In July I had the chance to visit Background exhibition at Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology in Kraków. Now in the middle of September I came to see it again and I also participated in one of the events accompanying it. As it is something that strongly resonates with my geeky heart I decided to write about the whole experience.
What Was There
The exhibition was not big – it filled only around 2/3 of the space in the main hall of the museum. One needed less than an hour to go through it reading the explanations. Should I just wish to see the items I could have done it in 15-20 minutes. Still it was definitely worth visiting and even seeing for the second time.
There were a few types of exhibits there:
- mangas
- modern prints
- woodblock prints
- screenings
- ceramics
- textiles
The last two categories were not represented in abundance though. I was very happy to see that the curators treated all of those exhibits equally. There was no division between the “high” and “pop” art. We just experienced the Art and had the chance to interpret it by ourselves.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind next to beutiful ceramic cups.
Many of the presented works had SFF theme to them. This included well known titles like Berserk, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Elden Ring, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, and more.
Seeing this exhibition brought me a lot of joy. Not only because it contained so many SFF elements. I remember that many years ago when I was more in manga fandom I heard one of the museums guides answering a question from visitors. They asked why museum is called “Manggha”. The reply was that ‘_‘because it was, unfortunately, the pseudonym of Polish art collector – Feliks Jasieński whose donation was the basis for the museum collection’_’. It may be silly but it hurt me at the time. Now 18-20 years later manga was part of the exhibition and treated as a form of art which, I believe, it deserves.
The old, and the new. The Princess of the Never-ending Castle manga between two booklets with woodblock prints from XIX century.
Background
The main theme for the whole exhibition was the background so the works presented were concentrating on this aspect. Yet curators were not pointing their fingers at what one should check. Instead they gave general guidance and left the rest to the observer. One could go through the exhibit and analyse how background worked in each of the scenes. The other way was to concentrate on enjoying the mastery of the artists with no need to analyse it. There were some parallels between presented woodblock prints from XIX century and XXI century manga. It was left for the visitors to catch those.
This is how works being divided by around 150 years talk to each other.
The usage of screenings made a big impression on me. They were a great addition to the exhibition and played a few roles. In some cases they were showing how the static painting is changing with the move of the camera. It was very impressive in case of the two large paintings – one for Akira and the other for Ghost in the Shell. Both of those were showing city landscapes. I loved how many things observer could learn from those two paintings. Even without having any context about the movies one could read a lot through looking at those backgrounds. Both of those works (and many other) were high quality reproductions using solegraphic technique. The museum got those from Riekeles Gallery in Germany.
Solegraph print of the background for the opening scene in Akira.
Another function of screenings was similar but also somehow distinct. What I mean are instances where parts of comic were filmed and presented as an animation. They were not as attractive to me as the first group.
The third area where I saw the screenings was game related. On one very big screen visitors could watch part of the gameplay of Death Stranding. I didn’t play this game but I can say that the background is adding a lot to the atmosphere. The screening from Elden Ring was unfortunately presented on a smaller screen. It is a pity, as this games is absolutely mesmerizing. While watching it I wondered how many hours it took to create.
A Lecture
There were many events accompanying the exhibition over the course of last 2+ months. I had the chance to attend only one – a lecture given by Stefan Riekeles – creator of Riekeles Gallery. At first I was sad to see that so few people came. The big room looked almost empty with only around twenty visitors. Still the lecture was worth attending. Sadly it was rather short because of the need for translation.
Stefan Riekeles talks about the importance of background in anime.
I was both fascinated by the presented material and also somehow sad. Presenter showed how some of the backgrounds were created. In some cases he managed to find not only the final artwork, but also a pencil drawing, and even photograph used as a reference. I was also surprised to learn that view on the city in the Akira opening scene was completed a last thing only a few hours before the first screening. There was even not enough time to paint it on a separate piece of paper (as was done usually). Toshiharu Mizutani painted directly on the pencil drawing. In the corner of the final piece one can still see remains of the pencil sketch.
What made me sad were two things. First one related to what we lost. I learned that after production of anime most, if not all, of the materials were simply thrown away. Only items that someone decided to keep survived and the rest is lost. In fact many of the Akira paintings were taken by the artists and kept in a briefcase – one stuck on top of the other.
The talk was fascinating and I would love to visit Riekeles Gallery.
Yet the other thing was even sadder. From what Stefan Riekeles told, the artists who worked on some of those memorable pieces didn’t consider their work an art in itself. From his words initially they told him to screen the movie, and not show their work. To them those mesmerizing paintings were only parts of a bigger whole. They didn’t consider them pieces of art in themselves. Yet I am glad that he managed to convince the creators that these items have the worth as stand alone pieces too.
What I appreciated at the exhibition was also covered in the talk. As you can see on the pictures accompanying this post, many of works are “unfinished”. Their purpose was to be filmed and thus only what the camera was seeing was important. The edges were not painted with precision. Stefan Riekeles mentioned that him showing those pieces in full was the first to do so. Even if some of those were used in artbooks they were cropped to only show the finished part. I agree that seeing them in that form may be prettier, but looking a bit “behind the scenes” was definitely more interesting.
Different kind of iotems were complementing each other.
Looking Towards the Future
In last few years I am a frequent visitor at Manggha Museum and I am looking forward for the future exhibits which may contain SFF motifs. It was good to see our hobby in the museum entourage. I am optimistic as just a few days ago I learned that there will be another exhibition called Manga. The Way of the Warrior in a museum in Warsaw. I am not sure whether I’ll manage to go there but I do consider that
Now I am awaiting a parcel with a book by Stefan Riekeles called Anime Architecture: Imagined Worlds and Endless Megacities. This will certainly be a good read and a feast for eyes at the same time.
My next post will appear within 10 days and will treat about Copernicon x Polcon.