The Zaragoza History Centre has become one of the key points of contemporary art in Spain Thanks to the exhibition "Comic in Contemporary Art. Icons, Myth and Narrative." The proposal raises a question that has been circulating in museums and art classrooms for some time: to what extent can the language of comics be considered a central tool within contemporary creation and not just a form of entertainment or popular culture?
Far from offering a simple display of original comic book artwork, the exhibition presents 70 works by 32 internationally renowned artistsFrom historical figures of pop art to key names in urban art, Japanese neopop, and global visual culture, the exhibition offers visitors a journey that links comics, animation, media icons, and social commentary, all brought together in Zaragoza until August 23.
Dates, location and exhibition project
"Comic in Contemporary Art. Icons, myth and narrative" can be visited at the Zaragoza History Centre, from April 9 to August 23The exhibition is curated by Antonella Montinaro and produced by the Zaragoza City Council in collaboration with GACMA, who have created a project designed for a broad audience, but with a clear rigor in the historical and artistic approach.
The expository discourse proposes a journey that extends from the mid-twentieth century to the present, analyzing how comics, animation, and pop culture They have become a true engine of visual thinking. This is not about reviewing the evolution of the medium itself, but about showing how its codes have infiltrated painting, sculpture, design, music, and urban art.
For the city, the arrival of this project represents a a rare opportunity outside of major international museumsTo see works by artists who, in many cases, usually appear in major European and North American art centers, brought together in one space. The organizers emphasize precisely this exceptional nature, both because of the prominence of the artists and the coherence of the narrative that connects them.
The commissioner herself summarizes the objective of the proposal in one clear idea: to legitimize comics as an aesthetic reference within different movements of contemporary art of the last fifty years, and show how its iconography has gone from newsstands to museum walls.
Comics as a central language of contemporary art
One of the ideas that underpins the project is that comics and animation have become established as languages ​​capable of articulating complex visual thought. Your resources —sequencing and vignettesThe use of color, onomatopoeia, and iconic characters have been appropriated by different generations of artists to reflect on consumption, politics, identity, memory, and globalization.
The visitor can see how those images that were traditionally associated with superheroes like Superman or Spiderman, or characters from manga and animationThey have become part of a shared artistic mythology. Removed from their original context, these icons reveal the social, economic, and cultural tensions of the eras in which they emerged.
The exhibition makes it clear that comics are no longer perceived as a "minor art" or a mere pastime. As both the curator and city officials emphasize, That prejudice has become outdated.And today it is widely accepted that comics have influenced the visual construction of an entire century. The History Center takes this opportunity to illustrate in a very graphic way how this transition has occurred.
Far from being limited to a nostalgic look, the project proposes a dialogue between different eras and movementsThus, works linked to the emergence of pop art in the sixties coexist with pieces that engage with the postmodernism of the nineties, the rise of Japanese neopop, or the expansion of urban art as a channel for direct criticism.
The result is a journey that shows how comics, advertising, cartoons, and album covers have been absorbed by artists such as legitimate working material, capable of sustaining narratives as complex as those of any other plastic tradition.
From Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol to pop art and the comic book industry
The itinerary begins with a block focused on the The comic book industry and the birth of pop artIn this first part, there are screen prints and offset reproductions of figures such as Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol or Eduardo Paolozzi, as well as multiples by Claes Oldenburg or KAWS, which take as their starting point characters rooted in the popular imagination.
Lichtenstein's famous appropriation of cartoons and newspaper strips is taken here as a decisive turning pointWorks like the celebrated "Look Mickey" marked the transition from abstract expressionism to a language that unabashedly embraced comic book and animation imagery as artistic material. From then on, the boundaries between high culture and mass culture began to blur.
In the rooms dedicated to this period you can also see Screen prints that play with icons from the Disney universe, reviewed from an ironic and critical perspective. The work of Fernando Bellver stands out, for example, as he reinterprets characters like Mickey Mouse or other studio classics with an approach that oscillates between parody and homage.
