Animal artist’s notebook

Description

The young ladies of Avignon reconverted into mandrills; the sex-symbol Mae West (Dali), into a lion; the ballet dancers by Degas, into flamingos subjected to severe rehearsals in order to become famous… A stroll past the paintings from the last century, revisited with humour and irony, from a singular perspective: the animal kingdom Teaching to look, awakening curiosity for some brilliant works, avant-garde and individuality relevant to art in dialogue with literary fiction is the proposal presented to us in ‘Notebook’ in which unusual characters, inspired by emblematic works from the 20th century, are able to provoke sensations and new meanings. We are surprised on discovering Klimt’s animals such as tigers lyrically couples, Marilyn (Warhol) multiplying herself as a narcissistic chameleon, or the tormented and non-conformist monkey, Chita, retired from the limelight, playing the lead in The Shout (Munch). With a red scarf and a black overcoat, we find Aristide Bruant, a famous Lapland notary, singing in the Ambassadeurs in Paris to his idolatrous partner, perhaps under the watchful eye of the master Toulouse-Lautrec and of the parrots, habitual cabaret goers. The Maja (dressed or nude), reincarnated as a sheep, will tell us, boastingly, the latest in the gossip columns… Magritte, Botero, Klee, Mondrian, Brancusi… Stein, Joyce, Curros… Are they in debt with this ‘Notebook’? Painting and literature face to face with the diverse fauna to bring us closer to the world of art from a different viewpoint. 2º PRIZE FOR THE BEST EDITED INFANT AND JUVENILE BOOK 2008 Text by Antón Fortes Illustrations by Maurizio A.C. Quarello Translation by Mark W. Heslop