20.357 - Diseño del TFG - Aula 1

Pública

An Artist from Animus Jocandi Exhumes the Networks of Hypocrisy in Contemporary Spain in Three New Works

MADRID, [02/03/2026] — In the tradition of Goya’s Disparates and the tragic lucidity of the picaresque novel, an artist linked to the renowned satirical publication Animus Jocandi presents three works that transcend graphic humor to delve into the realm of social archaeology. The exhibition, titled «Three Autopsies,» proposes an exercise in dissecting Spanish reality through drawing, applying a gaze that draws equally from contemporary sociology, the most critical artistic avant-gardes of the 20th century, and, fundamentally, from current debates on the decolonization of art and thought.

Far from the immediacy of the daily newspaper cartoon, these three pieces are presented as «diagrams of power.» Each stroke is not an opinion, but the visualization of a complex network of actors—human and non-human—that upholds the contradictions of a society that has yet to fully question its colonial past and its continuities in the present. The artist acts as a forensic pathologist: lifting the skin of the obvious to show us the tendons of institutional hypocrisy and the unresolved legacies of history.

Three Works, Three Networks, Three Autopsies

The exhibition is structured around three large-format pieces, accompanied by preparatory sketches, press documents, and conceptual maps that break down the «ecosystem» of each image.

1. «Esto es cultura, coño» (2022)

The first work is a direct assault on one of the most sacrosanct pillars of Spanish identity: bullfighting. The image shows a bullfighter at the precise moment of driving the sword home. His face, contorted by a mix of fury and patriotic fervor, screams: «This is culture, dammit. Cul-ture.»

The work deconstructs the myth of individual artistry. The bullfighter is not an isolated subject, but a node in a network that includes: the stands (the public that legitimizes it with its gaze), public subsidies (money flowing from conservative administrations), television cameras (packaging death as folklore), and, above all, the very word «culture,» turned into a rhetorical shield that shields violence from criticism.

Bullfighting is not just a tradition: it is a direct legacy of imperial Spain, which exported this practice to its American colonies as a mark of civilized identity. The cry «this is culture» resonates with the colonial discourse that imposed its own practices as superior, erasing the worldviews of indigenous peoples for whom the relationship with animals was based not on ritualized sacrifice but on reciprocity. The work questions: what violences do we naturalize when we call them «culture»? What other forms of relationship with the living were exterminated so that this spectacle could establish itself as a hallmark of national identity?

2. «La mejor residencia de gestión privada» (2020)

The second image is a nightmarish détournement. A man pushes a wheelchair carrying his elderly mother towards the gates of a nursing home. Above the lintel, a wrought iron arch reproduces the most infamous inscription of the 20th century: «Work sets you free.» The son reassures his mother: «Don’t worry, it’s one of the best privately managed nursing homes in Madrid.»

The network visualized here is that of neoliberal governmentality: the outsourcing contracts of the Community of Madrid, the investment funds that own the nursing homes, the bureaucracy that classified the elderly as «beds,» and the personal protective equipment that never arrived. The work forces us to ask: what chain of actors turns a nursing home into a geriatric concentration camp?

This work is a perfect example of the Situationist technique of détournement, as defined by Guy Debord: taking an element from the enemy (the phrase from Auschwitz, the rhetoric of business excellence) and turning it against him to reveal its monstrous truth. The artist does not invent a new horror; he simply rearranges existing signs so that they reveal their hidden kinship.

3. «Menos mal que no tengo piso» (2025)

The third work finds pitch-black humor in the housing crisis. Under a bridge, two homeless men share a blanket and cardboard. One says to the other: «With all this squatting business, those scoundrels who break into your house… at times like this, good thing I don’t have an apartment.»

The network that unfolds is immense: the empty apartments owned by banks, non-human actors that speculate; the politicians who stoke fear of squatting to divert attention from their housing policies; the media that amplify isolated cases; and finally these two men, excluded from property ownership, watching the storm from the outdoors.

This piece connects with the tradition of Spanish critical realism, from the picaresque novel to the cinema of Berlanga, where the marginalized are the only ones capable of seeing the absurdity of the system clearly. But it also resonates with Arte Povera in its attention to the materials of exclusion: cardboard, the blanket, asphalt. The «poor» is not just the medium, but the lives of those who inhabit it.

Conclusion

Together, «Three Autopsies» proposes a redefinition of political graphic humor. It is no longer about telling jokes, but about mapping the real and, specifically, mapping the colonial continuities that persist in the present. The artist assumes the role of archaeologist, unearthing layers of meaning that official rhetoric has buried: ritualized violence as «culture,» institutional neglect as «efficient management,» housing exclusion as «defense of property.»

The exhibition engages with contemporary debates on the decolonization of museums and cultural institutions, but does so from an uncomfortable position: it does not limit itself to pointing out the plunder of archaeological pieces or the stereotypical representation of other cultures, but shows how colonial logic continues to operate at the very heart of public policies and everyday discourse.

Each work invites the viewer to trace the threads that compose it, to become a detective of their own reality. In a time of information saturation and widespread cynicism, these three images offer something rare and valuable: the possibility of seeing clearly the power structures that constitute us and the unresolved legacies that inhabit us.