“My job is basically to build a bridge between what I want to say and what people will understand. And sometimes it has nothing to do with it. This reflection was made with laughter by the illustrator, designer and graphic humorist Riki Blanco shortly after leaving the students of the historic Toledo School of Art as well as a good part of the teaching staff stunned.
This artist is aware that he does not do easy humor. Or at least not for all audiences. He himself recognizes that written comprehension is essential and that the opposite, which “does not even have a name”, makes “visual culture” impossible.
Known mainly in the field of editorial and press illustration, the name of Riki Blanco appears in around a hundred publications. He has produced illustrations for a large number of national and international media, including elDiario.esand collaborated on creative projects of different types.
His work is growing with clients such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Hollywood journalist, Oprah Magazine, News week and Discovery Channel, among others. It combines all of this with experimental theater, recital, poetry, storytelling, video creation and musical composition.
On the occasion of his latest publication, “Book of Complaints”, he decided to give another look at “boring” literary presentations. “I mix the pieces I made with the podcast (“Containment”). “These are ideas which, instead of being vignettes, become stories told,” he explains. In fact, years ago he introduced another book of his that was all about his failures.
And it was this whole demonstration of versatility that he achieved at the Toledo School of Art, the description of which is almost impossible due to its fusion of styles and its originality.
For example, several buttons: its staging begins with the video broadcast of some tears of San Lorenzo, called Perseids, which never arrive. “With hope, but without expectations”, a presenter spends hours staring at a starry sky but without a single movement, with only the chirping of crickets in the background. This is where the first laughs begin.
From there, we move on to a reinterpretation of what we call the “language of fans” but which it transfers to the “language of cutlery”: as we place them on the plate, we send different messages such as: “Let me know if I have something in my teeth” or “I’m shitting myself.”
After performing “El Karaoke de los Vagos” with the audience, which usually involves “moving the lips” (in the videos projected at the same time there is subliminal language in reference to the type of lips he is referring to), Riki Blanco offers a thesis on bubble wrap, the ones that “we love to blow up so much”. He is convinced that every bubble is in a human being, that this paper is “a big voodoo doll” and that every time we burst a bubble, we end a human life. “Be careful with this, because, although the possibilities are remote, the next one could be you,” he warns.
Porn videos at evening classes for vampires
This graphic comedian also has his own theories about false teeth, he has different alternatives on the number 69 as a sexual position and a hilariously short story about a Ouija board with “zero staff costs” because they are made without anyone to help . apparently starting the machines.
Among these little essays, mini-plays and videos, one of those that appeals most to art school audiences is the song in which he exposes an irrefutable truth, which goes like this: “When the porn video is finish, you go out. reflected on the screen. What a slowdown. You are your consolation prize. In order not to declare oneself innocent, it is precisely the face of the designer which appears reflected on the screen.
The world of Riki Blanco does not end there. His theses lead him to proclaim the enormous importance of a supposed alcayata which appears in Picasso’s painting “Guernica”. According to him, this element carries all the “pressure and responsibility” of this work of art. But after that he also starts singing about how in vampire night classes no line can be crossed over another. Basically, because a cross forms and the vampire dies. He illustrates it with cinematic images of Count Dracula having a very bad time as some lines intersect with others.
In the end, the illustrator takes stock of his experiences with the injuries he finds on his body after a night of partying and also gives a little kick to the “coaches” by calling on them to pursue their dreams, but “with a certain flow, without stress, pursuing them.” with indifference, in a zigzag.”
This is only the first part of its production in front of the students of the School of Fine Arts. He then focuses on several of his vignettes requiring participant participation. There, pleasure also becomes art. These are not easy vignettes. These are ideas about politics, human relationships, emotions, identity, the passage of time and culture. Some are more surreal, others more representative, but most are loaded with “Martian” symbolism.
There is a philosophy common to all: to appeal to intelligence, to reflection, to a lesson, not about life, but for this precise moment. Riki Blanco himself tells us that he often finishes them himself and asks himself, “Is that understood?” With this question he challenged this media as well as the participants, collecting affirmative answers.
In reality, this insecurity is only intermittent, as he recognizes that after years of baggage, he works by trusting his intuition. “I let my subconscious work as a spectator of my own absurdities and my martianism“, he explains.
I’m very interested in human things, in psychology, in philosophy, but all of this is always linked to politics.
“I cannot divide or dissociate human relationships and political and social consciousness. What doesn’t interest me much is the news, because it changes, but at the same time everything happens again. I’m very interested in human things, in psychology, in philosophy, but all of this is always linked to politics.
The cartoonist also talks about the need to be prejudiced. “To be able to talk about something, to be agile and brief, you have to do without things that are understood. It’s a pact. It’s also dangerous because sometimes clichés are perpetuated, but when the emphasis is on another message, it’s better to forget the tributaries and stick to that message.”
Riki Blanco constantly talks about his “passing” situation in the world of graphic humor. “Now is my moment of ‘hello, I just got here, but you’re probably going to end up kicking me out,’ he says with a laugh. And it’s not that he wants to leave, it’s that he believes that one day he will say something he shouldn’t say “But for the moment, I feel very comfortable and it’s really the space in which I find my greatest creative freedom. . Every day I have the opportunity to change. For me now it is the best and I don’t think about anything else.