This section highlights how, from the 1950s and 60s, European and North American artists used the graphic language of comics and advertising to question consumerism, media bombardment, and the construction of fame. These pieces serve as a foundation for understanding the rest of the exhibition, since They open the crack through which later creators will slip in..
This first section makes it clear that, even before comics were fully recognized by museums, many artists had already embraced their visual resources as an intrinsic part of their work, anticipating debates about originality, copying, and appropriation that are still very much present today.
European narrative figuration and political critique
After the dialogue with pop art, the visitor encounters a section dedicated to the European narrative figurationwhere names like Valerio Adami, Eduardo Arroyo, Erró, Equipo Crónica, Hervé Télémaque or Bernard Rancillac highlight the political dimension of comics and their ability to fragment and recompose narratives.
These works transfer the structure of the comic strip to painting, generating scenes full of historical, cinematic and media referencesFar from literally reproducing comic book pages, they propose compositions where recognizable characters, fragments of text and symbols of mass culture coexist, all arranged to directly address the viewer.
One of the highlights is Bernard Rancillac's "Buster Keaton and the Rabbit," in which the legendary silent film actor holds Bugs Bunny on his shoulder, mid-devouring a carrot. This playful juxtaposition of two iconic figures from different eras is a striking example of the playful interaction between these two figures. It summarizes the intention of the exhibition very well.: to show how fictional characters are reused time and time again to talk about the present.
In this area, the European perspective proves particularly incisive when addressing topics such as power, the media, and historical memoryComics become a resource that allows the introduction of humor, detachment, and even a certain irreverence, without giving up on addressing uncomfortable issues.
The fragmentation of the narrative, the overlapping of planes, and the blending of text and image clearly allude to the logic of comics, but at the same time engage with earlier pictorial traditions. It is precisely this tension between classical heritage and popular culture that lends these works a particular power within the exhibition.
Postmodernism, global visual culture and Japanese neopop
The next section of the tour delves into a territory marked by the Postmodernity and the globalization of imagesHere appear artists such as Coté Escrivá, Ricardo Cavolo, Judas Arrieta or Riiko Sakkinen, who take as a starting point characters from animation, video games and television series to deconstruct, deform or exaggerate their features.
In these pieces it is common to find altered versions of Mickey, Goofy, Doraemon, Super Mario, Garfield or others animated charactersThrough these icons, the artists open conversations about consumer culture, childhood as a media construct, and the way in which major franchises have colonized the collective imagination.
Of particular relevance within this section is the Japanese neopopRepresented by Takashi Murakami and Yoshitomo Nara, two of the most influential names on the recent international scene, their works show how manga and anime have gone from being products associated with a youthful audience to becoming languages ​​capable of speaking about loneliness, trauma, violence, or desire with a seemingly gentle aesthetic.
In the rooms dedicated to this section, you can see large lithographs by Murakami in which Characters reminiscent of kawaii coexist with floral motifs and recognizable figures. of pop culture, like Mickey Mouse or Doraemon. Beneath that colorful surface lie reflections on late capitalism, postwar Japan, and the relationship between art and the market.
For his part, Yoshitomo Nara contributes figures with a childlike appearance but ambiguous gestures, which introduce a a feeling of unease beneath the cartoon aestheticOnce again, what at first glance seems like a tribute to comics is revealed as a tool to question social and emotional conventions.
KAWS, mass culture and contemporary fetishes
Another name that underscores the international dimension of the exhibition is KAWS, an artist who has managed to make his characters and sculptures become authentic fetishes of contemporary popular cultureIn the Story Center, you can see multiple works in which the creator reinterprets children's and animated figures, often with X-shaped eyes and deformed bodies.
These works function as Commentary on the commodification of art and the mass circulation of imagesKAWS itself has collaborated with fashion brands, toys and major commercial firms, something that in the context of the exhibition is read not only as a dissemination strategy, but as an essential part of its discourse.
Their presence in Zaragoza adds an additional layer to the story, showing how some artists trained at the crossroads between graffiti, graphic design and collecting culture They have achieved a prominent place in museums and contemporary art fairs. Thus, the boundary between fan art, product, and museum piece becomes more difficult to define.
