20th International Comics Festival will be held from September 28th to October 1st, 2023

GUESTS AND GUEST PROJECTS OF THE FESTIVAL:

• CONSTELACIÓN GRÁFICA / GRAPHIC CONSTELLATION - YOUNG WOMEN AUTHORS OF AVANT-GARDE COMICS Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona CCCB, Spain.

The project was realized in cooperation with the Embassy of the Kingdom of Spain in Belgrade

BÀRBARA ALCA, MARTA CARTU, GENIE ESPINOSA, ANA GALVAÑ, NADIA HAFID, CONXITA HERRERO, MARÍA MEDEM, MIRIAMPERSAND, ROBERTA VÁZQUEZ, JORDI COSTA

• BEYOND COMICS - A LOOK INTO THE ARTWORKS OF COMICS AUTHORS FROM SERBIA
  Authors of the Project and Curators of the exhibition: Žika Tamburić, Tijana Tamburić, Marko Stojanović

ŽIKA TAMBURIĆ, TIJANA TAMBURIĆ, MARKO STOJANOVIĆ, ALEKSA GAJIĆ, ALEKSANDAR ZOGRAF, GETO, BRANISLAV - BANE KERAC, BRANKO ĐUKIĆ, DANILO MILOŠEV WOSTOK, DARKO PEROVIĆ, DEJAN NENADOV, ĐORĐE MILOVIĆ, DRAGAN PAUNOVIĆ, DRAGANA KUPREŠANIN, DRAGANA RADANOVIĆ, DRAŽEN KOVAČEVIĆ, IVANA FILIPOVIĆ, JANA ADAMOVIĆ YANA, JOVAN UKROPINA, MARKO NIKOLIĆ, MILORAD VICANOVIĆ MAZA, MIROLJUB MILUTINOVIĆ BRADA, r.m.GERA, SAŠA JOVANOVIĆ, SAŠA JOVANOVIĆ FAFNER, SINIŠA BANOVIĆ, STEVAN SUBIĆ, TIHOMIR ČELANOVIĆ, TONI FEJZULA, ZVONIMIR VIDIĆ

• DARKO PEROVIĆ (RS)

• VELJKO KRULČIĆ (HR)

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CONSTELACIÓN GRÁFICA / GRAPHIC CONSTELLATION - YOUNG WOMEN AUTHORS OF AVANT-GARDE COMICS
Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona CCCB, Spain.

The project was realized in cooperation with the Embassy of the Kingdom of Spain in Belgrade

BÀRBARA ALCA, MARTA CARTU, GENIE ESPINOSA, ANA GALVAÑ, NADIA HAFID, CONXITA HERRERO, MARÍA MEDEM, MIRIAMPERSAND, ROBERTA VÁZQUEZ, JORDI COSTA

Bàrbara Alca, Marta Cartu, Genie Espinosa, Ana Galvañ, Nadia Hafid, Conxita Herrero, María Medem, Miriampersand and Roberta Vázquez make up the constellation of creative universes that is this exhibition. Nine artists who experiment with styles and languages, who break with comic-book conventions, and share a critical view of the world, that oscillates between the poetic and the humorous.

"Graphic Constellation" presents the diversity of languages, aesthetic registers and cultural references of these nine creators who, with their use of colour, graphics, and stylistic and narrative experimentation, challenge the hegemonic aesthetics of comics.

In their work, the nine artists cast a questioning eye over themes within the millennial experience, such as economic and job insecurity, the disappearance of stability, our ambivalence towards technology, the force of sisterhood and the liquid condition of love relationships in the Tinder era.

The exhibition is also an invitation to discover how a network of self-publishing fairs, small publishing houses and printers have consolidated the alternative scene on which these nine artists move and learn. And it highlights how comic language can step off the paper and come to life in other artistic media.

Curated by Montserrat Terrones, Graphic Constellation, open from 2 December 2022 to 18 June 2023 at CCCB (Centre de Cultura Comtemporània de Barcelona), wanted to question the canonical forms used until now in comic exhibitions, trying to respect both the popular origin and the narrative dimension of the medium. The exhibition aimed to offer an innovative perspective on comics, letting the strips and their characters take over the exhibition space.

The nine artists were invited to imagine new ways of invading the museum space with imaginative solutions based on the essence of the comic as a sequential narrative through graphic imagination in nine installations created expressly for the occasion. The press and the public hailed the proposal as a true game-changing project.

The exhibition now presented in Belgrade, is a traveling archive of the materials shown in Barcelona, a portable memory of an ambitious project that celebrated the prodigious creative moment of a constellation of nine radiant talents.

Jordi Costa

BEYOND COMICS - A LOOK INTO THE ARTWORKS OF COMICS AUTHORS FROM SERBIA
 Authors of the Project and Curators of the exhibition: Žika Tamburić, Tijana Tamburić, Marko Stojanović

Serbian comics artists are known for exploring a variety of art forms other than comics. Some have taken to illustrations, others to sculpture, painting, playing music or creating album covers. There are art directors, professors, filmmakers, multi-media artists and more.

This exhibition aims to present the richness and versatility of their artistic achievements. It also shows how their wider artistic expressions influence their comics art.

We hope this exhibition will contribute to a better appreciation of comics art and artists within the wider art world.

