Spanish Artist Joan Cornellà Unleashes His Darkest Doodles on 798
Joan Cornellà’s cartoons act as sketches of the deep and darkest flickers in the human psyche. Yet from your very first contact with the artist's work, you would never have guessed such from the near-neon bright colors, shit-eating grins, and mundane settings of people going about their daily lives; the contrast makes for a hell being lived out in an anonymous suburbia.
That too is also part of the draw with Cornellà’s work – there’s very little to indicate where all of this mayhem takes place. Men in suits walk the streets with ties of blood gushing down their pristine shirts, women in dresses stand on their own children so as to take better selfies, and the lack of language allows the harrowing action to unfurl untempered by the specifics of time or culture.
And therein lies the fun of Cornellà’s cartoons, a selection of which are now on show at the Parkview Green Art in 798 from Jul 6-28, 11am-7pm. The universal nature of the Barcelona artist's doodles has allowed them to spread worldwide, garnering him a sizeable following on social media, platforms that he is constantly battling due to his "vulgar" content being reported by users.
Although not overtly political overall – other than taking very direct aim at political correctness (suicide, the death penalty, amputees, bodily fluids, and fetuses hanging out of their mothers are all fair game, again all slapped with that same unnerving grin) – Cornellà does take an occasional potshot at American politics, and specifically, racism and police brutality. In one strip, a runner merrily jogs along and it isn't until a (white) policeman shoots him in the back that the now dead jogger's black skin becomes a point of contention. Does the fact that the runner was taking part in a race, one in which the policeman wins, reduce the shock factor of the murder that has just been committed or is the setting purely part of a larger analogy?
Often the action in these strips takes place at such speed, or perhaps is so incongruous with what our innocent minds expect will happen, that they don't always allow for your brain to keep up. The result is that the viewer is forced to dart back and forth across panels, trying to pinpoint exactly where everything went wrong.
However, once you become more acquainted with Cornellà’s brand of dark humor you soon start to take comfort in the idea that it's all ok, none of it is real, and we're all going to die. The simple trick is to just keep smiling.
Joan Cornellà’s Beijing solo exhibition is on display at Parkview Green Art in 798 from now until Jul 28, 11am-7pm. Tickets are RMB 65 and can be bought at the door or online.
More stories by this author here.
Email: tomarnstein@thebeijinger.com
WeChat: tenglish_
Photos: Tom Arnstein, courtesy of the organizers
