Friday 10th and Saturday 11th May the Ca.Co. Festival comes to life and will invade Bari with extraordinary exhibitions, screenings, workshops and parties, all dedicated to the world of illustration, comics and animation, but will also be a privileged space for contemporary independent publishing.
The thirteenth edition of the Ca.Co Festival is entitled “Ca.Co Festival against GIANTS”, an event in complete contrast to the dominant and easy-to-consume culture. Although the strength of the “Giants” is increasingly evident, as they seek to destroy everything that is contrary to their vision of the world, the Ca.Co. Festival does not give up and continues with its work of promoting and understanding other perspectives and visions. And how to do it, if not with beauty? Beauty is, in itself, a revolutionary act, but not if it is understood as decorum or as a reactionary act. Beauty for Ca.Co. it is first and foremost discovery, light and determining force of change. Every graphic sign, every note, is an element of this continuous research and represents the means to bring people closer to beauty in diversity.
Featured in the 2024 program will be exhibitions by international artists such as Nigoull (who also created the event poster this year and which combines abstract and figurative art) and La Buanderie (the project that brings together 120 artists around a fascinating project on handkerchiefs), which will be accompanied by concerts of visionary music, screenings by the 2LP collective, workshops for novices and experts as well as the now classic Comic Battle, which in the past launched the careers of successful artists such as Valentina Lorizzo and Elías Taño. The collective exhibition, which will be held inside the former Caserma Liberata, will feature La Buanderie, Ester Helvete, Alexandre Bruyas, Desperfecto and Tilf.
THE PROGRAM
10 MAY, FORMER BARRACKS FREED
opening at 5.00pm
CONCERT HALL
5.00 pm – FREDDIE DJ dj-set
8.00 pm – TIZIANA SALVATI and MARCO MALASOMMA live
9.00pm – PARTIALMETE SKIMMED live
10pm – LUCA TANZINI TRIO live
11.00 pm – SAN LEO live
00.00 – DJ ANDRE U FAT dj-set
EXHIBITION ROOM
7.30 pm – opening of the exhibition by La Buanderie, Ester Helvete, Alexandre Bruyas, Desperfecto, Tilf
MIMì THEATER MILAN
4.00 pm – Screening of “The Iron Giant” (directed by Brad Bird, USA, 1999)
7.00 pm – Screening “The Pharaoh, the Savage and the Princess” (directed by Michel Ocelot, France/Belgium, 2022)
9.30 pm – Screening “Marona’s Fantastic Tale” (directed by Anca Damian, France-Belgium-Romania, 2019)
11.30pm – Homage to Leiji Matsumoto – “Interstella 5555” (directed by Daisuke Nishio, Hirotoshi Rissen, Kazuhisa Takenōchi, Leiji Matsumoto, Japan, 2003)
11 MAY, EX-BARRACKS FREED
opening at 4.00pm
CONCERT HALL
5.00 pm – DJ ANDRE U FAT dj set
8.00pm – NOMISAKE live
9.00 pm – LO FLOPPER (Fra Ita) live
10.00 pm – ICHI (GIAP) live
11.00 pm – UPHORIA (UK, ITA) live
00.00 – Ciro Disturbass World Afro Music dj-set
MAYAKOWSKI HALL
PRESENTATION OF BOOKS
7.00 pm – Sputnik press presents the graphic novel “Balucama” – The Nausea Collective presents its editorial projects
MIMI THEATER MILAN
6.00 pm – Homage to Akira Toriyama – “Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero” (directed by Tetsuro Kodama, Japan, 2022)
8.30 pm – “Deep Sea” (directed by Tian Xiaopeng, China, 2023)
10.30pm – “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman” (directed by Pierre Földes, France, Canada, Luxembourg, Netherlands, 2022)
EXHIBITION ROOM
4.00pm – Comic Battle
THE ARTISTS
NIGOULL (France)
Born in 1993 in Clermont-Ferrand, Nigoull explores the urban world by adapting his work to a thousand media and projects. From a very young age he practiced theater and clowning. He then discovers the work on the improvisation of gestures, on free expression but also on how to translate his will into visual creation. It is natural that this scenic experience influenced his plastic work. Using traditional techniques (ink, engraving, acrylic) and urban techniques (collage, graffiti, frescoes, personalization), he represents moving elements that suggest a constant exchange within his paintings and with the gaze of his viewers. His mix between abstract and figurative art offers the possibility of getting lost in it and above all becoming an interpreter of every detail that makes up his works. Nigoull participates in numerous events presenting performances, artistic collaborations and body painting throughout France and also in Europe. Attached to his Auvergne mountains, he returns as soon as possible to immerse himself in an area rich in nature, the first source of inspiration for the artist .
ALEXANDRE BRUYAS (France)
Alexandre Bruyas, aka Brulex, is a French illustrator and screenprinter born in 1986. A polymorphic creator, he covers various fields such as painting, illustration, independent publishing and concert images. From posters to micro-publishing, he works mainly in screen printing, his favorite technique. His work is regularly presented at independent fairs in France and Europe. His universe is based on a singular graphic style, between dark psychedelia and raw symbolism, creating visions tinged with cynicism and lucidity, inspired by everyday life as well as his most disturbed dreams. Rich in allegories and double meanings, his images, dense and complex, often celebrate the animal world and offer a privileged place to dogs, who reign supreme in the artist’s personal Pantheon. Sparing neither the eyes nor the mind, the universes invented by Brulex are so many strange echoes, sometimes violent and grotesque, always profound and explosive, of our own reality.
