From 23 April 2016 to 15 January 2017, the Musée en Piconrue is holding an exhibition devoted to the artist and strip cartoonist Didier Comès (1942-2013), an international award-winning artist, considered as a master in the creation of strip cartoons in Belgium and internationally.

The exhibition is based on original artwork and documents that Didier Comès bequeathed to us on his death. His brother and sisters decided to perpetuate this entire heritage by donating it to the Kind Baudouin Foundation. The collection has been entrusted to the Musée en Piconrue in Bastogne.

The works and themes used by Didier Comès (such as witchcraft, magico-religious beliefs and practices, paganism, shamanism, the countryside, war and exclusion) are exhibited within an ethnographic framework, in dialogue with objects and documents from the Musée de Piconrue’s collection and the collections of other Belgian museums. Audiovisual documents, photographs, archaeological and ethnographic objects resonate with sketches, Indian ink drawings and story books created by Didier Comès in an effort to highlight his many sources of inspiration and cultural references.

A number of works are exhibited within a black and white setting that is both relevant and faithful to the graphic and psychological world of Didier Comès. The works shown will be changed every three months so as to update the exhibition whilst still respecting the artwork.

To accompany the exhibition, the museum has published Ardenne de Didier Comès: Sorcellerie et croyances magico-religieuses (Didier Comès: Witchcraft and Magico-religious Beliefs). The work provides an overview of witchcraft in the Ardennes and links with ancient cults, some of which are still practised in contemporary cultures, is amply illustrated and deals with the ethnology of the Ardennes as interpreted in the work of Didier Comès.