Joan Cornella's solo exhibition "No Man's Land," which opened in December at the Hao Art Museum in Shanghai, is still creating a new social networking screen, and this is the second exhibition in Shanghai of the artist who has gathered popularity with black humor since social networks. It's been almost five years since the small solo exhibition at M50 in 2017, and there's a long global pandemic in between, making it feel like the last time you saw his work in Shanghai is a very long time ago. The presentation at the Hao Art Museum, both in terms of scale and form of works, has been greatly improved, continuing the network punch card process of "from the Internet to the Internet", and finding a moment of bad taste laughter in the vicious or witty text of the print comic.
Joan Cornella presents her first solo exhibition at a major art museum in Shanghai, No Man's Land
After a brief interview with the artist Cornella, many of the questions were not made clearer, but more ambiguous. I can see it as a failed interview of my career, or I can console myself that a controversial character who has exploded on social networks is very careful with his wording, or that he himself is so bad at talking that he uses the comic form of images + words to represent an absurd fragment of human daily life.
In short, what appealed to me about Cornella's work was that it interpreted dark humor in a bright and concise painting style, and had an attitude of "anything can be joked about" and "not afraid to offend anyone". He himself said it was a coping mechanism for him to face the sinking world—black humor. In an age when everyone can be offended by any reason, in the age of social media, it seems a bit bold and arrogant, and the characters laugh and cry with a kind of "What can I do, do you still have to live?" The look. Resolve embarrassment with embarrassment.
Artist Joan Cornella, Courtesy ofAllRightsReserved Ltd.
But unlike insult comedy, Cornella doesn't make fun of who she is. This is one of the reasons why he is controversial. If your humor and jokes are only about other people and not preying on yourself, there's a good chance you'll be labeled vicious rather than funny. Of the negative reviews, Cornella says, "Of course I have to deal with these negative reviews, which come with them and cannot be avoided. But in contrast, there are other artists who have more problems than I have encountered, so I have nothing to complain about. Such an answer only reminds me of a new word coined in recent years, whataboutism ("worse than rotten"), and when you attack A, the other person replies "Then B and C are not doing well, how to say it?"). ）。 But Cornella doesn't seem to be repulsed by these negative reviews and criticisms, going back to "not being afraid to offend anyone," a work that made North Korea's top leader more loving, and his attitude toward such resistance was very liberal; another example is that some works have a distinctly misogynistic tendency, but he does not respond too much to it.
However, in this exhibition "No Man's Land", the tone of the work is significantly softer. The "hug me" doll without a hand, the Internet celebrity who punches in the unmanned mine to take pictures, the "social animal" who squirts blood from the artery but still has to go to work, the object and content of ridicule and ridicule are obviously much milder. So I think, due to the environment, this has become an even "family-friendly" exhibition, just a little spice stimulation, can not be splashed with plasma. I wonder where the "not afraid to offend anyone" attitude went to this soft change, but the artist didn't answer positively, but let me guess for myself what the reason was.
View of the exhibition "No Man's Land"
Another interesting phenomenon is that Cornella relies on social networking platforms to gain fame, which is almost a classic example from online fire to offline. But in his early works, there was no shortage of satires of those Internet celebrities who went to the exhibition to take photos and punch cards, and now, his offline exhibitions have unsurprisingly become new punch-in landmarks. I am more inclined to think that people are complex, polyhedronic, and most people have a hard time maintaining a standard of one-to-one when faced with various choices. But i don't know whether the combination of contradictions has given rise to the artist's own contemplation, whether the things he opposes have ultimately been exploited by him, and whether these multiplicity are necessary to clarify in this day and age. They have puzzled me, and perhaps many artists like Cornella, and when confronted with such confusion, the coping mechanism of black humor seems to have lost its effect, it is no longer free and fearless, but can be selectively dysfunctional.
How did you start this collaboration with How did you start this collaboration with Howe Art Museum and AllRightsReserved? Who led it and how did you see this potential opportunity when it came to you?
After ARR and I finished our exhibition in Hong Kong in 2020, they proposed to me to do an exhibition in Chinese mainland. I chose Shanghai because it was the best option from many angles, so I got started. ARR has experience in holding exhibitions in Chinese mainland, and they also know about hao art museum, so they negotiate. Hao Art Museum has worked with artists such as KongShanji, and the space is also very good, so it is easy to reach a consensus on the exhibition.
