Paz Gago, Chema

Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert

IN DEFENCE O F  COBI 
C H E M A  P A Z  G A G O  L E C T U R E R  I N  S P A N I S H  L I T E R A T U R E .  L I N I V E R S I T Y  O F  C O R U N N A  
C A T A L O N I A  
couldn't understand the dec- 
lared disappointment, the al- 
most angry perplexity of not a 
few citizens of al1 walks of life and 
mounted too, as they conternplated tho- 
se first pictures of the mascot of the 
Barcelona games. 
In raptures at the avant-garde aesthe- 
tic, at COBl's simple, postmodern jovial- 
ity, I went out into the streets, the carn- 
puses and the pubs, launching into the 
domestic, university and even bureau- 
cratic atmospheres the question that 
tormented me. 
The replies were no less disappointing 
than the impressions declared by citi- 
zens on foot or rnotorized in their wall- 
less classrooms or their oral newspa- 
pers. 
"1 had hoped for something different; 
like Donald Duck, or something like 
that." 
"l'd have liked sornething more typical 
of round here or of the country, like 
"Naranjito" but better." 
" 1  don't understand that scrawl. Maris- 
cal's pulling our legs." 
Prescribed replies coloured with Arneri- 
canoid publicity, clicheed replies 
echoing with ethnico-centrist idiosyn- 
cracies; angered replies of inconsistent 
unconscious. 
(g lsüñ COoü'92. S.A. Al1 rlphta rewived Tki 
My reply, in the light of everyday se- 
miotics, of a new science of coffee and 
buttered toast and signs, is the outline 
of an idea to try to explain to myself 
-and anyone who wants to read me 
with a critica1 sense- the essence at 
once figurative and non-figurative, the 
aesthetic and anti-aesthetic conception 
of the end-of-century Olympic rnascot. 
Why COBI and not Donald or Pluto or 
Woody Woodpecker? Why a srniling, 
deconstructed profile and not a sau- 
sage with eyes or an orange in football 
shorts? 
COBI, certainly, is different and difficult 
to place in the usual fauna of mascots: 
teddy bears, tiger cubs, kittens; a 
chicken dressed as a sailor, a rabbit 
with carrot included. 
Anyone who demands a zoological su- 
perman on a background of stars and 
stripes is a bit confused: Walt Disney 
created Pluto, Donald and Co. in 1927. 
Sixty years later Mariscal could hardly 
honour the aberrant practice of the de- 
contextualized pastiche. His design is  a 
de-configured character, different to al1 
that has gone before, a new expression 
of a new expression, very much his, 
very much ours, very much of our age, 
at once ecological and anti-ecological, 
ethical and anti-ethical -in a word, 
postrnodern. 
The significance of the design is  as com- 
plex as it is  accessible to the widest 
possible range of sensibilities, although 
the opinions thrown out with al1 the rest 
rnight seern to suggest the opposite. 
Even a four-year-old can reproduce 
that smiling, deformed and oh-so-sim- 
ple outline of his friend depicted in end- 
less illustrations, comics, school text- 
books, sports clothes, beach bags, sat- 
chels ... Many have finally had to con- 
fess: once they began to get familiar 
with that childlike smile they fell foi. 
COBI, he's a part of them, of us, of 
everybody. 
This significant that smiles openly at us, 
with amusing complicity, encloses in his 
carelessly drawn little body a rich 
system of significative units: 
the modernity expressed in the extreme 
simplicity of the line, the deconstruction 
of the anthropomorphic figure through 
the skilful superimposition of an animal 
outline with an endearingly human ex- 
pression. , 
the ioviality, skilfully achieved through 
the arrangement, in a face full of ex- 
pressivity, of exaggeratedly vertical 
eyes, parallel to the childlike fringe, 
and a long mouth undulating with an 
unmistakable smile. The movement of 
the arms and legs help to contribute al1 
the playful and humanist content of the 
Olympic Festival, with al1 the strength 
needed by its message of unity be- 
tween peoples and nations. 
The difficult conjunction of the Catalan 
and the Universal, two significative fea- 
tures whose apparent opposition has 
been brilliantly resolved from the fig- 
urative standpoint: COBI as an anthro- 
pomorphic configuration of the gos d'a- 
tura, the sheep dog of the Catalan 
Pyrenees that expresses the historico- 
geographical spatiality providing the 
setting for an essentially universalist 
Celebration. 
The canine structure of the head, 
through the outline formed by the sche- 
matically conceived and drawn ears 
and muzzle, help to de-con-figure what 
would be a realist representation of the 
human head. The jovial expression 
arising from the interna1 elements and 
the body's different postures and attitu- 
des ensure the anthropomorphic recep- 
tion and provoke an aesthetic effect of 
sympathy, a 'euphoric ethos' which can 
be picked up by those receptors who 
are attentive and profound, sensitive 
and critical, different and diverse. 
The best evidence of the universality of 
COBI is the understanding he met with 
on the other side of the planet: not only 
did Japan greet the mascot with the 
deconstructed smile in a spirit of art and 
intelligence, it even incorporated into its 
everyday world logotypes and mascots 
of the 'father of the creature', omnipre- 
sent symbols of universal communica- 
tion and of a new, unmistakably cosmo- 
politan aesthetic. 
The Shinkansen, the Japanese high- 
speed train, with the fleetingness of the 
ultra-post-modern, will carry the signic 
mark of Javier Mariscal, "a noted artist 
of the end of the second millennium"*. i 
* PATON, V., "Templo de Fortuna. Un Mariscal 
Hispano", ARQUITECTURA VIVA, No. 1, 1988, 
p. 36. 


In Defense of COBI

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Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert