JAVIER MARISCAL (Valencia, 1950).
"Cobi".
Mascot of the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.
Bronze.
Published by Pilma.
Pilma marks and year of manufacture, 1998, on the base.
Limited edition.
Measurements: 14 cm. height. Weight: 2,205kg.
Javier Mariscal, a well-known industrial designer, cartoonist and comic artist, has lived and worked in Barcelona since 1970. He studied design at the Elisava School in Barcelona, but soon abandoned his studies to learn directly from his surroundings and follow his own creative impulses. He began his career in the world of underground comics in publications such as "El Rrollo Enmascarado" and "Star", alongside Farry, Nazario and Pepichek. After producing his first comics of his own in the mid-seventies, in 1979 he designed the Bar Cel Ona logo, a work for which he began to be known by the general public. The following year the Dúplex opened in Valencia, the first bar signed by Mariscal, together with Fernando Salas, for which he designed one of his most famous pieces, the Dúplex stool, a true icon of design in the eighties both at home and abroad. In 1981 his work as a furniture designer led him to participate in the Memphis Group exhibition in Milan. In 1987 he exhibited at the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris and took part in the Documenta in Kassel. Two years later his design Cobi was chosen as the mascot for the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, controversial at first but now recognised as the most profitable mascot in the history of the modern Games. In 1989 he created Estudio Mariscal and collaborated on various projects with designers and architects such as Arata Isozaki, Alfredo Arribas, Fernando Salas, Fernando Amat and Pepe Cortés. Among his most outstanding works are the visual identities for the Swedish socialist party, the Onda Cero radio station, the Barcelona Zoo, the University of Valencia, the Lighthouse design and architecture centre in Glasgow, the GranShip cultural centre in Japan, and the London post-production company Framestore. In 1999 he received the National Design Prize, awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Industry and the BCD Foundation in recognition of his entire professional career.