Shadows and Visions
The Demons of David B.
7 June to 15 July 2012
Opening hours: Tue – Fri 11 a.m.–6 p.m., Sat/Sun/Holiday 11 a.m.–4 p.m.
Special opening hours 7 to 10 June: Thu noon–7 p.m., Fri/Sat 10 a.m.–7 p.m., Sun 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
Kunstmuseum

All of a sudden he appears behind Jean-Christophe, in the form of a magnificent dragon with greedy jaws: the epileptic seizure that pulls the wildly jerking boy to the ground. Meanwhile, little David stands next to him, frightened, wondering or sad – helpless. Jean-Christophe’s illness turns the Beauchard family’s life into a constant state of emergency. David B., a founding member of the legendary French publishing house L'Association, set new standards for autobiographical comics with “Epileptic” (“Die heilige Krankheit”). Early on, David B. countered the force of the illness with violent comics about bloodthirsty Mongolian hordes and other butchery in battles – as a kind of “graphic epilepsy”. Later, he absorbed everything he saw, heard and read, every spiritual world of thought, every esoteric theory, be it ever so fanciful. And since nothing could alleviate his brother’s affliction, his scepticism hardened. In addition, the epileptic crises sharpened his eye for the invisible and his sense of the unexplainable. He never depicts reality in his drawings. Instead, he interprets it, metaphorically elevates it and even finds images for the most abstract thoughts.