Local Color Finally got around to seeing the much-touted Rodin exhibit at Phnom Penh's National Museum this last weekend. It's going to continue through the end of February so you've got some time to check it out. For three bucks, it lived up to the hype. One hundred years ago, the sculptor became fascinated by a troupe of Cambodian dancers visiting France and followed their travels, producing a series of sketches. The color drawings are kept in a special climate-controlled room and accompanied by photographs of the encounter, which is a story in and of itself. http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/29/features/rodin.php If you've heard someone 'thinking out loud', this must be 'drawing out loud'. The artist was grappling to depict an unfamiliar but fascinating series of movements, and you can really sense his enthusiasm to record it on paper. Some sketches are fully colored and well rendered, others just focus on a face or a moving limb. (More images at http://www.khmerinstitute.org/rodin/rodin.html) Meanwhile, over at 'The Comics Reporter', Tom Spurgeon reviews Lorenzo Mattotti's Angkor. For about $40 a copy can be yours from Carnets d' Asie. Mattotti has to have one of the most vivid color senses of the current crop of European cartoonists. The volume follows the French trend of lavishly illustrated travel memoirs - readers just can't seem to get enough of them. English translation is in the works. (I'll splash out for one when I win the lottery.) And as regards travel, comic artist Lisa Mandel (Sept Mois au Cambodge) will visit in February to do another comic/travel book with students from Phare art school. More news to come. Review: http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/briefings/cr_reviews/7194/ More Mattotti: English (via robot): http://tinyurl.com/y6x76w French: http://www.auracan.com/Indiscretions/2004/20040227.html Postscript 13/01/06: Penny Edwards on the Rodin Exhibition http://www.phnompenhpost.com/TXT/current/stories/1601/how.htm Tags: Cambodia,visual+art

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