Along with KAWS, other pieces in the exhibition demonstrate how comics have become intertwined with the logic of franchises, cross-platform collaborations, and transmedia expansion. Characters that originated in comics or animated series now circulate throughout T-shirts, vinyl records, sculptures, video games and advertising campaigns, a phenomenon that the exhibition invites us to observe with a certain critical distance.
In this section, the visitor can clearly perceive how the taste for the collectable, the serialized and the limited is part of the current vocabulary of art, largely inheriting the logic of staples, print runs and special editions typical of the world of comics.
Urban art, counterculture and direct criticism
Urban art occupies a key place within "Comics in Contemporary Art", with artists such as Banksy, Keith Haring, D*Face, Flying Fortress (with Pez) or Raymond PettibonAll of them have brought the language of cartoons and illustration to the city walls, often without permission and in contexts with a strong political charge.
In these works, one can see how Comics become an instrument of immediate communicationcapable of delivering direct messages in public spaces. Banksy, for example, has used animated characters and highly recognizable visual references to denounce wars, inequalities, or environmental problems, as demonstrated by a poster created for a Greenpeace campaign featuring figures from "The Jungle Book."
Keith Haring, for his part, developed a language of silhouettes and dancing figures that, despite not being strictly comics, he shares with it. graphic synthesis and the desire to reach very broad audiencesHis murals and drawings demonstrate how urban culture and comic book aesthetics have hybridized since the 1980s.
Raymond Pettibon, known both for his drawings and his work with punk and alternative rock bands, functions in the exhibition as bridge between the music scene and the underground comic traditionHis nervous strokes, handwritten texts, and fragmented scenes are directly reminiscent of fanzines and independent publications.
Taken together, these pieces demonstrate a shift in comics towards countercultural and protest contexts, where images cease to be confined to printed pages and instead burst onto billboards, walls, and posters. The History Center thus presents a crucial chapter for understanding how comics have become linked to social struggles and recent political debates.
Comics, design, music, and other creative connections
The final section of the journey explores the relationships between comics, graphic design, animation and pop musicThis is where artists like Jamie Hewlett, Todd McFarlane, and Julian Opie come into play, whose works have had a remarkable impact on the visual culture of recent decades.
Jamie Hewlett, co-creator of "Tank Girl" and responsible for the visual universe of Gorillaz, appears represented through album covers and works where The aesthetics of comics are hybridized with music videos and character designThis area also features pieces by Todd McFarlane linked to bands like Korn, which demonstrate how comic book art and graphics have defined entire sonic identities.
Julian Opie, with his simplified figures with sharp outlines and flat colors, demonstrates the extent to which certain graphic resources close to comics have standardized within contemporary art and signage and cover designVisitors can recognize echoes of pictograms, classic video games, and comic strips in his works.
The exhibition concludes with works by artists such as Damien Hirst, Ai Weiwei, and Ricardo Cavolo, which broaden the conversation into symbolic and social realms. Their works reveal explicit references to animated or comic book characters, used to talk about topics such as political control, surveillance, violence or collective memory.
Alongside them, names like Fernando Bellver, Pepe RodrÃguez, Judas Arrieta, and Mahomi Kunikata contribute to showcasing the diversity of strategies From these perspectives, dialogue with comics is now taking place, whether by remixing children's icons, distorting movie characters, or playing with the memory of television series that marked generations.
In this way, the visitor finishes the tour with the feeling of having crossed a visual landscape in which practically all creative disciplines have drawn, to a greater or lesser extent, from the narrative and aesthetic formulas of comics.
The History Center's proposal puts one clear idea on the table: Comics and animation have gone from occupying a peripheral place to being at the center of the artistic debateFrom Zaragoza, this exhibition offers a broad overview —from pop art to Japanese neopop, from urban art to musical design— that allows us to understand how comics, characters and graphic universes have ended up reconfiguring the way we look at the world, demonstrating that what began among staples and newsstands today engages in dialogue on equal terms with the great narratives of contemporary art.
