EL CONGRESO: Latest illustrated book published by Morsa
In the foreword to the last book published by Morsa, art scholar Jorge Luis Marzo states that the Barri del Congrés neighbourhood is a dreadful place. We haven't been there, fortunately or unfortunately, but we are guided through its illusory streets by the book El Congreso, that shares its name with this neighborhood from Barcelona, built in the mid-50s of the last century. In 2013 it was the 50th anniversary of this self-sufficient district of almost three thousand houses that was developed and funded by the Church on the occasion of the Eucharistic Congress of 1952. Ignot, the "mysterious author" of the illustrated book, starts from this political reality to create a strange genetic graft with the Mobile World Congress, one of the meetings of mobile contemporaneity par excellence. It seems that the efforts to use Barcelona as a brand-claim for international tourism is not new.
Within the pages of this book –Morsa's number 20–, we find a series of modified texts and illustrations that make us reflect on this schizophrenic capitalism in which we live, a system that promises us happiness if we accept to become tenacious leaders in search of success and money. El Congreso invites us to relearn some lessons already learned like the creation of the world or the difference between hell and heaven. Ignot surprises us worshiping a hamburger, baptized with a bottle of Coca-Cola at the National Institute of Colonization, where we will be smiling and repeating in unison a new lesson: the game of death is the end of the game. Religion, science and progress are intertwined in this crude and funny book, now available in our digital bookstore even before its printed edition is out. While we wait for its official presentation the upcoming weeks we will be enjoying this blunt critique made illustration made book.
