Comic Abstraction: When Comics Meet Contemporary Art at König Gallery

The boundaries between comic books, cartoons, and contemporary art are dissolving!
From June 6 to August 28, 2025, König Gallery Mexico City presents a striking group exhibition titled Comic Abstraction, where comic-inspired visuals are reimagined in painting and sculpture.

📍What Is Comic Abstraction?

Featuring international artists Jordi Alós (Mexico), Henning Strassburger (Germany), and Zhivago Duncan (USA), the exhibition explores how comic aesthetics—slapstick, cartoon characters, and visual gags—are transformed into complex, emotional, and thought-provoking artworks.

All three artists were deeply influenced by comics and cartoons from a young age, but today their art pushes those early inspirations into new abstract and conceptual directions.

🎭 Jordi Alós: Cartoon Faces, Realistic Bodies

Alós juxtaposes cartoonish faces with naturalistically rendered human bodies, creating a visual dissonance that reflects inner turmoil and emotional vulnerability. Drawing from visual storytelling and psychoanalysis, his fractured figures seem suspended between outer appearances and inner chaos.

🧠 Henning Strassburger: Digital Identity and Irony

Showing in Mexico for the first time, Strassburger explores the intersection of mass media, personal identity, and digital culture. His vibrant abstract paintings are now incorporating figures like Alphakenny, an alter ego symbolizing the blurred lines between public image and private self. His work is filled with irony, pop culture references, and a critique of consumer-driven identity.

🌀 Zhivago Duncan: Myth, Machines, and Metaphysics

Duncan creates fictional characters, dream-like vehicles, and mythological scenes using beeswax, dyed canvas, and dense symbolic language. His artworks are speculative and deeply personal—offering a modern mythology that bridges ancient archetypes with digital-age anxieties.

🎯 Why Does Comic Abstraction Matter?

• A fresh take on the legacy of comics and cartoons in high art
• A reflection on how humor, figuration, and popular culture can address serious themes
• A unique blend of cartoon language with contemporary abstract aesthetics

This exhibition also marks Henning Strassburger’s debut in Mexico, introducing his work to a new audience.

📷 Cartoon Abstraction: A New Visual Language?

Comic Abstraction is not just for comic lovers—it’s a bold artistic statement on how cartoons and comics evolve into powerful tools for expressing today’s emotional, political, and existential complexities. If you’re curious about the future of cartoon art in the contemporary scene, this is a show you don’t want to miss.