Elena Nencini
Third edition for Coconino Fest at the Art Museum of the city of Ravenna from 21st to 23rd July, meetings, workshops, and more, while the collective exhibition «Freedom» will remain open until 28th July, with the paintings of Gipi, Furuya Usamaru , Filippo Scòzzari, Anke Feuchtenberger, Antonio Pronostico, Valentine Cuny-Le Callet, Pietro Scarnera (at the Classense Library), Enrico Pinto, Michele Peroncini, Spam the Psychic Mandarin, Isabella Tiveron. Luca Baldazzi, editor of the Coconino Press publishing house, explains the title of the exhibition and the current relevance of the comic.
Baldazzi, what is the function of comics today according to Coconino?
«Comic strips as we understand them at Coconino are a flexible language with which to tell all types of stories. It is in tune with the contemporary because it makes extensive use of images, but it is not necessarily easy. It can address any topic and speak to all ages and audiences. Today we talk about ‘graphic novels’. It’s more of a marketing term, we don’t particularly like it, but – as Art Spiegelman says – graphic novels are comics with an ambition’. In the exhibitions and meetings during our festival in Ravenna we present authors very different in style and content, from the corrosive streak of Gipi and Scòzzari to the manga of Furuya Usamaru, from the social denunciation of Valentine Cuny-Le Callet to the poetic gaze of Anke Feuchtenberger: l The intent is precisely to give a taste of the variety and richness of the possibilities of telling in comics.”
The exhibition unites old talents and new emerging ones linked by the word Freedom. Is there a need for ‘Freedom today?
«We chose ‘Freedom’ as a common thread thinking above all of the comic ‘Perpendicular to the sun’ by Valentine Cuny-Le Callet, a French author who points the finger at the abuses of the prison system and racism. But today freedom of expression is also often threatened, perhaps in more subtle ways, and comics like those of Filippo Scòzzari are an excellent antidote, because each of her cartoons is a battle against the limits imposed by stupidity disguised as common sense. In general, then, comics are more ‘free’ than other media because it is a poor art: it does not require large means of production, therefore it is less subjected to conditioning. And its freshness also lies in this freedom.”