LA BUANDERIE (France)
Sniff! It’s beautiful… Ten years ago les plus beaux mouchoirs de Paris (the most beautiful handkerchiefs of Paris) were born, a project that today brings together 120 artists from all over the world with over 300 silk-screened editions. Initiated by Pierre-Alexis Deschamps, this project is now led by the Buanderie Association in Lille, France. Pierre-Alexis explains: “The most beautiful mouchoirs de Paris are made in Lille. From the first time I stuck my nose in the handkerchief it seemed to me that it was much more than a simple receptacle for our secretions. We cannot also use it to muffle the our voice on the phone? To erase our fingerprints, gag someone or carry tobacco or precious objects? These modest squares of thin fabric are also instruments of seduction and are full of memories: I had to dive deeper and so I surrounded myself with one band of cheerful pranksters. I started printing my drawings in 2005, and then I made other series in 2012. In the meantime I realized that I had never really used that now antiquated object in the way I intended to use it, so I started buying all the handkerchiefs I could find. And so, in 2013, armed with a few suitcases full of handkerchiefs, I started inviting artist friends from my entourage. La Buanderie was born that same year as a small exhibition space with the first performance in October. It was immediately evident that the project was also interesting in terms of mobility and its proximity to street vendors. And so from exhibitions to festivals, one thing leads to another and the beaux mouchoirs have become what they are today. Spectators will therefore be able to walk under a forest of handkerchiefs.”
AWER (Italy)
Awer was born as a writer in the province of Bari, where from the beginning he tried to interpret in an alternative way, invading the Italian streets with robotic creatures. His imagery, always strongly linked to some sort of visual representation of music, is characterized by vibrant, hypnotic parallel lines that take any shape a bit like water. A sort of filter that shows reality in a differently relaxing optical form, opening a window for the mind to explore possible universes, which distract the viewer from everyday life. He lives and works between Berlin and Polignano a Mare, currently moving throughout Europe.
DESPERFECTO (Colombia)
Sarcófaga is an editorial laboratory that seeks to materialize graphic projects through artists’ books and silk-screen printed posters. This project, created in 2013 in Bogotá, attempts to publish proposals related to marginal art or alternative comics, as it finds here a platform of resistance through art against traditional graphic communication, its tendencies and forms of production. The goal is to create new scenarios to develop graphic concepts with printed projects, promoting technical and conceptual research through the development of self-managed content. In its editions, this publishing house has decided to publish visual experiments that expose proposals ranging from cynical tenderness to critical eschatology, to double standards, to bizarre, impotent, unhealthy, incorrect, uncomfortable and sensational discourse. In this way Sarcófaga tries to propose a style that constantly plays with the ambiguity of repugnant speeches presented in an attractive way. He finds in abjection the opportunity to upset identities, systems and orders, but at the same time to fascinate and attract the viewer’s attention with special editions.
ICHI (Japan)
Coming from Nagoya’s underground music scene, ICHI moved to the UK and Bristol after meeting English singer-songwriter Rachael Dadd, now his wife, at a small DIY festival in his hometown. He draws inspiration for his art from all over the world: a melting pot of punk, reggae and dub, Henri Salvador, tribal music and scratchy old 78s. With his trusty sampler always at hand, ICHI spends hours poised, ready to capture the perfect drop of water or page stroke, a process he describes as “like catching an animal.” Recorded entirely on a four-track recorder in his attic studio, Maru finds that ICHI layers Heath Robinson-style musical landscapes made with found objects and bizarre homemade instruments (double bass, kalylaphone, hatbox-pedal-drum, skip-xylophone and tapumpet) with entries depicting colorful characters. The album features guest vocals from This Is The Kit frontwoman Kate Stables, her wife Rachael Dadd and Lost Map’s Rozi Plain.
ESTER HELVETE (Spain)
“Eyeliner, hxc ‘n punk” is the project of Spanish Ester Helvete, which focuses on hardcore punk music, DIY culture, care and radical tenderness in all its forms. This project serves as a way to escape and also as a way to express thoughts and reflections from a critical point of view in a political perspective.
LIST OF THE ARTISTS
Awer, Nomisake, Francesca Ammaturo, Bianca Instabile, Ilaria di Emidio, Claudia Finelli, Cerbystyle, Brulex, Nigoull, Bambola press, Jessica Idran, Bibo 4 Delmattino, Tutura, Sputnik Press, Qgtattoos, Pausania studio, Mr. Holyshit, Annalisa tannoia, Francesca alias Nesia, La Buanderie, Anemone, Martina Faya, Ester Helvete, Desperfecto, Collettivo Macco, Melania Zingaro, YELETRES, Cristina Intini, Alessia Milillo, Rose Romano, Produzioni Pirata, Jo, Nico Riosa, Subseri, MR PL, Bada, jeanne , Collective Nausea, Luca Savino, Tilf, Claudio Losghi.
