"Pablo Amargo. Minimum spot, maximum idea" at ABC Museum
17/03/2018.
[Madrid] Spain, 16.03>20.05.2018
metalocus, INÉS OÑATE
metalocus, INÉS OÑATE
Paradoxes and double visual senses join the viewer in this exhibition of illustration that transmits double meanings about the artist's daily life.
Pablo Amargo. Poster for the Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez, 2009
Pablo Amargo. Poster for the París Festival, Quartier d’Été, 2014. Courtesy of ABC Museum
Pablo Amargo. Poster for the Semana Ilustrada, Biblioteca Insular de Gran Canaria, 2013. Courtesy of ABC Museum
Pablo Amargo. Cats are paradoxes, 2017. Courtesy of ABC Museum
Pablo Amargo. Cats are paradoxes, 2017. Courtesy of ABC Museum
Pablo Amargo. Cats are paradoxes, 2017. Courtesy of ABC Museum
Pablo Amargo. Cats are paradoxes, 2017. Courtesy of ABC Museum
Pablo Amargo. Casualidad, 2012. Courtesy of ABC Museum
Pablo Amargo. Casualidad, 2012. Courtesy of ABC Museum
Pablo Amargo. The New Yorker, 2017. Courtesy of ABC Museum
Pablo Amargo. The New Yorker, 2017. Courtesy of ABC Museum
Pablo Amargo. The New Yorker, 2015. Courtesy of ABC Museum
Pablo Amargo. The New Yorker, 2017. Courtesy of ABC Museum
ABC Museum presents the exhibition "Pablo Amargo. Minimum spot, maximum idea" by the illustrator National Illustration Prize and one of the most awarded internationally. The exhibition brings together the original drawings of its two most recent and recognized publications -Cats are Paradoxes and Chance-, as well as a selection of works made for various media.
Description of project by ABC Museum
If something stands out in the work of Pablo Amargo (Oviedo, 1971) it is his ability to show the strangeness of the world. His illustrations, begun through the intimate process of pencil drawing on paper, pursue paradoxes and visual double senses endowing them with different levels of meaning, plunging the viewer into a kind of game based on observation. His ability to analyze the details and everyday situations has led him to become today one of the most prestigious and recognized national illustrators worldwide.
Its unique stroke is characterized by a formal minimalism and a high aesthetic care that, opposed to the apparent simplicity of the drawings and a reduced color palette, hide great meanings thanks to subtle details that often escape in a first contact with the pieces. Amargo's illustrations speak and express themselves without words, as visual haikus of the modern world.
In the exhibition "Pablo Amargo. Minimum spot, maximum idea ", curated by the artist himself, you can see for the first time the original illustrations of his two most recent publications, the awarded Cats are Paradoxes (Jot Down Books) and Chance (Barbara Fiore Editora).
The drawings of Cats are Paradoxes fill the ABC Museum of black cats; flexible pussycats and in a state of permanent amazement. Also they have room in them empty rooms, interiors of majestic halls, gardens, streets and swimming pools. And even views of the rooftops of Paris, Roman ruins and Venetian bridges. Riddles drawn with black ink of which each viewer must imagine a before, a present and a later.
For its part, in the series of Chance the author is committed to a type of illustration that stops giving answers to the texts with which it relates and chooses to generate new questions. Written by Pepe Monteserín with illustrations by Amargo, this book is an example of when the work of the illustrator covers all that is visible; the choice of the format -unusually vertical-, the way of distributing the texts -generating a particular reading rhythm-, the typography chosen, the inclusion of non-fiction elements -such as the collections of comets, weathervanes and windmills of the world-, as well as the black and white illustrations that propose alternatives to the text.
The objective of the illustrator is to find the own personality of the project, which in Chance is in that search for the strangeness, mystery and irony of the images.
You can also see a series of selected pieces made in collaboration for some of the most prestigious publications in the world such as The New York Times, The New Yorker or National Geographic, as well as some of their pieces exhibited during the show Affiche 2017.
More information
Curator
Pablo Amargo
Location
Zero floor, ABC Museum. C/ Amaniel 29-31, Madrid (28015) Spain
Dates and schedule
From 16th March to 20th May, 2018. Schedules.- Thursday to Saturday 11 to 20h, Sunday 10 to 14h.
Pablo Amargo
Pablo Amargo, (Oviedo 1971) National Prize of Illustration in 2004, has a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Salamanca. Currently working as an illustrator collaborating regularly in newspapers and periodicals (The New York Times, The New Yorker, Jot Down Magazine, The Weekly Country, La Vanguardia, National Geographic ...), as well as in the realization of covers, posters and, very especially, in the illustration of books having published in different national and international publishers.
In 2005 he was selected to participate in the exhibition "Ilustrísimos", organized by the Ministry of Culture, to represent Spain as a guest country at the Bologna International Fair. He has also been selected in 2003 and 2009 at the Bologna Book Fair and in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2011 to Ilustrarte, Illustration Biennial of Portugal.
His book Cats are Paradoxes has received the Gold Medal 2017 by the New York Society of Illustrators, one of the most prestigious awards in the US. His other award-winning book, Casualidad, has received the prestigious CJ Picture Book Awards (Korea 2011) and the 2012 Gold European Design Awards (Helsinki 2012), 2012 Motiva Award for best illustrated book (Spain 2012), Laus de Bronze (Spain) 2012) and the Junceda Iberia Award (Spain 2012), among others.
Throughout his career, Amargo has received other recognitions such as the Award of Excellence Illustration Annual (USA 2013, 2014, 2015), the Silver Medal in 2015 and, most recently, the Gràffica Award (2016) for his contribution to visual culture by -in the words of the jury- "to be an illustrator who puts graphic intelligence before fireworks, who drinks from references without depredating them, who constructs meanings by pampering the form. It is therefore a rare illustrator in the current times and that at the same time is able to break through the banality of the trend and that of the imitators themselves who are beginning to be legion. Without it, it is difficult to understand what happens in the current graphic illustration".
In 2005 he was selected to participate in the exhibition "Ilustrísimos", organized by the Ministry of Culture, to represent Spain as a guest country at the Bologna International Fair. He has also been selected in 2003 and 2009 at the Bologna Book Fair and in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2011 to Ilustrarte, Illustration Biennial of Portugal.
His book Cats are Paradoxes has received the Gold Medal 2017 by the New York Society of Illustrators, one of the most prestigious awards in the US. His other award-winning book, Casualidad, has received the prestigious CJ Picture Book Awards (Korea 2011) and the 2012 Gold European Design Awards (Helsinki 2012), 2012 Motiva Award for best illustrated book (Spain 2012), Laus de Bronze (Spain) 2012) and the Junceda Iberia Award (Spain 2012), among others.
Throughout his career, Amargo has received other recognitions such as the Award of Excellence Illustration Annual (USA 2013, 2014, 2015), the Silver Medal in 2015 and, most recently, the Gràffica Award (2016) for his contribution to visual culture by -in the words of the jury- "to be an illustrator who puts graphic intelligence before fireworks, who drinks from references without depredating them, who constructs meanings by pampering the form. It is therefore a rare illustrator in the current times and that at the same time is able to break through the banality of the trend and that of the imitators themselves who are beginning to be legion. Without it, it is difficult to understand what happens in the current graphic illustration".
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