Provincial Memories: The Córdoba Biennials of Humor and the Comic (1972-1979)

Abstract

Between 1972 and 1986 six Biennial Conventions on Cartoons and Comics were held in the Municipal Museum of Fine Arts Genaro Pérez in the city of Córdoba, Argentina. Our aim is to revisit these cultural events, which took place during periods of social and political complexity, bearing in mind that they were key moments in the foundation of a canon and a historical account of cartoons and comic strips in Argentina. The debates and tensions between regional, national and international identity; art, work and market; graphics and popular iconology as constitutive elements of a notion of the “Argentine character”, and the need to inscribe themselves in a genealogy dominated by First World countries. All these paradoxical factors were present and left an important mark in a historical construction that are still being debated today, all of which allows us to revisit Argentina’s past from a particular and seldom frequented perspective