Origin W hen the Museum of National Taipei University of Education (MoNTUE) was preparing for its grand opening show "Still the Vanguard of Education, the Forefront of Art" towards the end of 2012, Fabrice Douar, the deputy head of subdirectorate of Publications of the Louvre (adjoint au chef de service à la sous-direction de l'édition du musée du Louvre) came for a visit. He spoke to me about “The Louvre and Comics” (Le Louvre et la bande dessinée). Henri Loyrette, the previous director of the Louvre, was very supportive for the project. He allowed the invited artists free of limit to the museum, and to create in essence of comics to renovate the impression of old among the general public. Apart from being pleasantly surprised, I realized that the Louvre broke many new grounds, and the effects seemed to resemble what my plans of the "Old is New" Series at the National Palace Museum. In 2009, the Louvre presented the original works of five artists in the project in the Salle de la Maquette, the contemporary art hall, and generated many inquiries from the press around the global art scene. Interdisciplinary When a museum invites comic artists to work together, it is an act of interdisciplinary collaboration. The idea of “interdisciplinary” is to return to the origin of art creation. The artists are not under the influence of any existing genres, and, without any restriction, can create freely with any medium. After the work is completed, it will enter the element of time, and connected with every genre of art. Further later, it will be positioned and supplemented by discourses. This might be the reason why we encounter shadows of other art forms in the comic art, such as: storyboard of the cinema, literary narratives, photographic perspectives, and fine art techniques... etc. Having comics to be exhibited in an art museum is precisely for the reason that a museum should embody various art forms within, and it would allow the arts hidden in comics to regenerate connections with each other. The Innovative Ninth/Neuvième For Louvre, Neuvième art is an innovation of cultural and artistic strategy. The ninth indicates comics is the ninth art form - comics; the ninth is also the Louvre's branch Museum Louvre-Lens built on top of pit No. 9 in Lens; “the nine” in the French pronunciation is similar to "new". Therefore, in collaboration with the Louvre, the MoNTUE chose “9” to name for our exhibition in search of open and innovative dialogues between museums. Open Platform Coming to “L'OUVRE 9” at MoNTUE is as if opening up multiple layers of a meta-installation. You will see inside there's a Louvre as entering; opening up the Louvre, you will see unexpectedly the comic artworks from French, Belgium, Japanese and Taiwanese artists; opening up the comics, you will discover paintings within paintings, and they are about the paintings and other artworks in the collection of the Louvre; reading carefully of them, you will have a sense of walking into the well-kept scenery of human civilizations, history and art inside the tunnel of time. Right at that moment, the art museum thus becomes an open platform, crossing all measures of time, space and art.
1. 2009 年，《 羅 浮 宮 邀 請 漫 畫 展 》（Le Louvre invite la bande dessinée），展出 5 位藝術家原稿：德魁西（Nicolas de Crécy） 的《 衝 出 冰 河 紀 》（Période glaciaire）、 馬 修（Marc-Antoine Mathieu）的《消逝的地窖》（Les sous-sol du Révolu）、利倍 舉（Éric Liberge）的《奇數時間》（Aux heures impaires）、伊 斯列（Bernar Yslaire）的《羅浮宮的天空》 （Le Ciel au-dessus du Louvre），以及荒木飛呂彥（Hirohiko Araki）的《岸邊露伴 走進羅浮宮》 （Rohan au Louvre）。 In 2009, the show "Le Louvre invite la bande dessinée" presented original works of five artists: "Période glaciaire" by Nicolas de Crécy; "Les sous-sol du Révolu" by Marc-Antoine Mathieu; "Aux heures impaires" by Éric Liberge; "Le Ciel au-dessus du Louvre" by Bernar Yslaire; and "Rohan au Louvre" by Hirohiko Araki.