Žika Tamburić is a comics critic, historian, editor and publisher of “Modesty stripovi”, Belgrade, since 2011. Alongside his daughter Tijana Tamburić, he co-founded “Modesty Comics”, London, in 2013, to bring comics from the region of ex-Yugoslavia to English speaking audiences.

Tijana Tamburic is a storyteller. She tells stories across different mediums and in innovative ways.
She is co-founder of all-female creative agency Female Narratives based in London. Tell real stories for brands including Bumble, Allbirds, The North Face, Merrell, Kiehl’s and many female-founded b-corps.
She is also the co-founder of Modesty Comics alongside her father Zivojin Tamburic, founded in 2013.
She was Forbes 30 Under 30 2019 and a judge in 2020, her TEDx Talk ‘When My Masculine Met My Feminine’ has over 42,000 views and her opinion pieces, articles and podcasts are widely read and listened to.

Marko Stojanović is a comics scriptwriter, author, editor, critic and director of “The Balkan Festival of Young Comics Creators”, Leskovac, since 1998.

Еxhibiting artists: ALEKSA GAJIĆ, ALEKSANDAR ZOGRAF, GETO, BRANISLAV - BANE KERAC, BRANKO ĐUKIĆ, DANILO MILOŠEV WOSTOK, DARKO PEROVIĆ, DEJAN NENADOV, ĐORĐE MILOVIĆ, DRAGAN PAUNOVIĆ, DRAGANA KUPREŠANIN, DRAGANA RADANOVIĆ, DRAŽEN KOVAČEVIĆ, IVANA FILIPOVIĆ, JANA ADAMOVIĆ YANA, JOVAN UKROPINA, MARKO NIKOLIĆ, MILORAD VICANOVIĆ MAZA, MIROLJUB MILUTINOVIĆ BRADA, r.m.GERA, SAŠA JOVANOVIĆ, SAŠA JOVANOVIĆ FAFNER, SINIŠA BANOVIĆ, STEVAN SUBIĆ, TIHOMIR ČELANOVIĆ, TONI FEJZULA, ZVONIMIR VIDIĆ

DАРКО PEROVIĆ (RS)

SPECIAL AWARD FOR GENERAL CONTRIBUTION TO SERBIAN COMICS

Darko Perović is a Serbian comics artist, born in 1965 in Aranđelovac, Serbia. He began his career in comics after completing Graphic School in New Belgrade in 1983. His first full-length story, Breck, was awarded by the magazine Polet as the best Yugoslavian comic in 1987. In 1990, it was published as a brochure album. Twenty years later, it was reissued in hardcover by Comico, and in 2018, it was published in France by Inukshuk. At the Vinkovci Comic Festival in 1988, he won an award for the script of a six-page story titled Azra, Alaraph... He worked on animated films at the animation studio of the Center of Film Working Communities Belgrade, also creating storyboards, animated commercials, and short films. In 1989, he unsuccessfully attempted to produce a short film titled Jedna zvezda za mene (A Star for Me) with Zagreb Film. He worked on illustrations and animated films for the State Television School Program, youth press, posters, and cover art. In 1991, he moved to Spain. He collaborated with scriptwriter Sánchez Abulí on short stories, as well as on a short series titled Duboko i hladno (Deep and Cold) based on his own script, and also on storyboards and commercials. Croatian publisher Libellus compiled his short stories with Abulí in 2010 in a book titled Opake priče (Abominable Stories), and Inukshuk published them in France in 2022 under the title Histoires abominables. All the short comics from the 1980s and the series Duboko i hladno were published by System Comics in Serbia in 2011, and Inukshuk released them in France in 2020 under the title Satory Bar. In late 1997, he received an offer from the Italian publishing house Sergio Bonelli Editore to work on the series Magico Vento (The Magic Wind) with a script by Gianfranco Manfredi. The collaboration was briefly interrupted due to the war in Yugoslavia but resumed in January 2000 with the episode Blue Wolves. To date, he has contributed to seventeen episodes of the series. He also worked on the miniseries Shanghai Devil and Adam Wild for Sergio Bonelli Editore. Simultaneously, he began collaborating with the French publisher Soleil. Based on a script by Novy, he illustrated the album The Secrets of Vatican Files. He created the two-volume Alamo with Olivier Dobremel in 2011 and the two-volume Dr. Watson with Stéphane Betbeder in 2014. In 2022, he published the first volume of the series Captain Voodoo for Delcourt. He lives and works in Belgrade.

VELJKO KRULČIĆ (HR)

Excerpts from the program of the Festival:

MAUROVIĆ: OD MULA DO MULA - The book about Andrija Maurovic, the comics artist. Book launch

Veljko Krulčić presents: LJUBIŠA GVOIĆ - AUTHOR OF THE FIRST GRADUATE THESIS ON COMICS IN YUGOSLAVIA, interview, presentation of the work

Veljko Krulčić (Pula, 1962) is a professional journalist, publisher, and historian of comics. He is intensively involved in the popularization of comics. He regularly writes about comics, organizes thematic and solo exhibitions in Croatia and abroad, produces and writes screenplays for documentaries about comics authors, participates in comic festivals, round tables, seminars and panels. He is the editor of many large retrospective exhibitions. He is the initiator and editor of several comics editions, author of several important monographs on comics, and editor of numerous albums and graphic novels. The prominent place among them belongs to the published works of Andrija Maurović.

Among other things, Krulčić initiated the Lifetime Achievement Award in the field of Croatian comics, named after Andrija Maurović and since 2009 given by the Art 9 association.