Christophe Blain (b. 1970, Gennevilliers, France) is one of France’s most renowned comics authors and an exceptionally versatile artist, who masters all tonalities between the sparse, quick ink drawing and the subtly pastose painting. His typical figurative and perspectival exaggerations, developed on the basis of his great drawing skills, lend his panels a captivating dynamism.

His early series ‘Isaac the Pirate’, ‘Socrates the Half-Dog’ and ‘Gus’, published by Éditions Dargaud, attracted a lot of attention. He then surprised everyone in 2010 with the first volume of ‘Weapons of Mass Diplomacy’, in which he reworked the memoirs of a former speech-writer for France’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dominique de Villepin, as scathing political satire. The book became a bestseller and was successfully made into a film in 2013. Also in that year, Blain won the Best Album Award at the Angoulême International Comics Festival for the second time – for the second volume of ‘Weapons of Mass Diplomacy’. In 2019, in collaboration with Joann Sfar, he released the first part of a homage to ‘Blueberry’, taking a fresh look at this classic western comic.

Christophe Blain’s most recent book is a sophisticated non-fiction comic: Joining forces with Jean-Marc Jancovici, an expert on energy and the climate, he assumed the role of an interested layperson and tackled the complex debate on the possibilities of climate-friendly energy production in ‘World Without End’, published in 2021.

The extensive Christophe Blain retrospective presents the artistic development and all facets of this French comics star – from preliminary sketches through to paintings using various techniques.

Vernissage: Friday, 7.11.2025, 6:30 pm
Press conference, Thursday, 6.11.2025, 11 am
Curator: Anette Gehrig