"Mine was a generation that had to break with late-Francoist Spain. In fact, we thought we were breaking something and that we were going to be like other European countries, but we only made fools of ourselves. Deep down, we were spoiled children who allowed ourselves things we shouldn't have allowed ourselves. That's how I see it now, in my old age. We had what we had thanks to our parents' efforts," states painter and cartoonist Javier Ballester, alias Montesol, over a glass of Ribera del Duero.
A prominent name in the Barcelona underground, co-founder of Star magazine, member of the El Rrollo Enmascarado collective, author of legendary comics such as Don Vito, Vidas ejemplares, or the recently concluded trilogy of La noche de siempre, Fin de semana, and Cuando acaba la fiesta, together with Ramón de España. This is the artist who arrived at the Bar late in the morning, asking, before the imminent conversation, for the radio to be turned off "which I used to listen to a lot, but now I prefer silence." Immediately after, he leaned on the bar and ordered his wine.
"My problem ---he continues after a brief sip--- has always been accepting myself, liking myself. I believe the great challenge is self-respect. Recognizing myself, discovering myself, and accepting myself has taken me my whole life. And within this, all stages, everything I have done, has value."
"My problem ---he continues after a brief sip--- has always been accepting myself, liking myself"Thus, he is as proud of his 70s comics as he is of his latest achievements, among which he highlights "an exhibition in Zamora about a flamenco dancer, which is not that flamenco particularly interests me, beyond the fact that it was music heard in the streets of the Guinardó of my childhood, but the movement interests me." A topic to which he wants to dedicate more exhibitions.
He also expresses his satisfaction with the recent delivery of the mural The Battle of Tetouan, "which the MNAC had commissioned me to do and which I delivered to the Military History and Culture Center of Ceuta." The event was held in November at the Mixed Artillery Regiment, located in the Fuentes Pila barracks, "and it was a very nice feeling, that of the contemporary work of an underground artist delivered to military authorities who treated me very well."
Another novelty is the graphic novel La calle Aragón, still unpublished.
--- Is there a publication date yet?
--- For the moment I don't want to publish it, the idea is for it to be part of a memory trilogy.
Escape from the established
Montesol's life has been marked by change and by not doing what was expected of him. "My first break with the path I was assigned occurred when I was 21 and studying Economics, according to my father's wishes. One day, in the paternal home of the Maragalls on Brusi Street, Pau Riba's wife gave me acid and that completely changed my head. There I threw overboard the plan to work in a banking institution."
In 1992, Barcelona had "dressed up" and Montesol was an already established artist. But then something happened that led him to a new radical change. "It was when my father passed away. I realized that the world I was living in was not my own world. Suddenly, I reconnected with my Spanish roots, abandoned the world of Catalan nationalism that I had embraced and that I saw as provincialism and a deception." Shortly after, the artist moved to France "with the idea of being a citizen in a European republic and focusing on my work and being myself. In '92 is when I became a wandering Jew, which is what I consider myself to be."
He would return from France after seven years, "but I went to Madrid, because I prefer to be a foreigner there than a Castilian-speaking Catalan in a Barcelona that, with the trick of language, does not integrate, but rather generates conflict and lack of acceptance". And there he has remained, ever since, this Barcelona native born in 1952.
A Barcelona stuffed with barbiturates
Montesol's childhood was delimited by the natural borders of his neighborhood: Horta, Guinardó, Clot, and Gràcia. "Barcelona is the best city in Spain. It's very pleasant, not as harsh as Madrid. For me, it fulfilled a formative stage, until I was 40, when I saw that it could no longer offer me anything more, and that's when I left and my adult stage began. I also witnessed a city that mutated. It was the first Spanish city to be imbued with French and Anglo-Saxon culture, which had culture, European cinema, radio that broadcast music from all over the world, the urban revolution of the 80s… But, curiously, when that Olympic Barcelona arrived, without the misery of yesteryear, it no longer interested me. I wasn't interested in the Vila Olímpica, nor that new Montjuïc. My relationship with Barcelona has, therefore, been interrupted, because my mature work has had other settings," admits the parishioner, who thinks that "at this point, I don't think I'll ever live here again."
Saddened by an establishment "that has turned the city into a tourist destination, dispossessing it of its cultural and industrial nerve, of its character, as if it were all day stuffed with barbiturates," Montesol admits that "the vision of that self-satisfied Barcelona is what made me completely lose interest." And after these words, he finishes his wine.
--- By the way, would you be interested in eating something? We have everything here.
--- Thank you ---replies Javier Montesol with a faint smile---, but every time I pass through Barcelona I have my rituals. One of them is the obligatory visit to the Flash Flash omelet restaurant, in Granada del Penedès. Whenever I visit the city, I like to go eat there!