José María Pérez, 'Peridis', in the exhibition on his trajectory of the Clock Building of the Port of Valencia.Mònica Torres
The capacity for synthesis is an essential virtue for any self-respecting cartoonist.
In this sense, José María Pérez,
Peridis
, is a true virtuoso, as he has shown daily with his drawings published by EL PAÍS since 1976. But to synthesize the life of this humorist, architect, restorer, cultural disseminator, writer and social entrepreneur, born in Cabezón de Liébana (Cantabria) 79 years ago, it is not an easy task.
His multiple concerns are more typical of a man of the Renaissance than of the Romanesque who has contributed so much to spread and recover in Spain from the Santa María la Real Foundation, of which he was its president.
His career is long and his work is huge and diverse.
Hence, the ambitious
Peridis
exhibition
,
which can be seen until January 31 in the Building of the Clock of the Port of Valencia, covers 50 years of his life in the only possible way: with humor and the capacity for synthesis.
'Peridis': "In regions of the Palencia mountain more bears are born than children"
“The exhibition is a kind of testimony, very coherent.
I look back and if I see that, coherence ”, the cartoonist pointed out last month surrounded by his cartoons and his projects.
Produced by the Port of Valencia and carried out in collaboration with the Quevedo Institute of the Arts of Humor, in Alcalá de Henares, and the General Foundation of the Alcalaína University, the exhibition reviews the different facets, from the promotion of its Workshop Schools under the motto of "learning by doing" to rehabilitate the heritage and combat youth unemployment and rural depopulation, up to his Employment and Social Entrepreneurship Shuttles, through his Architecture works, a title he obtained in 1969.
The largest space in the bright port building is, however, dedicated to his work as a cartoonist, who he himself explains: “What is caricature?
The inner physiognomy of people.
Express character traits with a stroke, bring out the soul, the light that comes from the person, from on high.
If you put a piece of life and a piece of society, or a monument, the light is fixed there, but on the contrary of the light, you can see the black of the ink or the space that remains blank.
That has been my life: trying to draw, count, in one way or another, and bring the light that comes from above.
It is like this building in which we find ourselves, that if we look up, we can see the clouds and the light ”.
Throughout more than 80 vignettes and illustrations, most of them published in this newspaper, the trajectory of the cartoonist is discovered from his beginnings, in the sixties, to the present day.
In the center of the exhibition is a reproduction of the column in which the former president of the Government Adolfo Suárez was climbing and throughout the illustrations we find personalities such as former presidents José Luis Zapatero and Mariano Rajoy, Donald Trump and Pedro Sánchez, in addition to numerous references to environmental, cultural or social issues.
“Peridis is not a person very given to these exhibitions.
There was another exhibition at the Quevedo Institute, which included his career.
But he has made everything easier for us, and perhaps this is the most complete because he reviews his entire life, "says Ester Medán, curator of the exhibition together with Juan García.
The curator emphasizes some of the not-so-known facets of Peridis, such as her interesting work in social entrepreneurship: “In 1986 she created the arts and crafts workshop schools, which are in Spain and abroad.
It is a formula to help solve the youth unemployment by trying to teach a trade and, at the same time, restore the heritage scattered throughout the country, giving new uses to monasteries or churches, and the employment shuttle is located in that line.
All this is explained in the exhibition ”.
The cartoonist himself, winner of the last Spring Award for Narrative with
El corazón con que vivo,
recognized his special affection for the employment programs in which thousands of young people have participated.
This is the third exhibition organized by the Port Authority of Valencia, after those dedicated to the graphic humorists Ortifus and Forges.