BILAL - Lot 100

BILAL ENKI BILAL Partie de chasse, Dargaud 1983 Original plate no. 67, prepublished in Pilote Mensuel no. 107 April 1983. Slight breaks in the paint layer and in the paper paper on lower part. Support removed from its original cardboard and lined with Japanese paper. A tear is consolidated in the right margin and another in the lower margin. Slight indentation to the right of box no. 1, in the margin, and in box no. square no. 3. The text in the speech bubbles is slightly insolate. Signed. India ink and acrylic on paper 35.6 × 47.1 cm (14.02 × 18.54 in.) Born in 1951, Enki Bilal made his debut in Pilote in 1972, before collaborating with Pierre Christin three years later. This decisive encounter was to determine the direction of all his work, his powerful drawing accompanying the convulsions of his time, marked by the end of the fascist regime in Spain (1975), the fall of communism (1989) and then the decade of war in Yugoslavia (1991-2001), Bilal's native country. This was the triptych of Légendes d'aujourd'hui: La Croisière des oubliés (1975), Le Vaisseau de pierre (1976), La Ville qui n'existait pas (1977), followed, in a downright visionary mode, by two albums illustrating the finishing century: Les Phalanges de l'ordre noir (1979) and Partie de chasse (1983). Between these last two stories, Bilal switched to direct color. We have a perfect example here: Communist apparatchiks are preparing for a bear hunt that will end in a bloody purge. The building's walls are like the regime: cracked and aging. The landscape is like the atmosphere in the party: frozen and icy. The group is heading for an uncertain and ominous goal, like the future of communism. This single panel is a perfect illustration of the mood of the times. This album is one of the most significant of the decade. A masterpiece.