The illustrator, cartoonist and musician Amadeo Gonzales announces the next Carboncito Festival, a fair dedicated mainly to fanzines and object books, a cultural movement that continues to grow both in the world and in our country. With each edition, the festival has grown and reached a broader and more diverse audience and with the participation of more international artists. Amadeo welcomes us in his studio, in Miraflores, with dark glasses that protect him from the sun of this threatening summer. “It's so hot,” he exclaims as we Lima residents usually do this year. “Terrible,” I reply, and he tells me that he doesn't spend much time in his workshop because it's so hot. “I've been working at home,” he explains. Amadeo says that he feels that more and more artists are turning to fairs like the festival he organizes to sell his production and that “galleries have somewhat lost importance.” When I ask him about the upcoming edition, he smiles before answering and shows me the new poster promoting it on his cell phone. “Well, the Carboncito Festival begins in 2018, because we stopped publishing the Carboncito magazine, which I did with brothers from 2001 to 2017. Sixteen uninterrupted years publishing in print. We managed to make 20 numbers. After that, we embarked on another adventure, which is this festival…”
And why did Carboncito end up in the magazine?
Just because we saw that it was getting more and more difficult. Like everything was becoming digital and people were no longer talking much about the issue of paper, but more than anything they preferred to show their work virtually through the networks, Instagram, Facebook, right? But, at the end of the day, that is something that has also helped us with the issue of dissemination. Although virtual put an end to print, it has helped spread the festival.
How did the festival come about?
The festival arose, as I told you, we wanted to finish the magazine and that same day it occurred to us to print a poster that said Festival Carboncito, because we just invited several colleagues to set tables. The idea was that not only are we selling Carboncito, but also that everyone can have the option to share their work. It was also a kind of gratitude from everyone who participated in the magazine. Clear. But out of that, we came up with the festival. Although we did know how to recognize that it was different from the magazine and that it could be complex. We didn't want to stop investing the passion that the magazine had in the festival. I believe we have made it. The difference is that the festival is a live exhibition. It's dealing with the artists and dealing with the public directly.
YOU CAN SEE: 'Love has no recipe', cast: who are the actors and characters of the Mexican novel?
What does the festival offer?
It is a festival focused on graphic art, comics, illustration, independent publications that are fanzines, and fanzines with different themes, right? It can be literature, photography, cinema, drawing, and even the most experimental, almost book-object. You can find posters, screen prints, engravings, everything related to printed paper. And we are lucky that from the first moment we have had international guests, and that more join each year. So, initially we were doing it once a year, in December, and last year we did it twice because an event was canceled due to the outbreak here in Lima. This year we are doing it in the summer because we see that there is also a space, or let's say a void, regarding this type of fairs. There are clothing fairs, record fairs, book fairs, and everything, but not so much about this type of material.
Is there an audience interested in the fanzine?
Yes, there is an audience. The new generations are getting to know this topic of the fanzine, which before, well, the fanzine… Saying the word fanzine was the most modern, the coolest thing, so to speak, and now it's like vintage, right? Because now… I come from the fanzine making Carboncito since 2001, and we are almost three decades into making independent publications…
What is going to be in this edition of the Carboncito Festival?
We are going to hold this festival in Monumental Callao. We will have more than 50 national and international artists. For example, there is a great German artist named Romoco, who lives in Chile, and who I was lucky enough to meet at a fair in which I participated there. It's nice because the contacts seem to happen naturally, participating in other fairs in Latin America and also in Europe. The poster for this event is made by an artist from Lithuania, Egle Zvirtblyte, whom I met in Barcelona. It was a surprise because I didn't know who she was, but she wanted to have some of my work, and she asked me if we could do a barter. I left her for last, and when she approached me with her work, I almost fainted, because she was the artist that I had always followed, but I didn't know her face to face. So, she has done the art for this poster. Unfortunately, she, for various reasons, has not been able to attend this edition, but we hope that she will attend the next Caraboncito soon. The art she has done for this issue is wonderful. Right now it is still in print, and we hope that the poster will come out this week. Mostly, we try to ensure that each edition has a poster and a guest artist as well, since the time we worked at Carboncito magazine.
