Deviating from “Art”: Japanese Manga Exhibitions, 1990–2015

As comics exhibits expanded and diversified in the US and in Europe, the Western way of exhibiting comic art became influential internationally. Up to the 1990’s, the Japanese considered manga to be a strictly literary genre, not a form of art. People went to the manga museum to read, not to look at displays of drawings. In this 2017 essay, manga scholar Jaqueline Berndt analyzes a series of influential Japanese exhibitions at institutions like the Kyoto International Manga Museum and the Kawasaki City Museum, as well as shows by individual artists to demonstrate how exhibits of manga evolved over a ten year period from a library-like environment to western style displays in museums and art exhibitions. Images: 3 exhibition photos