Twelfth International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

After taking on greater-than-ever prominence in recent years as an inspiration to cinematic production, comic art (that is, comic books and graphic novels) is now also being exploited by a growing number of museums in new ways, in an effort to enhance contemporary cultural relevancy and, in some cases, establish new revenue streams. The interaction is particularly intriguing when it constitutes a post-modern alliance of “high art” with “low art”. The interaction is complexified because graphic narrative is a sequential form of art; hence, an exhibition runs the risk of reducing sequential art on display to the selective, decontextualized presentation of individual panels, thereby elevating the isolated image over the whole of the narrative in a way that betrays the art form itself. On the other hand, art museums and their contents, in what constitutes a new initiative of considerable interest, readily lend themselves to quite unrestricted, plastic interpretations in the media of comic art. In light of the foregoing, this study focuses on the collaboration between museums and comic art, with special (but not exclusive) emphasis on series of bandes dessinées commissioned by the Musée du Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay (both in Paris) based on those museums and their collections, and also on a collaborative volume of Italian fumetti based on ancient artifacts housed at the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia in Rome.