The illustrator, cartoonist and musician Amadeo Gonzales announces the next Carboncito Festival, a fair dedicated mainly to fanzines and object books, a cultural movement that continues to grow both in the world and in our country. With each edition, the festival has grown and reached a broader and more diverse audience and with the participation of more international artists. Amadeo welcomes us in his studio, in Miraflores, with dark glasses that protect him from the sun of this threatening summer. “It's so hot,” he exclaims as we Lima residents usually do this year. “Terrible,” I reply, and he tells me that he doesn't spend much time in his workshop because it's so hot. “I've been working at home,” he explains. Amadeo says that he feels that more and more artists are turning to fairs like the festival he organizes to sell his production and that “galleries have somewhat lost importance.” When I ask him about the upcoming edition, he smiles before answering and shows me the new poster promoting it on his cell phone. “Well, the Carboncito Festival begins in 2018, because we stopped publishing the Carboncito magazine, which I did with brothers from 2001 to 2017. Sixteen uninterrupted years publishing in print. We managed to make 20 numbers. After that, we embarked on another adventure, which is this festival…”
And why did Carboncito end up in the magazine?
Just because we saw that it was getting more and more difficult. Like everything was becoming digital and people were no longer talking much about the issue of paper, but more than anything they preferred to show their work virtually through the networks, Instagram, Facebook, right? But, at the end of the day, that is something that has also helped us with the issue of dissemination. Although virtual put an end to print, it has helped spread the festival.
How did the festival come about?
The festival arose, as I told you, we wanted to finish the magazine and that same day it occurred to us to print a poster that said Festival Carboncito, because we just invited several colleagues to set tables. The idea was that not only are we selling Carboncito, but also that everyone can have the option to share their work. It was also a kind of gratitude from everyone who participated in the magazine. Clear. But out of that, we came up with the festival. Although we did know how to recognize that it was different from the magazine and that it could be complex. We didn't want to stop investing the passion that the magazine had in the festival. I believe we have made it. The difference is that the festival is a live exhibition. It's dealing with the artists and dealing with the public directly.
YOU CAN SEE: 'Love has no recipe', cast: who are the actors and characters of the Mexican novel?
What does the festival offer?
It is a festival focused on graphic art, comics, illustration, independent publications that are fanzines, and fanzines with different themes, right? It can be literature, photography, cinema, drawing, and even the most experimental, almost book-object. You can find posters, screen prints, engravings, everything related to printed paper. And we are lucky that from the first moment we have had international guests, and that more join each year. So, initially we were doing it once a year, in December, and last year we did it twice because an event was canceled due to the outbreak here in Lima. This year we are doing it in the summer because we see that there is also a space, or let's say a void, regarding this type of fairs. There are clothing fairs, record fairs, book fairs, and everything, but not so much about this type of material.
Is there an audience interested in the fanzine?
Yes, there is an audience. The new generations are getting to know this topic of the fanzine, which before, well, the fanzine… Saying the word fanzine was the most modern, the coolest thing, so to speak, and now it's like vintage, right? Because now… I come from the fanzine making Carboncito since 2001, and we are almost three decades into making independent publications…
What is going to be in this edition of the Carboncito Festival?
We are going to hold this festival in Monumental Callao. We will have more than 50 national and international artists. For example, there is a great German artist named Romoco, who lives in Chile, and who I was lucky enough to meet at a fair in which I participated there. It's nice because the contacts seem to happen naturally, participating in other fairs in Latin America and also in Europe. The poster for this event is made by an artist from Lithuania, Egle Zvirtblyte, whom I met in Barcelona. It was a surprise because I didn't know who she was, but she wanted to have some of my work, and she asked me if we could do a barter. I left her for last, and when she approached me with her work, I almost fainted, because she was the artist that I had always followed, but I didn't know her face to face. So, she has done the art for this poster. Unfortunately, she, for various reasons, has not been able to attend this edition, but we hope that she will attend the next Caraboncito soon. The art she has done for this issue is wonderful. Right now it is still in print, and we hope that the poster will come out this week. Mostly, we try to ensure that each edition has a poster and a guest artist as well, since the time we worked at Carboncito magazine.
