September 19 to January 27, 2013

In We’ll Overlook the Noses: Monero Downloads with Retrospective Pretensions, an exhibition celebrating 30 years of artistic career by José Ignacio Solórzano, better known as JIS, visitors will find drawings, ready-mades, photographs, enlargements, ceramics, and a wide array of objects forming part of the artist’s cabinet of curiosities.

Through his work as a cartoonist—or monero, as he prefers to call himself—JIS (Guadalajara, 1963) has transcended the boundaries of humorous cartoons. Using paper, India ink, and his unique sense of humor as his primary tools, he philosophizes about everyday life, with a special focus on relationship dynamics. “I’ve found myself in an ambiguous zone where, for cartoonists, I’m not funny enough, and for galleries, I’m still a monero,” JIS explains.

JIS’s career can be divided into three main phases: during the 1980s, he explored what he describes as “the discovery of trippy creativity,” alongside peers such as Trino, Falcón, Josel, Jabaz, Paco Navarrete, and Julio Haro, among others, creating iconic publications like the magazine Galimatías. In the 1990s, beyond solidifying the comic strip El Santos in collaboration with Trino, JIS turned his private life into the central theme of his work. Since 2000, while continuing his career as a monero in various local and national publications, JIS has ventured into the realms of contemporary art, holding solo exhibitions in Guadalajara.

According to JIS, his influences are evenly split between cartoonists and artists. Among the former, he cites Saul Steinberg, Robert Crumb, Moebius, B. Kliban, and Sempé. Among the latter, he mentions Maurizio Cattelan, Marcel Dzama, Matthew Barney, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. A devoted music enthusiast and a frustrated DJ, the monero from Guadalajara also acknowledges the influence of Mister Bungle, Brian Eno, the Beatles, and Trío Matamoros in his work. When it comes to cinema, JIS expresses a preference for Hayao Miyazaki and the Coen brothers.