LIKE A LITTLE HOLOCAUST

23 illustrations, halfway between Egon Schiele and Francis Bacon, with nervous strokes and blurry outlines, where deep and grainy earth tones prevail. They are mirrored by tales of a similar kind, whose poetical rhythm seems to follow the heartbeat, the blood pumping. 23 streams, or better spurts, of consciousness where various characters take off their decency masks and reveal the most turbid, outrageous, violent but all in all human and sincere parts they hide inside of them. A girl seeks love in her dog, also a sexual love, to redeem her mediocre life; a hikikomori lives his life only through the Internet and never leaves his room; an old woman dresses up to the nines only to watch a TV game show; a man hopelessly falls in love with a cannibal. And then, a Leopardian dialogue between Batman and Alfred, Rasputin’s story and the tragedy that happened in Vermicino (near Rome). Waving between disturbing confessions and glimpses of deep emotion, AkaB demystifies the rules of the so-called peaceful and civilized coexistence, unveils the darkness deep inside our souls, and brings us closer to people whose existences is punctuated by pills, by diseases, by the obsessions whirling in their mind, by the siege of death. Through his images and words AkaB shows us a highly disturbing comédie humaine, drawing from our nightmares, from our innermost fantasies. He unveils unsayable sexual desires, the urge to kill and die, he pitiless focuses on the void of some existences ruled by depersonalizing jobs. He depicts a sleazy but authentic humankind, whose desperate eyes are turned to water, like the ones of the webcam girl with cancer. A humankind as beautiful as she is.

AkaB (Milano, 26/07/1976) is one of the founders of Shok Studio. He has collaborated with many of the principal US publishers, such as Marvel, Dark Horse, DC Comics. In Italy he has participated in various projects including Nixon, Lamette, LaScimmia, Monipodio, Rolling Stone, The Artist, Puck, Mucchio Selvaggio, ilMale, Lolabrigida, Collettivo Mensa, WormGod, InPensiero and El Aleph.
His experimentation has brought him closer to video and cinema, and after a whole series of shorts, and classic or flash animations, in 2003 he wrote and directed Mattatoio (Slaughterhouse), a full-length film selected for the 60th Venice International Film Festival. This was followed by Il Corpo di Cristo (The Body of Christ), selected for the Bellaria Film Festival. His invisible trilogy was subsequently completed by Vita e opere di un Santo (The life and works of a Saint), selected for the Stigma Film Festival in Palermo. He has exhibited many of his monsters generated by reason in numerous different exhibitions. Since 2010 he has been a member of the Dummy collective. His blood group is 0 Rh-maybe.
His books for #logosedizioni are: Monarch, Like a little holocaust, (also available in italian, french, spanish) A masked man, (also available in italian, french, spanish).

#ILLUSTRATI #logosedizioni