As you know, China was the first country to be affected by the Coronavirus pandemic, and it was here that the disease started its global procession. Now China is almost back to normal, although some restrictions are still in place and are likely to last quite some time. However, there are no restrictions on cultural life, although most events in the art world are now online. We decided to show more works by the contestants.
Recently, the International Multimedia Cultural Association, based in Beijing and composed of over 30 countries, held an international cartoon competition. The coronavirus and related quarantine measures were the main theme of the many works submitted to the competition by artists from all over the world. In fact, this competition was declared the “first anticoronavirus”. And in fact, everyone hopes that it will be the last one related to this topic.
The Grand Prix was awarded to the Cuban artist Aristides Hernandez, better known by his pseudonym Ares. In total, the artists submitted more than 7000 works to the competition, and it is emphasized that all of them were sent to the jury by e-mail. The organizers stated that the aim of the competition was to stimulate the creation of works of art that can give people hope in the context of the global crisis.
It is not known how the Chinese government treated this event, because only recently, when the pandemic was just beginning to gain momentum, one caricature associated with the coronavirus, literally caused an international scandal. At the end of January 2020, the Chinese embassy in Denmark expressed outrage at the drawing published in the tabloid Jyllands-Posten, in which the stars on the flag of China were replaced by images of coronavirus. Embassy representatives said the cartoon “insulted China and hurt the feelings of the Chinese people”. However, the story ended in nothing, as the editor refused to apologize for “what he does not consider wrong.