Le cahier dessiné

Drawings seemed, like poetry, to be an element without importance in a world full of animations and special effects, and suddenly it finds itself, following a tragic event, to be a factor capable of mobilising the crowds and triggering off passions, especially hate. Who woud have believed it? The large exhibition of 700 drawings (from the beginning of the XIXth century to our day) at the Halle Saint-Pierre, in Paris, is a happy coincidence. It shows the power that is no longer dormant, of this medium, capable of being erotic, afraid, absurd and blasphemous (can we still use the word?) From Victor Hugo to Tomi Ungerer, from Vallotton to Topor, the retrospective that lasts until 14 August 2015 and the compendium that accompanies it, include the least known and the youngest, and a quantity of discoveries. There are the hallucinating architectures of Frédéric Lonné (1910-1989), the outrage of Pierre Fournier (who died at the age of 36 in 1973). Or the perfect views of Bourges by Marcel Bascoulard (1913-1978), who wandered for years throughout his town, dressed as a woman, with a heavy secret (the murder of his father by his mother) before he ended up murdered in a truck in an empty lot. One could almost think that drawings are explosive matter…

• Le cahier dessiné, directed by Frédéric Pajak, January 2015, n°10, 432 p., €39.