Jean-Marc Rochette Retrospective

Nearly 300 original comic artworks, paintings, and sculptures have been brought together for this exhibition, which traces the committed and eco-friendly career of artist Jean-Marc Rochette, who has become a key figure in the world of comic art. It covers his artwork since 1982, the year Transperceneige (Casterman) was published, based on a script by Jacques Lob. This post-apocalyptic science fiction story, first published in the magazine À suivre, has become a cornerstone of speculative fiction comics and was adapted for the cinema by South Korean director Bong Joon-ho (Palme d'Or 2019). Rochette's incredible graphic power and his mastery of black and white perfectly embody this legendary series, which he continued after Lob's death with screenwriter Benjamin Legrand for the two albums L'Arpenteur (1999) and La Traversée (2000), then with Olivier Bocquet for Terminus (2015), and Matz for Extinctions Act 1 (2019). A selection of pages, artworks and covers from these albums will be exhibited, alongside large paintings and sculptures inspired by the series' universe.

The exhibition will also present his recent artworks through his favorite subject: mountains. Passionate about mountaineering, Rochette chose to become a comic artist after an accident that nearly cost him his life. In 2018, at the height of his art, the author met with great critical and public success with Ailefroide, altitude 3954, an autobiographical account of his years of mountaineering, followed by Le Loup (2019), recently awarded the Wolinski - Le Point 2019 prize. His superb black-and-white pages reflect a breathtaking, wild beauty. In the exhibition, they will be accompanied by magnificent watercolors of mountains, abstract paintings, and animal sculptures.