Art and design: Spanish and Argentine creators exhibit their works in a collaborative spirit.

In a local and global context, where the exacerbation of individualism and univocal thinking seems to be an everyday occurrence, the Cultural Center of Spain in Buenos Aires (CCEBA) showcases the virtues of collective work . Created through a public call issued by the institution, the tripartite exhibition features works by Spanish and Argentine artists and designers . In all three cases, artists trained in public education participate, emphasizing cultural diversity and problematizing discrimination and violence, curated by Laura Spivak.

The thematic tour first highlights the importance of inclusion , then continues with the right to demonstrate and ends with the consequences that can arise from a society that does not foster encounter .

This is complemented by the intervention on the venue's shutters by illustrator Luli Adano, who celebrates the achievement of citizenship through the Equal Marriage Law, coinciding with the fifteenth anniversary of its enactment.

Inside the CCEBA, the large mural on the back wall of Room 1, which welcomes visitors, was created by Andar de Nones, a collective made up of artists with disabilities from Zaragoza, Spain. It is titled Andar de Nones: The World in the Singular .

Graphic stew is the method used to achieve the black and white collage, filled with drawings, where hearts and bodies are linked with words and symbols. A collaborative creation that emphasizes the collective over the authorial and any kind of hierarchy.

"Love" is the name of this central work, accompanied by a documentary that records the process of achieving it, a fanzine that also does the same, and the posters produced by the artists in conjunction with designer Natalia Volpe —who serves as curator of this section—which, in turn, function as a meta-discourse for the group's previous projects.

“Each piece gathered here reminds us that art doesn't belong to a few ,” Volpe states in the exhibition text. “It's a common language, capable of opening horizons and imagining more just, diverse, and shared futures,” he summarizes.

The exhibition by La Gloriosa JPG, the collective born in the classrooms of the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism (FADU) at the University of Buenos Aires, also alludes to love. Its activism focuses on “visual militancy.”

A Little Light, My Love is precisely the set of works that makes an “ode to the poor image” , in a reinterpretation of the concept stipulated by the artist Hito Steyerl, based on the insistence of an image of poor quality and resolution that is produced, reproduced and circulated through digital media.

Curated by Elisa Strada , the poverty they refer to is understandable as it does not require great resources to achieve these types of images, nor technical displays, and they have a mass destination.

These are those that are on the street, at a march, in a kiosk or in a shop window and, at the same time, are found in more intimate places, such as the wall of a room or a memory album.

And while they are austere in their development, they are enriched by the meaning they acquire with each new use. In fact, in this exhibition, the authors explore the personal and the collective , in that back and forth that the pieces made of tissue paper transit through on a double sticker. They are now on display at the CCEBA, suspended, in accordance with the curatorial idea, like a cloud, and a comparison with the epochal iCloud, where files used daily are usually stored, is worthwhile.

When observing them, references become inevitable , such as to the food brand represented by a nest, to the yellow circle of the anti-nuclear movement or to the logo of the Black Panther Party, among other evident and also pictorial political traces.

Us and the Bats closes Room 3. This is the name chosen by artists Juan Barro, Bautista Roland, and Juan Pomeranec to display the set of works that address the iconography of comics , the universe of superheroes, the imaginary surrounding totalitarianism, and war conflicts.

A space—curated by Emmanuel Franco —where diverse media, whether drawings, animations, or the clothing on display, become useful for exploring the visual culture of war in the 20th century and surrounding it; the scenarios of subjugation, extractivism, and material and symbolic decay.

And although the characters are fictional, it is clear that they are inevitably subject to reality. For example, those embodied in the clothing worn by the three mannequins on display include references to uniforms that existed, as well as to the free will of Roland, the creator, who combines them with nods to Eastern fashion and, at the same time, features of more glamorous typologies. The purpose? To convey the abysmal situation that causes laughter to clash with cruelty, truth to become propaganda, or sensitivity to crumble in the face of fanaticism.

The curator points out that more than an exhibition, it's a cage for reflecting on the architecture of war images. "Between absurdity and parody, you and a sense of humor: a first element for building knowledge," he concludes.

Andar de Nones: The World in the Singular, A Little Light, My Love, and Us and the Bats can be seen at the Centro Cultural de España in Buenos Aires (Paraná 1159) from Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturdays from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. with free admission, until September 13.