Spanish comic artist Joan Cornellà has mastered the spectacle of nihilism.

Cover photo: Standby art gallery decorated for Send Yourself Nowhere but Tokyo art event by artist Joan Cornellà in partnership with AllRightsReserved, Harajuku district of Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan (2022).

★★★☆☆

During my latest visit to Tokyo I was able to catch the opening of Send Yourself Nowhere but Tokyo, the latest body of work from Spanish comic artist Joan Cornellà, famous for his absurd style of dark humor.

I have long seen Cornellà’s illustrations online. His simple multi-panel strips are both vibrant and morose, amassing him millions of followers since his internet debut around 2010. I was excited for a chance to see his art in person.

This two-week “art event” is hosted in the Harajuku district of Shibuya, in association with Hong Kong-based creative studio AllRightsReserved, best known for their ongoing partnership with the American artist KAWS, yet another internet darling.

Set in the busy fashion district of Harajuku, StandBy’s location is perfect, though I didn’t find the building itself an appropriate venue for an art show.

The exhibition space is quite small, even by Tokyo standards, and the lighting was dim in contrast to the bright light pouring in from outside. The large canvases were hung high overhead, making for uncomfortable viewing, and window reflections obscured the animations displayed on vletesivions — a mixed-media sculpture of 15 TV screens advertised as “Cornellà’s first-ever interactive installation artwork”.

While the looping animations were fun to watch, visitors seemed to prefer climbing into two shipping boxes decorated with stickers drawn by Cornellà.

Despite the gallery’s imperfections, Cornellà’s talent was noticeable. His brushwork is smooth and imperceptible, allowing viewers to focus on the content, which he succeeds in depicting with minimal detail. His experience as a magazine illustrator is obvious.

The show’s opening was rather understated. No long lines or big crowds; Cornellà was absent as well. The audience seemed to consist mostly of wanderers, aimlessly walking through Harajuku boutiques, shopping bags in hand.

Inspired by the last few years of the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, Cornellà’s newest art — consisting of five acrylic paintings and a multi-screen display — feels especially relevant here in Japan, the only G7 nation which has not yet fully reopened its borders. Home to the oldest population in the world, the Japanese government has been hesitant to roll back pandemic precautions.

As international travel has remained onerous, I myself spent the entirety of my summer vacation in Japan, abandoning dreams of exploring South Korea or Taiwan this year. After enjoying Kyoto, Kanazawa, and Nagoya, I simply didn’t know where to go but Tokyo.

Cornellà states, “Traveling is a privilege, and its absence is causing people to confront this idea even more so during the epidemic.”

Since the beginning of the pandemic, businesses and institutions around the world have shifted their focus to local visitors. Particularly strained by the drop in tourism, Japan’s old capital of Kyoto is on the verge of bankruptcy.

In addition to the novel coronavirus, Cornellà tackles themes of climate change, social media, and poverty. While amusing, I find some of his tongue-in-cheek illustrations flippant, and more bizarre than thought-provoking.

In one painting, a grinning man is labeled an “IDIOT” by a temperature scanner. Is he an idiot because he’s not wearing a mask or because he complied with the check? Or is the joke that the man maintains a vacant grin through the whole affair?

In another, titled jumala, Cornellà depicts a suited man hanging off a cliff, gripping his phone as an elderly figure defecates upon him. Drawing on themes of life, death, wealth, poverty, the real, and the virtual, it’s frustratingly indecipherable, like a Zen riddle.

“The main point is having a laugh about everything,” says Cornellà. His most cynical takes read as more cringe-worthy than sincere. Evoking the sexual and scatological, it seems Cornellà is unwilling or unable to evolve past a fratboy sensibility.

In one painting, a bikini-clad woman poses in front of a flooded town, with floating human bodies, cars, uprooted trees, and a sky filled with ominous orange clouds. Taking glamour shots during the end of days is not a particularly novel idea, but Cornellà renders it well.

While this vaguely sexist critique of 21st century narcissism feels like something from the early aughts, the apocalyptic destruction remains relevant, as locations around the world have been alternatively hit by drought and torrential rain this summer, affecting both the Hokuriku region of Honshu — where I live now — as well as my hometown of Dallas, Texas.

Cornellà explains, “The process of my work is often based on the idea that humanity can be really disgusting, and I use humour to talk about serious things like this, to add layers or to take distance on disaster.”

My favorite work is polinimuri, in which Cornellà depicts a women in a Spandex athleisure outfit cleaning a cracked, pink-stained earth, clearly polluted by a factory in the distance. He captures the helpless futility of finding comfort in routine. As the world collapses around us, many of us can do nothing but continue our daily lives, until we will find ourselves vacuuming a wasteland.

Ultimately, Cornellà has mastered the spectacle of nihilism. His world is one in which nothing is beyond reproach, nothing is worth preserving, and nothing is valuable. With smiles and bright colors, he leads us laughing into the void.

Send Yourself Nowhere but Tokyo is on view from August 25 to September 6th, 2022, at StandBy, Tokyo with free admission for the public. Open everyday 11:00 AM - 7:00 PM.