You had a solo exhibition at the Shanghai M50 in 2017, so how are the two projects different from the last one?
2017 was the first time, and there were relatively few works on display. There are comic strip series and some oil on canvas. This time, the exhibition and the works were larger, and some of the animation works on display for the first time were also exhibited. In addition, the comic strip series on display this time has more text, not just the wordless comic strip like the last time. I now prefer to create in such a way as graphics and text.
I like the title of the exhibition, "No Man's Land," and the subtitle "But It's Possible in Shanghai." The English pun perfectly describes the humor of your work. So what does Shanghai mean for you this time?
I often like to present open-ended interpretations and ambiguities in my works, so a title like this is more representative and makes sense. We can travel as we please in the moment, and there is nothing we can't go. For this exhibition, I created some new works, in which some of the characters are behind various dystopian scenes, and maybe this is the perfect embodiment of Shanghai.
How have you continued to maintain your art creation and exhibitions for the past two years of global lockdowns and travel restrictions? After all, you first became popular on social networks, and what do physical offline exhibitions mean to you before and after the pandemic?
Since the beginning of the epidemic, I have only done two offline exhibitions, and before the epidemic, I had many exhibitions every year. So, the pandemic has definitely made a lot of things difficult, and it has forced me to slow down the pace of work and life. However, I was able to spend more time focusing on my work, and there was no other alternative anyway. So, I created a lot of works during this period, and from this point of view, this is still a positive side. Compared to the impact of the pandemic on everyone's lives, it may be the only benefit of the pandemic (focusing on one's own work and work).
What do you want to present to your audience in a physical exhibition that can't be presented online?
It's a very broad question, and I don't even know how to answer it. Anyone can see my work online or in a book, but going to an exhibition in person is different, it can combine a lot of extra things, what the audience sees is entirely up to themselves, everyone sees something different, so on this level, it doesn't have much relevance to what I expect the audience to see.
So how has the pandemic changed your artistic creation and private life?
Like I said before, I created a lot of works during the pandemic, and the exhibition only presents a very small part, but at the same time it makes me more discerning and carefully selected from a large number of works.
Audiences and fans love your black humor or bloody excitement, but the overall tone of the works exhibited at the Hao Art Museum has become softer, why? Is it because of censorship or audience acceptance, or do you have other ideas?
Leave the answer to your own imagination.
I personally love the black humor, and I don't think there's anything in the world that can't be joked about. But at the same time, we live in an era when everyone is looking for opportunities to be offended, so for you, an artist who brings laughter and black works to the audience, have you experienced any positive conflicts over the years? How did you respond to applause and bashing?
Of course I have to face these negative evaluations, which come with it and cannot be avoided. But in contrast, there are other artists who have more problems than I have encountered, so I have nothing to complain about.
"Nothing Is Possible"
How did you get started creating this kind of comic with a reversal of ending? Can you elaborate on how your style came to be here today? And, when you first started creating, what kind of message did you want to convey to comic book readers?
My previous comics have a lot of text, and the words are the best part of my comics. Suddenly one day I started drawing wordless cartoons and fell in love with it. Until then, I thought wordless comics were very hard to do. So, after creating more and more wordless works, I realized that this form could reach more audiences and readers, regardless of language. So now, I don't think of myself as a cartoonist with words. The characteristic of wordless comics is that they will be very fast when they first watch it, just like when we look at an advertisement. But many people don't understand my work at first glance, so they read it several times. Many people have also told me that they look at my work in a very confused way, that is, they will like it after reading it, and then laugh and laugh together, but they don't understand anything. Many people also see some hidden meanings, even I don't realize it, and some people just can't understand anything, but continue to look.
Many people have their own unique coping mechanisms when faced with trauma or negative events, and black humor is a very typical one. What is your own coping mechanism?
That's it, black humor.
Part 1: Missing
Bottom: Doubah
Will social media remain your main platform after that? Or do you prefer to do exhibitions offline?
I personally hope that offline exhibitions can be the main platform, but social media is too powerful and my main audience comes from there.
What are your arrangements for 2022? Will we see more of your exhibitions and works around?
I'm currently working with one of my favorite artists and the work will be on display in 2022. It's not easy to reveal much at the moment, but I'm optimistic about this project. In addition to this, there are several other collaborations in the incubation stage.
Interview, writing, Bu Sheng
Edit Mark Liu
Image courtesy of @ARR. AllRightsReserved