Illustrator turns a Walter Benjamin classic into a work of visual art

The Chilean illustrator Claudio Romo (Talcahuano, 1968) says that illustrating a book is turning it into a work of visual art, like building exhibitions, since the pages are transformed into museums and collections of fantastic objects, It is a way to amaze people if you understand their strength and ability to attract.

The graphic narrator was also in charge of illustrating The trials against witches, by Walter Benjamin, published by Akal, at the invitation of editor Miriam Martínez. It is a text that talks about “justice as a tool of force and everything that is built through legal and ecclesiastical mechanics to crush a nascent power, such as that of women and their knowledge of herbalism, chemistry .

“A woman who had the power of plants or a certain force of knowledge had to be exterminated. The story addresses the Malthe law of witches one of the books that were born to discover and find witches, and created an interrogation system. The language against witches was hate speech based on fallacies. Later, Benjamin ended up being a victim of anti-Semitism. He committed suicide due to persecution by the Nazis. He was a Marxist, Jewish and philosopher enemy who ended up being the character in that same story,” details Claudio Romo in an interview with The Day.

The illustrator explains that the Akal publishing house suggested that he take Benjamin’s radio stories, “which he broadcast during the Weimar Republic, the political regime of Germany. I thought it was wonderful that a philosopher of that stature would do radio drama.

They were 30-minute children’s capsules on the radio in Berlin and Frankfurt, in which he talked about Berlin toys, history and important people. It conveyed a small idea, about topics such as justice or lies. Benjamin was one of the first to establish a vision of witches not as sinister beings or epitomes of feminine evil, but rather from a position of power, one that builds an argument for the annihilation of a group.

Symbols

The animator also mentioned that the illustrations in that publication are a “symbol. I took the priest from a Hitler propaganda photo; I only removed his mustache. The image of the jurisprudence who created this new legislation for the persecution of women is a face of the German politician Joseph Goebbels, which I took from a photo of a speech he gave during the book burning, and I disguised him as a witch persecutor from the 17th century , XVIII.

Now I am creating a working group in Chile made up of journalists, graphic historians, cartoonists and scriptwriters to create graphic novels around the identity and history of my country. It is a very powerful, attractive language and can have a flow towards the community for the dissemination of ideas.

Romo, who visited Mexico to teach an illustration workshop, said that this project addresses the mobilizations of the workers’ struggle. “In my area there is a coastal town, where coal has been extracted since the 19th century. During the 60s there were very strong demonstrations against the cruel treatment of the employers towards the workers. Not much is told in the official history of Chile. That’s why I made this novel for the defeated, those who lost, which, generally, are the workers. It was titled Lota, 1960: The coal strike (LOM Editions).

They are not exemplars for researchers, but for a larger public. Art becomes a good way to bring critical thinking closer to the population, society, people and communities. Yesterday they chased the witches; Tomorrow it will be to others. Art, as it says in the prologue, is an alarm, an indicator of what can happen.

Romo explained that “the text has a life of its own, but the entire context of the object that you are putting together transforms it into a work of art. Each publication I illustrate is a new world I enter. It is a process of reading and building ideas.

I use a sketchbook daily. I create collections of images that can be useful to me; I do not use Google searches, rather I collect photographs, textures or any object that serves me and stimulates my work. I develop a panopticon of words to make an imagehe explained.

It is about imagining, he pointed out, then, “when one reads, one builds images in the brain, the phenomena that occur in a book also do so in the head. The problem today is not access to information, but rather that it is generic, lacking its own identity and authenticity.

My references are from fantasy literature, science fiction, comics, essentially, and lately, manga. Since I was a child, I really liked drawing, it was a form of expression; intuitively he took it as language. Being a teacher, this is what I transmit in my classes. The drawing is behind everything and the transmission is worthy.

To illustrate, he concluded, “is to link yourself through a literal translation of what the author is saying in images. It is interpreting their words and generating a visual correlation, which gives a glimpse, which enriches the text.

When adding one piece of knowledge to another, there are not four, there are 10. It is a collaboration between minds that think in images and minds that think in words. More is achieved when knowledge is shared.