Temporary exhibition from the 19th of November 2023 to the 4th of February 2024
COSEY – A drawn Tibet
Who better than the French-speaking graphic novel artist and author Cosey could better embody the link between Tibet and Switzerland? To illustrate the context from where the works of art in its collection come from, the Tibet Museum will exhibit original drawings and colour reproductions highlighting the Land of Eternal Snow.
A land of legends
Rarely has a country had such an impact on the Western imagination. Tibet, secret and fantasized, is a subject much appreciated by the writers, directors and photographers who have contributed to nourishing this mystical aura. Comics too, have participated in the diffusion of this vision full of marvels and legends.
Jonathan and the « Bouddha d’Azur »
Through works such as the Bouddha d’Azur or the Jonathan series, the French-speaking author and designer Cosey (Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2017) has been able to arouse his readers' curiosity for these far away regions and for oriental spiritualities. Between 1975 (Jonathan's first episodes published in the Tintin magazine) and 2021 which marks the end of the saga, passionate generations of readers have not only discovered an endearing adventurer as wll asquirky characters, but also a more realistic Tibet that Cosey visited several times and from where he brought back sketches, landscapes, stories and various impressions.
Works and their context
Today, it felt obvious for the Tibet Museum to offer this “citizen of the world” the opportunity to exhibit his works related to the Land of Eternal Snow: colour reproductions and original black and white drawings - executed in Indian ink, and reminiscent of the purity of oriental calligraphies where the invisible dominates as much as the line - dialoguing with the most beautiful pieces of the museum.
Visitors are thus invited to discover, on the one hand, the cultural context in which the sculptures, paintings, manuscripts and other ritual objects presented in Gruyères were born and, on the other hand, a Tibetan society which seamlessly mixes the sacred and the everyday life.