“Now the baton is carried by them,” celebrates the editor Montserrat Terrones. They, in case you are wondering, are Bárbara Alca, Marta Cartu, Genie Espinosa, Ana Galvañ, Nadia Hafid, Conxita Herrero, María Medem, Miriampersand and Roberta Vázquez. Cartoonists, illustrators and, for the sake of summarizing, intrepid explorers of the margins and abysses of the ninth art. His orchestra? What they carry from here to there while brandishing the baton in the air? The cutting-edge comic
Comics born in the heat of self-publishing fairs and irradiated by the influence of manga, ‘Persepolis’ and ‘Bojack Horseman’. Pages and more pages gripped by precariousness and with anxiety nibbling at their calves. Feminism and sorority. The ‘fan art’, the fractal narrative and the commissions for ‘The New York Times’ and ‘The Washington Post’. The change of cycle in a traditionally masculinized sector in which sender and receiver have been, for years, practically the same. And practically without him.
Illustrations by María Medem in the exhibition ‘Graphic Constellation’
«In the last twenty years there has been a creative explosion of female authors. They are the ones who, right now, are making the most interesting albums in France and Spain”, says Terrones, curator of the exhibition with which the Center for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) seeks to portray that moment of creative prosperity through a ‘Graphic constellation’ formed by the nine authors who, sums up the exhibition, “have strengthened a creative conspiracy in which the splendid present of experimental comics in our country can be read”.
the bullet as critical and ironic mirror in which to reflect reality and drawing as a way to settle accounts with loneliness, lack of communication and, why not, also with the limits of the language of the comic. Pencils, tablets and fanzines as weapons of mass destruction of the millennial generation. The latter, however, we will not say it too loud, since the phenomenal ‘Graphic constellation’ It does not aspire to be a generational portrait. Or not at all. «The generational factor has a lot of weight, yes, but it is not a generational exposure»; holds Terrones.
Drawn self-portraits of the authors participating in the exhibition. From top to bottom and from left to right, Ana Galvañ, Genie Espinosa, Roberta Vázquez, María Medem, Nadia Hafid, Miriampersand, Bárbara Alca, Marta Cartu and Conxita Herrero
The generational aspect, however, is what spins a good part of the discourse and receives the visitor between the tangled sheets of a genuinely millennial bedroom. Pizza and laptop, anxiolytics on the nightstand, and Ottessa Moshfegh’s ‘My Year of R&R’ under the pillow. The public and the private, merging into an endless working day. “It is an attempt to question the concept of generation, which has ended up becoming a political battlefield,” explains the philosopher Eudald Esplugaconsultant for the inaugural installation ‘Millennium: a generation in dispute’.
The generational, we continue, is also what connects Roberta Vazquez (Santiago de Compostela, 1989), Barbara Alca (Palma, 1990) and Conxita Herrero (El Prat de Llobregat, 1993), authors who share a vision of precariousness, lack of communication, anxiety and new ways of relating. With them opens an exhibition that meanders between the hilarious ‘fan arts’ of Vázquez’s ‘Harry Potter’, the sardonic irony of Alca, and the vindication of Herrero, to modulate a new costumbrismo made of financial constraints, work anxiety and perpetual overexposure .
creation and reflection
Since not everything is going to be about exhibiting vignettes and originals by the authors (and also), ‘Graphic Constellation’ is enriched with a series of installations created expressly for the exhibition. Bárbara Alca, for example, has devised a dating application to contact ‘cringe’ superheroes, while Nadia Hafid (Terrassa, 1990), recently awarded the Ojo Crítico de Cómic award, takes the opportunity to reflect on loneliness as a «space of creation and reflection.
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Detail of the installation by Nadia Hafid for ‘Graphic Constellation’
the author of ‘The good father’ is in charge of opening an area dedicated to fractal narrative and hyperconnectivity, formal conditions that Marta Cartu (Barcelona, 1989), creator of the groundbreaking and fragmentary ‘Hello, Siri’, also takes the opportunity to explore generational malaise while continuing to question the possibilities of the format. «The channel for me is very important. How do I bring the comic to a screen? Or how do I take a page into space?” asks an author whose installation, a visual tangle inspired in part by the South Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han, intends to “transit” the comic. This, at the CCCB, translates into an expanded comic that you have to go through to continue advancing.
Precisely the trip, the transit towards other spatial and sensory dimensions, is the thread that they pull Miriampersand (Madrid, 1985) and Genie Espinosa (Barcelona, 1984), two authors who place movement as a synonym for change, rites of passage and empowerment at the center of their stories. Espinosa, for example, has wanted to show with the installation how the comic transformed her and, never better said, changed her life. With Ana Galvan (Murcia, 1980), one of the most requested illustrators, strange worlds, dystopias and Russian constructivism arrive. Identity, capitalism and feminism, yes, but also mystery. Much mystery. “I don’t want to be very didactic,” clarifies the author of ‘Afternoon at McBurguer’s’.
At his side, and closing the tour, Maria Medem (Seville, 1994) exhibits a spectacular use of color and influences as diverse as photography and flamenco. The latter is especially important in ‘Por culpa de una flor’, an album that he will publish in the coming months and in which he uses the pages as sheet music. His installation, a space with cartoons printed on sheets and a musical setting by Susana Hernández and Rocío ‘La Boterita’, seeks to recreate the atmosphere of their stories and drag the visitor into one of her cartoons. An unbeatable brooch for an exhibition in which to stay to live a good season.