Under the pseudonym
Avocado Ibuprofen
is Jaakko Pallasvuo, a Finnish artist emerged from the
net art
scene
of the past decade who has turned his cartoons into a growing cult phenomenon. With them, he portrays on Instagram the anxiety of the millennial generation that has already grown up: in each gallery of images horrors such as the fear of disappearing if you are not
online
, climate change, the precariousness of a certain creative class, the trickster what is building our image on social networks, laziness, depression ... Pallasvuo's creations seem to want to transcend in a perverse way the simplified vision of reality that memes offer us, to help us pretend that we understand the world around us.
Now these comics have managed to go
offline
thanks to the North American publisher Perfectly Acceptable, which has decided to publish a book in which it compiles 49 cartoons originally published on the Instagram profile @avocado_Ibuprofen.
And not only that.
Some of his drawings will now also be jewels, the result of a collaboration with another Finnish artist:
Otto Byström
.
Jaakko Pallasvuo's cartoons portray, in the practical format of an Instagram post, the anxiety of a millennial generation that has grown up.
avocado_ibuprofen
Why did you choose @avocado_ibuprofen (aguate_ibuprofen) as a nickname?
It came from a name generator that I came up with myself.
He combined names of fruits with names of drugs.
Blueberry_paracetamol, nectarine_ambien
and
guava_klonopin
were some alternatives.
Avocado_ibuprofen sounds like a
bot
account
.
Like
spam
.
I found it appropriate for Instagram.
You are an artist with a long career. How is your artistic practice related to comics?
I started by drawing the vignettes to reflect on what, in my opinion, was going wrong in contemporary art and with my practice in relation to it. I wanted a space that would help me criticize art but also talk about depression and capitalism. Although right now comics have become more popular and that is what I am most associated with. I suppose they have consumed my artistic practice. At least for now. I'm trying to keep a little perspective. Hopefully after the pandemic I will resume other forms of offline creation, more experiential and in three dimensions. My book has just been published and I am also working on a new piece for the next edition of the Baltic Triennial in Vilnius of Lithuania. Also, I am writing the text for a
performance
with the choreographer María Metsalsus.
"They are contradictory, irritating and pretty, perfect for caviar left," says Jaakko Pallasvuo of these earrings with the names of Marx and Engels, a collaboration with artist Otto Byström.
doubt.object
A silver ring from the Doubt project jewelry collection.
"What I was interested in is exploring the way that words and pictures can be embedded in jewelery," says Pallasvuo.doubt.object
He has also started a jewelry project.
The artist Otto Byström invited me to collaborate on a collection of silver jewelery. This is a project called Doubt [
Duda
]. What interested me is exploring how words and pictures can be embedded in jewelery. Jewelry is interesting as an ancient art form. It is something with which its wearer can have a very intimate and long-lasting relationship. Perhaps the idea is to bring the sculpture to a scale and at a price that is accessible to many people.
In the collection there are earrings with the names of Marx & Engels.
Do you consider that work Marxist?
I suppose they are a kind of meditation on the idea of commodification that Marx identified and criticized, and on how resistance to capitalism is often aestheticized and integrated within the capitalist system itself.
I think the earrings are contradictory, irritating and pretty, perfect for
left caviar.
Going back to the comics, the way of drawing, the typography is constantly changing ... What are these formal decisions due to?
I don't want to repeat myself too much.
I want comics to stay interesting.
Which translates into making changes from time to time.
Find a balance between coherence and clarity, while trying to take them to new places.
For Jaakko Pallasvuo, the vignettes represent a way of reflecting on what he felt was going wrong in contemporary art and in his relationship with it. @ Avocado_ibuprofen
Mixture of cynicism and kindness in his vignettes. It is cruel and sweet to the reader. There is always ambiguity, doubt and insecurity.
Yes, I think there is a specific narrator for comics, which departs from my other writings and works of art, and I have developed it in a fairly organic way. But of course there is always something intentional about the tone, to make it seem like it belongs from fiction. On the other hand, lately I have tried to write more in dialogue form, to introduce some disagreements and contradictions in the vignettes. Doubt and ambiguity, or just an unresolved internal conflict, is at the core of these comics. A kind of engine that keeps those images running.
You post very often on instagram. Is having a creative routine important to you?
My creative process is open, so I can take very long breaks if I feel like it. In general, I don't like a routine-oriented life, but during the pandemic I had to learn to enjoy the repetition of the day to day. Drawing comics has made me feel like I have a reason to get up in the morning.
Why did you choose Instagram as the platform for your comics?
I chose it by default, because the audience is there.
The truth is that I feel like I have no choice, the publishing industry and the art system are becoming increasingly precarious and frustrating.
Which produces some resignation and laziness, I settle in instead of trying to find an alternative to show it.
It is not an ideal situation, of course.
In the account @Avocado_ibuprofen the public finds a space to criticize art and to talk about depression and capitalism. @ Avocado_ibuprofen
Recently, I saw someone claim that hyperbole is now what irony was in the 1990s.
I think that is true! I feel like everything is very heated and intense right now. As if the nineties were that moment of the end of history, at least in some western contexts, where people were asleep and assumed that their way of life would continue in that eternal present. Now we are going through many historical and momentous changes, in a state of constant conflict and global crisis. I don't know if hyperbole is the right word, but it could be said that we are encouraged to experience our emotions in an intense and exhausting way. The Internet generates a host of powerful feelings, mostly negative, that seem to be consuming people. I hope that the alternative is not to return to an ironic and distant position like that of the nineties.
You maintain anonymity
online by
using avatars for your comics. You seem to want to avoid popularity. It reminds me of what writer Natasha Stagg said: "Lana del Rey is one of the voices of our generation, because she saw before anyone else how being a star will never pay off again."
I understand how anonymity can be aspirational now, the way fame used to be. It's as if the most powerful position right now is having enough resources to be completely
offline
and not be recognized. Like, an anonymous billionaire living on some island or something ... but the truth is, I don't want to romanticize that kind of unattainable escapist fantasy too much.