NUEVO ABESEDARIO with Artist Juan Pizzani

Join artist Juan Pizzani on Tuesday, July 25th to discover the personal and political roots of his explosive artist’s book Nuevo Abesedario.

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Juan Pizzani’s Nuevo Abesedario is a bizarro primer to help you study regime ABCs. Blending collage and illustrations—originally developed for digital publication in 2020—Nuevo Abesedario turns the traditional alphabet book on its grotesque head and creates a freaky parody of the familiar genre to expose how dictators and political regimes can use “harmless” textbooks as instruments of propaganda and power. Pizzani should know; in the early 2000’s he worked as a book editor for the Venezuelan regime and witnessed firsthand how political propaganda and government logos were plaguing primary school textbooks. In this visually bold, limited-run print edition, Pizzani’s Nuevo Abesedario brings haunting images and sharp wit to the full-color page. More than a conversation piece, this book will upset your friends in the best way possible.

Juan Pizzani (Caracas, 1979) has an MA in Spanish Literature (University of Cincinnati, 2006), and a PhD in Anthropology (Universidad de Los Andes, Venezuela, 2017). He authored the art books Enciclopedia Ilustrada del Arte (2002), Crayon Picture Books (2003), and Nuevo Abesedario Digital Version (2020). He published the novella Visita guiada (El perro y la rana, 2007), some poems in the compilations Voces Nuevas (CELARG, Caracas, 2004), and Cartografías Resilientes (LP5, Chile, 2022), his bilingual poems Café (Petalurgia, Madrid, 2022), and the autoethnographic texts Autoetnografía en una agencia de marketing de Lima (Prodavinci, 2020), and Onaka Ga Peko Peko (Petalurgia, Madrid, 2021). He has been making digital art since 2020, and his video art has been featured in the collective art shows I Don’t Wanna Be Lonely (2021), and Digital Fluffy (2022) held at the Fluffy Crimes art gallery in Chicago.