Jirō Taniguchi. Distant Portrait

Part of the celebrations for the 160 years of friendship between Belgium and Japan, it invites visitors to dive into the heart of the sensitive, poetic, and deeply human universe of the famous mangaka. A unique opportunity to discover the work of a major artist of Japanese comics. An unmissable exhibition. Jirō Taniguchi (1947-2017) occupies a singular place in the history of manga. Particularly known for A Distant Neighborhood, The Walking Man, or The Summit of the Gods, this Japanese illustrator and screenwriter developed a deeply personal body of work, at the crossroads of Japanese and European cultures. A prolific author, he explored a great diversity of genres throughout his career: intimate narrative, thriller, western, historical chronicle, adventure, fantasy, animal story, or even gastronomic manga. His work is distinguished by a rare attention to emotions, silences, and the details of daily life, transforming the ordinary into a universal experience. His drawing, of great elegance, gives as much importance to the characters as to the settings, the light, or the passage of time. Through original plates from Japan, this exhibition invites you to discover this extraordinary artist. It explores the major themes that run through his work: the complexity of feelings, the importance of the senses, the complicity of nature, or even the boundary between reality and imagination. It also reveals the richness of his graphic language: the strength of black and white, the sequencing and composition of the panels, the taste for detail. Fascinated by European comics while remaining deeply Japanese, Taniguchi contributed to giving another image of manga, far from the clichés associated with the genre. His work speaks as much to comic book enthusiasts as to readers discovering manga for the first time.