François Matarasso

François Matarasso – 12/11/09

During our seminar with François Matarasso we discussed how the government discusses about the quality of art, and how they use these discussions to decide on their funding and censorship of art. François Matarasso explained to us how he was the one charged of finding the criteria to base the discussions on the quality or art produced by individuals or groups funded by the government. He came up with five criteria to “guide the discussion”, and he was very clear to mention that these criteria were not made to assess or grade the art, but really just to guide a discussion. His five criteria were:

1: Technique/mastery
2: Originality
3: Ambition
4: Resonance
5: Feeling

After the discussion with Matarasso, which chose his words very carefully to make sure we could not interpret anything he said as judgement, it still seemed that Matarasso’s criteria were not only to guide a discussion, mainly because no matter how his great eloquence avoided the subject, he was part of the group that judged artists. These criteria were very specific to the government funded art, and does not have much of a link to publication or artwork funded by a private source. The main question for me was “who was he to judge?” And even if he was not judging, why was he the one that thought he had to set these criteria for “a better discussion”?

After long reflections about if people would use these criteria to judge my artwork and my designs, I have to say I was ill convinced of their usefulness in the comic book world. Although they can apply to government funded projects, comic books are simply linked to the publishing business, and the main criteria in business is “can it make a profit?” Although on the purely artistic point of view, comic books have quite a limited spectrum: they are a narration method, therefore have for sole purpose to tell a story. The story in itself can be put through these criteria and have many functions such as entertainment, political discussion, comedy,… but the design, the technique that transmits the message is even more limited. The comic book design has for objective to tell a story. We could try to apply Matarasso’s criteria to the comic book design:

1: Technique/mastery – The technique of comic book design is how effectively one can enhance and use the message to make the narration have a greater impact on the reader. The main technique in comic book design is choosing which type of design will reinforce the narration.
2: Originality – That criteria is not a simple one seeing as the comic book design technique does not have many variations. Although new ones are introduced little by little, they only tend to work with very specific style of stories.
3: Ambition – I don’t think ambition can really apply to the comic book design. The design is about effectiveness and efficiency.
4: Resonance – It is suppose to be the link with the world. Resonance is probably the main criteria that should be used regarding comic book design: the link between design, narration and story is of the highest importance.
5: Feeling – This criteria seems to be the most subjective. I cannot even fine a precise definition of “feeling” that would apply in this case. I suppose that when one has a very subjective criteria, one cannot be judged for judging.