Female perspectives in Frankfurt and Oberhausen: Two exhibitions present female comic artists

Two comic exhibitions that will be starting soon will focus on the work of German female comic artists. One artist is represented in both exhibitions.

This Thursday, September 26, an exhibition with works by the Darmstadt-based illustrator and author Paulina Stulin will open at the Caricatura Museum Frankfurt, which has the ambiguous title “Comics about life” carries.

It is the first exhibition in a new area of ​​the museum called “Caricatura Salon” which, in addition to the museum’s large caricature and cartoon exhibitions (currently humorous works by Bernd Pfarr are on display here), will provide space for comics, illustration and other related art forms.

© Eggs

“Rough, fresh and surprising – that’s what the new exhibition area should be,” explains museum director Martin Sonntag. “Here we will present works by young national and international artists, make excursions into neighboring disciplines and pick up on current trends.” In addition, award-winning works and new publications will be presented, “especially works on current events that affect us all.”

The exhibition was curated by comic book author and ARD journalist Alex Jakubowski and Irina Kosenko, a trainee at the Caricatura Museum. The show will open on Thursday at 6 p.m. with a musical reading by Paulina Stulin from her two successful titles, the autobiographical graphic novel “Bei mir zuhause” and the comic comedy “Freibad”, which was created parallel to Doris Dörrie’s feature film of the same name. The show will then be on view from September 27 to November 17.

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A good three weeks later, a group presentation of German female comic artists will be opened in another museum, which is also intended as a supplement to the main exhibition there.

The Ludwiggalerie Schloss Oberhausen is showing under the title “Fallen out of character” From October 20th to February 2nd, 2025, picture stories by Franziska Becker, Julia Bernhard, Lisa Frühbeis, Mia Oberländer and Paulina Stulin will be shown. Original drawings, caricatures, comic columns and graphic novels from the 1980s to the present day will be shown. A retrospective of Walter Moers’ work was recently opened in the main rooms of the museum.

Using individual styles and formats, the five illustrators visualized real-life stories from a female perspective, explain the exhibition organizers. Their protagonists broke out of traditional role models and questioned social expectations about beauty, sexuality and self-determination. With a “keen eye”, the artists depicted everyday problems and humorously took the game of gender roles to the extreme.