From October 25, 2024 to January 26, 2025
Pablo Ruiz Picasso Cultural Center: C/ De la Cruz 42, Torremolinos
Monday to Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.; Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.; Sundays and holidays closed
Free entry until capacity is reached
In this individual exhibition entitled Love, humor and heartbreak – a title borrowed from Gloria Fuertes’ book of poems with the same title that she published in 1980 – the artist and humorist Omar Janaan (Marbella, 1988) presents us with almost a hundred vignettes of graphic humor in pieces of variable dimensions using the technique of acrylic painting in direct mural intervention, in which he portrays observations and occurrences in three discursive axes through the prism of black humor:
Amor
The focus on love in all its dimensions. Life and its reasons for living.
That which is motor. What it is. This is where it starts.
Humor
The mismatch of reality. The distorted society. That which squeaks and catches our attention. The opposite of fear. Me in front of the world.
heartbreak
The war. The end of passion. The defeat. Which is also a motor. The dark side of things.
The nature of the work is based on Omar Janaan’s experiences as a comedian. Their reality is constantly filtered through the particular prism of humor, always under the live motive that defines the constant of the artist’s work and the one who has made his personal mark: Laugh at EVERYTHING.
These pieces have a simple and naive pop line, continuing the line of formal research used by Omar Janaan in the wake of plastic artists who have humor among their origins and who work with mural drawing, marginal art and graffiti, such as The references are Dan Perjovschi (Romania, 1961); David Shrigley (England, 1968) or Spaghetti Monster (Spain, 1982).
The assembly of this exhibition has required the intervention of the space by the artist, configuring this exhibition as a proposal for an ephemeral artistic installation limited to its duration in the exhibition space.
Omar Janaan (Marbella, 1988) is a comedian, transdisciplinary artist and pedagogue. He has a degree in Hispanic Philology from the University of Malaga. With humor as the core axis and under the motto Laugh at EVERYTHINGdevelops different artistic disciplines such as drawing, narrative, performance and the scenic with which he elaborates his speech. He maintains a continuous work of research into humor in all its expressions and has actively collaborated with various transdisciplinary artists, always with a priority focus on the plastic and performing arts.
He has held numerous individual and group exhibitions, including Love, humor and heartbreak (2023), awarded first prize in the call for artistic projects CICUS 2023 (Sevilla); Spain is an anomaly (2018) y ¡Vikill them! (2012), in addition to participating in the creation of cultural proposals for the public and private spheres. He is also a playwright and actor in stage productions Laugh at EVERYTHING (2019), RAMÓN (2024) y Dog! (work in progress, 2025).