by Ana von Rebeur
After almost two years
of FECO Argentina´s existence, the members of the youngest branch of FECO are
hosting great cartoonists from all parts the world in the biggest internacional
cartoon exhibition in the history of Argentina . Finally , we did our goal : to
host cartoonist from countries who hosted us in several exhibitions through
these two years.
We don´t take credit for the enormous quantity of works
received. The credit goes to all the cartoons organizations and websites who
gently helped us enormously in the really fast spreading of the invitation to
this event , and to all the cartoonists who helped us in translating the
invitation to Telugu language in India, to arab in Iran, to chinese, to german,
etc.
I also noticed how important is to participate in contests and
exhibitions, because they let your name be known in several countries in the
world, and it encourages cartoonists to take part of an exhibition and contest
in which they know there is a physical person ( in this case, myself) behind all
this. ( It isn´t so virtual!)
We are living a beginning of the century, in
which all strong spiritual, idealistic and humanitarian values seem to be "out
of date" , and in which the world goes to a liberalism and ultramaterialism "no
matter what". In spite of it , I think this times are going to be remembered as
the century of the faster and easier communications.
Internet let us contact globally in seconds. And that is what helped to make
this exhibition possible only three monthes after we announced it.
Every
person who visits Boca Juniors Football Stadium ( the biggest place we could
get), is astonished and moved at the enormous variety and great quality of
cartoons.
I wasn´t too optimistic to name the exhibition " 1000 Ja, Ja!" (
the onomatopeyic sound of laugh, for you " Ha , Ha"), expecting 1000 cartoons to
take part of it. In fact, we got more than 1000 cartoons from near 300
cartoonists from 44 countries.
The cartoonists who were in St Just Le Martel,
like FECO Member Norberto Lombar, told in the opening speech :" Being here is
like meeting again such good friends I made in France, like Peter Ruge, Frank
Hoffman , Peter Niewendyk, Roger Penwill, Harca, Marlene Pohle.... I feel like
they are here in person!". Feco member Sergio Más travelled 1400 km ( going and
returning home, in Cordoba province) to see the exhibition, and he was awesome
and amazed to see the biggest prizes of the world in the walls: "I can´t believe
it! Everybody is here! Kulinich, Patchenko, Porumbita, Jiang Lidong, Leng Mu,
Luczynski, Ochakovsky,
Dergatchov, Emilio Isca, Erdogan Basol, Kazanevsky, Kosobukin...No one wanted to
miss this event!"
The exhibition was declared of
Cultural Interest by the Secretary of Culture of Buenos Aires City Government,
and that helped us to ask for the sponsorship of two publishing houses (
Ediciones de la Flor, that publishes Quino and Fontanarrosa books) and a comic
shop ( Eternia) who gave us great argentinian cartoon books as prizes.
The
Secretary of Education of Buenos Aires Government put us in contact with the
General Direction of Primary Schools who send the invitation to every school in
the city to take part " To Children with Humour" project. Every monday during
the four weeks exhibition, we receive from 100 to 300 children, we guide them
through the exhibition, we tell them about our experience as cartoonists and we
draw for them and they draw for us. We only had a hard time saying good bye
because they wouldn´t leave! That made us consider further projects with
children, because they seem to be the eagerest receptors of cartoons and
caricatures.
We wanted also non cartoon-fans to be involved with cartoon
world, and therefore we turned the exhibition into a humour festival inviting
well known TV joke tellers, stand up comedians and musicians to perform on
Fridays and weekends for free. We only asked the audience to bring a
contribution of a non perishable food for hospitals and the poorest zones of the
city.
And we also organized several conferences of
cartoonists ( " How do we get our ideas?" " How to publish an independent humour
magazine", " What is FECO?" ) and organized a talk of art directors and
publishers ( " How to join texts and illustrations") . All of the talks where
were very successful, counting with a respectful audience, with the only setback
that so many talks in a whole day forced everybody to be seated in the same
chair during full four non- stop hours!
With the help of Walter Farías (
Secretary of Press and Public Relations of Boca Juniors Culture Department), we
managed to get the media attention, and the event was mentioned in articles
published in the three major argentinian newspapers: Clarín, La Nación and
Página 12. The Spanish website ww.humoralia.org gently put in the web a full
coverage of the event.
The hardest thing will be to name winners. There are
hundred of excellent works.
The University of Cali in Colombia asked us to
send the whole exhibition ( through scanned copies) to their International
Cartoon Contest and Exhibition in Colombia, to be held from 19th November . And
a crew of documentalist from HBO International cable TV channel will come to
Buenos Aires from Venezuela to make a special documentary program on argentinian
cartoons, comics and humor, and they are eager to film FECO exhibition and
interview us. That will make all participants be known in all Latinoamerican
countries!
FECO" 1000 Ja, Ja!" future exhibition is going to be held in
December in the most visited art museum in Buenos Aires (Centro Cultural
Recoleta) . I´ll tell you about that, too.
Thank you all for having taken
part of this. We are "Drawing the world together"( FECO´s motto),
indeed!
" 1000 Ja,
Ja!" curio and details that surprised us
the most:
In the near 300 cartoonists particpants, only 12 are women. Three of them are from Irán, with exceptionally witty works . They are Mona Sadat Seyyed Reza Zarbaf , Manizheh Hejazi and Maryan Nodan .
The envelope with three misterious lentils sent by an iranian cartoonist . (Someone knows the meaning of it? )
The secret of romanian Mihaita Porumbita´s name , and the lovely folkloric dolls he sent.
French cartoonist Damien Glez from Burkina Faso,surprised us sending a caricature of argentina´s presidente Duhalde. Africa, donde reside.
Some subjects that appear more than twice: pirates, taliban women, peace doves, ecological problems.
Minimalist cartoons by iranian Gasen Lofty.
The hiperrealistic caricatures by italian artist Achille Superbi and by cuban Kiko.
The amazing use of color by russian Igor Patchenko, polish Slawomir Luczynskiy and ucranian Yuri Kosobukin .
Ths misterious figures by polish Jézof Bendziecha
The color pencil mastership of Bulgarian Stefan Despodov.
The tidy and obsesive drawing technic of iranian calligrapher Rezaei Paiman and by italian Angelo Dalponte
The exquisite scene of humour and composition of corean Tae-Yong Kang.
Exotic subject by egiptian Sami Mohamed Alí Mohamed Bedaiei
The delicate multiple jokes on modern women by Spanish Pablo Valverde.
The great ideas and tidy craftmanship of Russian resident in Israel Yuri Ochakovsky
The lively and crazy cartoons by Cyrus Ngatia Gathigo ( Kenya)
The Boca- River peacusul football match as seen by nigerian Christopher Nwokocha Azuka
The agile line style made by Chandra ( India)
The powerful energy of Portorrican cartoonist and designer Kike Estrada .
The wonders done in Wacom by Roger Penwill .
The smart Mondrian style work of argentinian resident in England Oscar Grillo.
The funny panoramic
situation by Ross Thomson.
