Angel Boligán" the hunter of ideas"/2016
September 5, 2016 by Aaron Ibarra

 Angel (1)

"The cartoon is a way to talk without having to read"

When I received the instruction to interview Boligán I faced the complication of having no idea what to ask. I had to admit that the Cuban caricaturist interviewer how bad I am, however, between the conversation made it clear something: a picture says a thousand words.

"I am a hunter of ideas, an artist I like to reflect the world in which I am living, shaping it; a kind of costumbrismo where more than make people laugh treatment through that smile, there is a message ", he explains the artist.

Then began the hunt for ideas.

Angel Boligán, Cuban caricaturist known for his contributions to the national newspaper El Universal, was in Culiacán jury of the fifth edition of the International Competition 2016 Cardboard Sinaloa, and between your city tour had a brief but substantial discussion.

-For What ... the roll to be cartoonist and caricaturist, roll tell a story with a picture, why?

Well, just the cartoon is one of the branches of the arts and artists do not thinking perhaps why, but because they feel or want. It is inevitable to make art, I imagine a singer or a composer born you do, born that way and maybe that's my case: at some point I discovered that the cartoon was something that fascinated me.

"Boligán was patient and generous, I talk the start of his first interest in the visual arts, painting and his college degree.

"I leaned to the cartoon by the immediacy because it had direct contact with the public, because it could influence the opinions of people, I could make people laugh and above all to reflect. I think the cartoon is, the visual arts, the branch that immediate contact has with the public and also can make art, because it is not a minor art as many people think, it is an art like any other, and well, having the possibility of the press and especially now with social networking, the internet, we have an immediate communication with the public ".

The office of the caricaturist is the art of speaking without words. And as we said born in Cuba but Mexican adopted in times of social networks, the impact of the cartoon is immediate, or "a picture says a thousand words.

"You -Networks social and caricature, is an affordable means for the public?

Yes, the cartoon itself (it's affordable) ... a picture says a thousand words. Just about everyone has passed, previously published in the press, we were looking for a magazine or newspaper and always went to look for the monkey and then we read something that interested us, and then that is a commitment for us knowing that we will have a public safe, and well, when he brings an essence, not only the monkey to make people laugh but brings a message, it is more committed to us to have that space.

"The conversation flowing. Background band music and the sound of guests who attended the lunch at a seafood restaurant because Culiacan is a must to meet almost any establishment, which as presentation tandem cold beer and seafood.

Boligán continues. Although his language is the drawing, the caricaturist musters patience to draw this time with his voice. Drink some beer and apologizes for his hoarseness.

"My dialogue is through images, lines, shapes, colors and curiously three years ago I made an exhibition in Athens with a Greek caricaturist and theme was that, the cartoon or line and drawing as universal language because they were caricatures of a Greek, a very rare for us and for them the Spanish language, and was at a gallery in Athens. I remember on one occasion we met with many students and projected cartoons and teachers talked about it exactly, everyone understood my caricature even though I lived across the world because my lines, my symbols and my colors had a dialogue with them despite being so distant, then of course, the lines, the cartoon is a way to talk without having to read, simply by graphic pure ".

In times of freedom of speech and political correctness, the challenge for the caricaturist is also changing, however, as if it were a drawing more easily Boligán explains.

"In my section in the newspaper El Universal (Mirror Ink), I make drawings where maybe we see ourselves as consumerist, as people manipulated by technology, manipulated by the media and all that. Traditionally the drawing, in Mexico especially, looked it was to criticize politicians, MPs, parties, the president and nothing happens, nothing happened during this time. So I said, well, maybe criticizing ourselves we create a little more awareness of what is happening to us, and maybe when voting you have in mind that you are being manipulated by technology or the media, or the powerful, or by entrepreneurs who often are the ones who put politicians in office and that is the intention, unmask, say, a little of what we are experiencing, what we think is not right.

"The interview ended and then the farewell and thanksgiving. Boligán ended up saving my note hunting ideas, with networks of words instead of lines and lines, and I went with the idea in mind that a picture says a thousand words.

• Angel Boligán," the hunter of ideas",2016