In Angoulême, a sacred je-ne-sais-quoi perfumed the festive atmosphere of the event on Wednesday evening on the forecourt of Les Chais opposite the Cité internationale de la BD et de l'image.
The contemporary artist Muma Soler has indeed lit, with the help of a crowd of volunteers, more than 35,000 candles to celebrate the 50th edition of the International Comics Festival.
This ephemeral show represented the first poster of the festival created in 1974 by Hugo Pratt.
On the forecourt of the Angoulême cellars, we were able to discover, thanks to a basket, a flamboyant tribute to Corto Maltese, the romantic sailor, leaning on a palm tree, gazing into the distance with his characteristic nonchalant elegance.
“
This work of art is above all participative.
It highlights the human bond which is the most important material, and which was close to my heart
, says the artist Muma Soler.
DR.
“
This work of art is above all participative.
It highlights the human bond which is the most important material, and which was close to my heart
, says the artist Muma Soler.
I remember discovering candles at night in 1984 in Nepal, during a solo bike trip from Barcelona to Kathmandu.
I had stopped at the Hindu festival of Diwali, and I saw all its candles in the night.
The show stuck in my mind.
Years later, thinking back, I recreated this type of spectacle in Gerrone in 2003, lighting 78,000 candles to symbolize the inhabitants of the city.
The shared collective imagination was powerful.
To recreate this first Hugo Pratt poster, it took me 35,000 candles and as many good wishes.
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Patrizia Zanotti, Hugo Pratt's colorist, who has managed the work of the creator of Corto Maltese since his death, still cannot believe it.
“If Hugo Pratt is in the sky,
she smiles,
I think he could have had a ringside seat when people started to light the candles of his drawing!
It was beautiful, it's so warm, so alive?
There is poetry in this ephemeral work which brings to life something of the order of a timeless emotion.
And Muma Soler concludes:
“I liked to reproduce this drawing by Hugo Pratt, because Corto Maltese is a character that appeals to me a lot,
he confides.
He's a backpacker like me.
And then, he is a kind of humanist in spite of himself, even if he plays tough.
This social sculpture, last night, brought out, as always, an emotion in people that is of the order of the sacred.
There is like a pagan spirituality.
And that touches me.
For this, I would really like to thank Vincent Eches, the new general manager of the International City of Comics and Image of Angoulême, who asked me to take up this challenge.
It is thanks to him that all this could take place.”