, Orijit Sen, Kruttika Susarla, Priyesh Trivedi, Syam sundar Vunnamati. With artworks by Khalamkari, Path Chitra, Pagal Canvas and Tara Books

Concept:

Jana Jakoubek

Reception:
Sat, April 6, 11am

Kaleidoscopically dazzling, the works of Keiichi Tanaami (b. 1936) weave together psychedelic visions, Japanese culture and the world of American comic books. His piercing compositions tell tales of commerce, war, sickness and lust. Tanaami began his career in the 1960s in uneasy domains between art commissions and the anti-war movement, drug experiments and consumer culture. He is regarded as a pioneer of Japanese Pop Art and is one of the most influential artists of Japan. In Tanaami’s first ever exhibition here in Switzerland we present an entire spectrum of his creations: collages, paintings, prints, drawings, animations and sculptures, with a special focus on his integration of comics into his work.

Concept:

Keiichi Tanaami and Jana Jakoubek

Reception:
Thu, April 11, 7pm

Comics have appeared in gallery and museum spaces for years, but they have not historically been created to exist in those spaces. Now, a rising generations of artists has been producing comics work that is influenced by the ideas and aesthetics of art history. Simultaneously, these artists are comfortably creating work for the gallery context. As they begin to produce installation-based work that embodies the formal sequencing of comics, they pioneer an emerging type of comics that exists between the page and the three-dimensional gallery space. REBUS explores what comics made for the gallery—and a gallery made for comics—might look like

Alex Beauclair (FR), Danslecieltoutvabien (FR), Margaux Duseigneur (FR), Aidan Koch (US), Son Ni (TW)

Concept: Bill Kartalopoulos

Exhibition partner:
 

Signinghour:
Sun, April 7, 4pm–5pm, Hotel Schweizerhof

The 10-year-old protagonist in Emil Ferris (b.1962)’s first work is obsessed with monsters. In the interminable wait to finally become one herself she passes the time by solving the murder of her beautiful but enigmatic neighbour. This is not the only unusual thing in this narrative: The 400-page graphic novel is simultaneously crime thriller, horror story, history book and a highly personalised guide through the history of art. Ferris’s comic-debut My Favourite Thing is Monsters exploded onto the comic scene. She graces Fumetto as this year’s Artist-in-Residence and over the nine days of the festival is but a ballpoint pen away from her fans.

Exhibition partner: Hotel Schweizerhof

Opening:
Sat, April 13, 4pm

Herbert Crowley was an innovator at the dawn of comics, and a defining figure of the early 20th century avant-garde. He was an ascendant star in the burgeoning New York experimental art scene. His cartoons ran alongside Little Nemo, and he exhibited in the 1913 Armory Show. But in 1916, he unexpectedly vanished from the art world, and was subsequently erased from history -- until now. In the first exhibition of Crowley's work in half a century you'll discover otherworldly shrines, whimsical cartoons, grotesque creatures, nightmares & dreamscapes. You'll encounter impossible symbolism, encrypted glyphs, and the yearning visual poetry of a brilliant, tormented spirit – one of the lost legends of modern art.

Concept: Josh O’Neill (US) and Justin Duerr (US)

Thanks to Susanne Wettstein

We love our bikes, our roadsters, our velocipedes... whatever you call them, cycling is the best possible way to be mobile. We fly along, noses to the wind, fast and agile, full of energy yet still exhaust-free. How do artists perceive this phenomenon? Whether out and about in bicycle-paradise or in the harsh urban jungle of the streets, whether along the river banks, all the way to Kilimanjaro or just to the corner bakery, in 2019 comic artists of all ages from across the world allowed themselves to be inspired by this ideal mode of transportation. On show at this exhibition are the results, the winners, and the countless stories generated in this year’s competition. Creative and absurd, anything is possible: the noble bicycle has the strength of an ox!

Exhibition partner: Umsicht, EnergieSchweiz and the city of Lucerne

Reception: 
Sat, April 13, 7pm

Many Swiss comic talents are already well established on the comics scene, broadcasting their talent to the world via works brought out by prestigious publishers. Getting there is a rocky road, however, because making comics is tough work: Completing an entire album can take years. And so at the Fumetto Schleuder we catapult the stars of tomorrow into the spotlight today. This year’s young artist is Simon Beuret (b.1991), who fills sketchbooks with pictures of wherever he finds himself. He’s also vested this desire to put everything he sees to paper into the hero of his first big comic-project. And where does this lust for observation take him? You’ll just have to see for yourself.

Exhibition partner: Migros Kulturprozent

Reception:
Wed, April 10, 6pm

The Lucerne comic artist and illustrator Melk Thalmann has created a graphic novel about a famous Lucerne murder: the story of Ferdinand Gattis, who was hung from the Lucerne guillotine on March 18, 1892, which can now be found at the historical museum. In a fictitious conversation, constable Jans, sleepless on the night before Gatti’s execution, recounts the chronicle (based on the actual facts of the story.) Guided by an audio tour, visitors set off on a trepidatious hunt for clues via original drawings and historical objects. Thalmann also gives us a peek into his extensive research material, from sketches to final drawings.

Concept : Sibylle Gerber, Christoph Lichtin und Jana Jakoubek

Opening Hours and Events:
6.–14. April, 14.00–20.00Uhr

The private libraries of major comic book collectors are about as accessible as Scrooge’s Treasury. In “The Future of Comics” Fumetto opens four of these treasure vaults from around the globe for its visitors, bringing an individual selection of publications to Lucerne for lovers of the Ninth Art. Over the space of nine days we invite you to browse, trade, and read, and this with two-fold significance, for these private treasures – within easy reach today – may form the basis for a new electronic archive accessible from all corners of the world. The future of comics is in the room and what happens to them is up to you!

Concept: Ilan Manouach (GR)

Special guests: Guillaume Dumora (FR), Kim Jooha (CA), Aarthi Parthasarathy (IND), Francesc Ruiz (ES), Josh O'Neill (US)

free entry