Somos fans de tus piecitos

Pequod Co. presents the group exhibition Somos fans de tus piecitos curated by José Noé Suro with works by JIS, Martín Soto Climent and Renata Petersen.

Jis, or José Ignacio Solórzano, as he is known in official documents, is well more than a caricaturist, a monero [cartoonist], or a brilliant illustrator. While he is capable of portraying personal traits with great precision, he has a greater ability to construct characters —some of them already part of Mexican popular culture, such as La Tetona Mendoza or El Peyote Asesino—with an unmistakable stroke in his drawing. The power of Jis' work lies in his unique ability to understand and communicate the world—his world—through scenes as grotesque as they are subtle.

A member of a generation that emerged in Guadalajara at the end of the 20th century, Jis broke into the national scene along with Trino, Falcón, Jabaz, and Josel, among other moneros and cartoonists, with an irreverence that struck the world of art and journalism. He was part of a groundbreaking movement that resulted in the publication of the magazines Galimatías and La Mamá del Abulón, as well as humorous articles in newspapers such as La Jornada, Siglo 21, and Público.

From a very young age, he developed his own language. In the prologue of his first work, "Los manuscritos del Fongus", Carlos Monsiváis wrote: "He is neither a caricaturist nor a satirist nor a humorist (although there is satire and a sense of humor in his work). Rather, or exactly, Jis is a fabulist."

Jis' language ranges from portraiture to surrealism, passing through caricature. Monstrous, chimerical figures, some of them brutal, but always with a hint of innocence, with the genuine fascination of the observer who does not lose the capacity for surprise in front of the infinite world of pleasure.

The amorality (not immorality) of Jis' work allows us to approach sex from an everyday dimension, free of any prejudice or morbidity. What he eroticizes and aestheticizes is the artist's gaze located in some unsuspected place in the bedroom; small vignettes (he has never worked in formats larger than those of a drawing pad) where eroticism is equally present in the genitalia as in the feet.

- Diego Petersen Farah