Erró (Gudmundur Gudmunsson)

The Works

I am happy
1960
31 x 24 cm
Collage

This collage from 1960 reflects the spirit of Erró’s work from his early years. He cut out images and phrases from the media to obtain a new and unexpected meaning that translated into a surprising title.
The persistent theme throughout Erró’s career lies in the multiplicity of meanings of the images and phrases that populate the media and how they can be (and are) easily distorted or manipulated. Today, in the first quarter of the 21st century, this concern continues and remains more relevant than ever.
The work consists of two unrelated photographs cut out and assembled vertically. In the upper one, against a red background, is a black-and-white photograph of a tiny mouse that seems to be calmly walking on top of a cactus with long, threatening spines. In the lower one, two arms are raised in a gesture that could be either joy or despair against a background divided into two very different zones.
The disturbing element lies in two phrases in English cut out from a publication, “Kidnapper snatches baby two hours old… says: I’m happy”, the phrase that gives the work its title.

Valencia scape
1982
47 x 74 cm
Collage

This work was displayed in the monographic exhibition dedicated to him by the Stämpfli Foundation in the fall of 2012, Erró, the planetary eye. At the end of the exhibition, the Icelandic artist generously donated it to the Foundation.
The accumulation of characters cut out from various comics and recomposed through collage in a new work clearly shows one of Erró’s styles that is very different from other work in the collection, Gust of Wind
Paisaje de València was exhibited in another retrospective exhibition held in that city.
It is perhaps worth remembering that in the field of comics, in a period that began around 1975-77, the beginning of the so-called transition to democracy, there was a great explosion of creative languages characteristic of the freedom of expression in popular culture that followed Franco’s death. Makoki and El Víbora are perhaps the most representative titles, inspired by the American underground and written in Spanish despite having been created in Catalonia.
In Valencia, which had a tradition of comic book artists dating back to the 1950s, perhaps even earlier, a series of young artists emerged who developed a style characteristic of that city, defined as Valencian “clear line drawing,” without shadows or depth. It became known as Underground Valenciano. At that time, in the world of cartoonists and comic book creators, there were two totally opposite trends with profound differences. On the one hand, there were the supporters of the more traditional and realistic comic strip, and on the other, those who practiced clear line, inspired by a classic from the 1930s, Tintin, with flat colors, without shadows or volume.
The fact that all the characters chosen, cut out, and used by Erró in the work share this style may explain the title, Valencia Scape

Coup de vent (Gust of Wind)
2000
151 x 99 cm
Oil on canvas

Gust of Wind is a work created in 2000, a year before the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York. In the foreground we see a large image of Mao Zedong, the Chinese communist leader and founder of the People’s Republic of China, who died twenty-four years earlier, in 1976. It is painted in a single terracotta color evoking the buried funeral statues of the ancient Chinese warriors of Xi’an.
In 2000, the People’s Republic of China was led by Jiang Zemin, who officially introduced the term “socialist market economy.” That is, the reconciliation of capitalist and socialist economic aspects.
The wind that gives the work its title pulls back a large curtain on which Mao’s face is repeated in black and white, like an old photograph. The movement of the curtain connects the foreground of the statue of Mao, who died twenty-four years earlier, with an urban background identifiable as Manhattan, the core of capitalism.

The artist

(Olafsvik, Iceland 1932)

Erró, whose real name is Gudmundur Gudmundsson, is a political and social artist who creates urban landscapes with the aesthetics of political propaganda posters, comics, and cartoons. These images come from the imagery of popular culture or political poster art. It is a visually appealing and friendly art form, but only in appearance; on the contrary, it is a critical art that presents a world in which human beings appear in the form of caricatures and stereotypes.
His images seek to highlight the difficulty of connecting art with the masses if it is not through figures taken from the most popular media, easily readable by all social classes in any cultural sphere. The work discussed here contrasts formally with the vast majority of Erró’s work. It is a work with only two figures of a single character, Mao, and made using the traditional oil technique. His style is characterized by filling the surface of his canvases with a large accumulation of many characters taken from photographs, comics, and magazines.