Arena — Season 1, Episode 428: A Spanish Odyssey - a Portrait of Javier Mariscal
Documentary • 90 min • 3 seasons, 689 episodes • ★ 7.2/10
Episode synopsis
Javier Mariscal is an artist who cannot be categorised - a designer who thinks a Camel cigarette packet has as much value as a Picasso. Phillipe Starck , the doyen of the design world, calls him "the Andy Warhol of Spain". Mariscal himself says, "I make cultural sandwiches for the brain." Always a controversial figure, he has come a long way from his early days peddling underground comics in the bars and streets of Barcelona. Since winning the design commission for the Olympic Games, he has attracted heavy criticism for his commercial exploitation of Cobi, the Olympic mascot. Tonight's film takes a look at the man and his diverse work - comics, animation, sculpture, furniture, interiors, paintings. Whatever the medium, Mariscal's message is invariably enigmatic, eclectic, and above all fun.
About Arena
Arena is a British television documentary series, made and broadcast by the BBC. Voted by leading TV executives in Broadcast as one of the top 50 most influential programmes of all time, it has run since 1 October 1975 with over five hundred episodes made, directed by the likes of Martin Scorsese, Alan Yentob, Roly Keating, Frederick Baker, Volker Schlondorff and Vikram Jayanti. Arena's subjects are a roll-call of the world's best known cultural figures from the 20th and 21st centuries, from singers Bob Dylan and Amy Winehouse to academics Edward Said and Eric Hobsbawm, from writers Jean Genet and V S Naipaul to artists Francis Bacon and Louise Bourgeois. The current series editor is Anthony Wall.