Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum is pleased to present “Tales of Now: Contemporary Swiss Comics“ from the Fumetto Festival, opening on December 20, 2025. Curated by Eleonora Bitterli, the exhibition is jointly organized by the Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum, the Embassy of Switzerland in China and the Fumetto Comic Festival Luzern.
Featuring around 500 works by 22 Swiss artists from the German-speaking Switzerland,the exhibition presents a holistic picture of the richness and artistic innovation of the contemporary Swiss comics scene. In Switzerland, publishing, magazines and cross-disciplinary collaboration have long been the driving forces behind the development of comics, enabling artists to work across comics, visual arts, animation, sculpture and sound. As a result, comics have expanded beyond a single narrative medium into a contemporary art form that continuously generates new possibilities in visual language, structural logic and conceptual expression. The exhibition also makes an emphasis on the process of re-contextualization within the museum environment: as the works are presented outside the realm of printed matter and publishing, their compositional structures, narrative strategies and media qualities are reactivated, revealing the openness and formal dynamism of comics as a visual art form.
Organized around several core thematic sections, including “Courage”, “Identity”, “History and Memory”, “Dreams and Worlds Beyond”, “Science Fiction” and “Society”, the exhibition showcases how artists address these themes through their diverse and unique visual languages, cross-media experimentation and acute cultural insights. Together, their works trace a narrative trajectory that moves from personal experience to social context and onward to broader cultural reflection.
As 2025 marks the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Switzerland, “Tales of Now: Contemporary Swiss Comics from the Fumetto Festival“ not only introduces a vivid, diverse and highly imaginative world of Swiss comics to audiences in China, but also opens a contemporary window for cross-cultural exchanges through the medium of graphic storytelling.
Dates: Dec. 20, 2025 – Apr. 6, 2026
Venue: Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum, 5-6F, No. 48, Weihai Road, Huangpu District
Open Hours: Tues. to Sun. 10:00-18:00 (Closed on Mondays. Last admission at 17:30.)
