The almost 25 year old international comic festival Fumetto - International Comix Festival, in collaboration with the renowned Kunstmuseum Luzern, will show the Norwegian artist's masterpiece.
The long lost pictorial novel Soft City was recovered and first published in book form of No Comprendo Press, 2008 and now ranks as the best-selling comic novel in Norway.
The original version of Soft City has created international reverberations, and is shown at numerous museums and biennials worldwide, from Sydney to Berlin, London and Rotterdam.
Soft City has also been taken up as one of the most interesting comic novels in the acclaimed '1001 comics you must read before you die', published by Universe Publishing in 2011.
Fumetto is one of the most important festivals in Europe, with its 50,000 visitors each year. Here are the most influential and inventive artists of the world shown, while the festival arrangers are trying to expose new trends in comic art.
Of the nearly 50 exhibitors Pushwagner has as sole artist been selected to exhibit in the Kunstmuseum Luzern, where he shows all 154 pages of Soft City (1968-75) in specially constructed vitrines.
In addition, the original version of the painting 'Self Portrait' (1973 to 1993) will be shown along with the 'DaDaData'- painting (1987), which are the only two of the seven paintings from the pictures on exhibit belonging to the Apocalypse Frieze.
The remaining 5 large format paintings, oil on canvas, which is shown, are produced during the period 2004-2013. Among them the painting 'Morgue' (2013, oil on canvas, 200 x 283 cm). This work has never before shown publicly.
The arrangers of the Comics Festival also expressed a particular desire to exhibit Pushwagners' Museum Model of Akershus Fortress, made by Code Ariktektur in cooperation with Pushwagner. The model is previously only shown at Lillehammer Art Museum in 2011.
The festival runs during the period from 7th to 15th March 2015, but Pushwagners exhibition at Kunstmuseum Luzern remain until the end of May 2015.
Vernissage held on Saturday 7th of March at 11 AM.
Festival hours are 10 to 20, outside the festival museum opening Tuesday-Sun. 10-17 Wednesday 10-20, Monday closed.
The exhibition is curated by Jana Jakoubek Artistic Director of Comics.