Amadeo Gandolfo, « The Ridiculous Part of Every Great Enterprise: The Works and Life of Oski »

Tuesday 25 March, 10:30 -12:00 / Ghent University (Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Gent), Camelot (third floor)

Oscar Conti (Oski) was one of the most important Argentine cartoonists of the 20th Century. Born in 1914, deceased in 1979, his career spanned the most fertile years of the Argentinian comics industry. He was a cartoonist of an enormous popularity and prestige, profuse production, a frequently cited example of the artistic possibilities of the medium, as well as a political cartoonist. He published in Argentina, and also in Chile, Cuba, France, Germany, Italy, México, Perú, Spain and Venezuela. He has been cited as an influence by cartoonists such as Sergio Aragonés, Quino and Rius. He organized exhibitions of his works across Latin America and Europe and « covered » important works of art such as Las Meninas and Knight, Death and The Devil. He illustrated classics like Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost and kids’ encyclopedias. He travelled to Cuba in 1960 and to Chile in 1970 to experience and contribute to the revolutionary processes that were taking place in said countries. He also denounced, with great irony, the colonization of Latin America by the Spanish Empire in several books and in the short film La Primera Fundación de Buenos Aires, exhibited at the Cannes Film Festival in 1959. All of this speaks about a multifaceted artist: a cartoonist, illustrator, traveler and intellectual able to bridge the gap between art history and comics history, 20th Century politics and labor in the culture industry. This talk will present the book I am currently working on that seeks to address all these dimensions of his work and introduce him to a 21st Century audience.