In 2009, after almost five years of intense work, Ulli Lust, who was born in 1967 in Vienna, released the autobiographical graphic novel “Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life”, published by avant-verlag. It found and enthralled many readers. On 460 pages that are driven by energetic pencilwork, the young punk Ulli and her friend Edith run away to Italy, where the two adventurous women get themselves into massive problems. This touching combination of masterful, focused narrative with concise, highly lively drawings won the Max & Moritz Audience Prize, the ICOM Award, the Prix de Revelation at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in France and other prizes, in addition to being translated into many languages. Ulli Lust is also active in various artists’ groups. Alongside her autobiographical works, she draws documentary and fictional comics, such as “The Karnau Tapes”, a dense comic about a fanatical sound engineer in the Nazi era, based on Marcel Beyer’s masterpiece of the same name. However, she also represents erotic mythological narratives, such as her “Spring Poems”, in which women who are endowed with special powers pursue their sexual desires very purposefully.
As one of the most important female contemporary comics artists worldwide, she has recently published her latest autobiographical book: “Wie ich versuchte, ein guter Mensch zu sein” (How I Tried to Be a Good Person). Ulli Lust studied graphic design at the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin. She lives in Berlin, where she also draws her comics, and she teaches at the Hochschule Hannover University of Applied Sciences and Arts. The exhibition at Cartoonmuseum Basel shows the full diversity of her oeuvre for the first time.