TÚ NUNCACACA SABES NANANADA DE MIMIMIMÍ

Fran Baena

The Sincerity of the Impostor’s Grimace

By Javier Díaz-Guardiola*

“Hello dear Javier, I’m writing you this letter to begin an epistolary dialogue for the text I asked you to write for my upcoming exhibition at Yusto/Giner Gallery in Marbella. Since I like to put things in writing, let’s use this format as a way to reflect and archive any ideas that may arise here. After all, artistic creation is nothing without questioning what we’re doing. That’s the first thing I want to ask you: What are we doing?”

And that’s what I’m asking myself, dear reader (let’s split personalities— after all, that’s what this is about): What are we, what am I doing? As you may have realised, the text in question is the very one you’re now holding in your hands—this mask of words I hope you’ll read to the end. And the “dear Javier” at the start? That’s me. I’ve already slipped up in the first pop culture reference, though you might not have noticed (to catch it, you’ll need to revisit the gospel of Saint Paquita Salas, patron saint of the 360-degree woman). Right in the middle of a digital age—and a blackout (I’m writing this during that infamous week)—my correspondent, Fran Baena (Priego de Córdoba, 1999), invites me to exchange letters to reflect on the exhibition now opening at the gallery. I’m putting those reflections into writing here, to make them more accessible to you.

Is there anything more vintage than returning to handwriting? To a page filled with scribbles and unfinished thoughts you can’t just delete with the backspace key? To constructing winding sentences across a single sloping line, lifting your pen only when strictly necessary to move to the next word? And to do all this with an artist whose work feeds on everything happening in a space as ephemeral, volatile, and virtual as the internet and social media?

Let’s get to it, then. Fran has convinced me that writing letters isn’t some act of rebellion or resistance—just as painting in the age of AI (which could’ve written this letter in seconds), or using egg tempera on large canvases to depict seemingly mundane images (let’s call them memes) whose origins and meanings are slippery—for almost everyone, and for a Gen Xer like me, basically all the time. And, as Fran puts it, “everything that happens online first happens in life. Can you really be against life?” This guy’s eloquence knows no bounds.

So here I am, trying to convince you that I’m the right person to introduce the work of an artist who has made bittersweet laughter, the kind of itchy humour that comes from a forced smile, his signature. I’m here to explain the emotional weight of a meme, of a cursed image, of a shitpost (yes, I had to Google that… and even Googling is for boomers now—these days, the real oracles are TikTok and ChatGPT).

This latest body of work by Baena centres on false messiahs, impostor syndrome, and the anxieties he lives with firsthand. First, because of his age— just 25, with a mind sharper than many CEOs or world leaders could dream of. Make Art Great Again. He says he’s only just beginning to realise the joys his profession has already brought him, and how it’s allowing him to fulfil “the dream of a depressed teenager who was bullied, and who, after deciding not to sign out of life despite all the suffering, realised he must be here to leave something behind.”

He’s touched on these themes before, behind a mix of irony, melancholy, and bold irreverence. And second, because, like memes that are made from pre-existing material, where authorship is blurred, the artist feeds off references. Fran thanks Picasso for encouraging him to steal, and to turn his work into an act of recycling; Warhol and Picabia for guiding his colour and composition; Ross Bleckner, Angélica Liddell, and Paula Rego for introducing a sense of mystery; and even the small Romanesque church of San Baudelio in Casillas de Berlanga, whose imagery inspired the wojak horse in Ensalada de guantazos, one of the artist’s alter egos featured in this show.

The exhibition’s title—Tú nuncacaca sabes nanananada sobre mimimimí—borrows from one of Baena’s earlier solo shows in Granada, at the Condes de Gabia Palace. Many of the works reference portraiture, that chorus of voices and identities we all hide behind (which is why this very text takes the form of a mask, so that you, dear reader, become part of this impostor’s game too). Alongside these theatrical, figurative works that reflect the thoughts of the artist’s various doppelgängers, there are also more abstract paintings—like interludes in a musical composition— where colourful dots seem to float out of a magic flute, gradually illuminating dark backgrounds and offering glimpses of hope.

This is artwork of its time, but it aspires to timelessness. It explores the narrative potential of decontextualised images pulled from digital platforms. Baena is more conceptual than he might appear, preserving these fleeting digital ghosts on canvas—sometimes irregularly shaped or silhouette-like. (Try to guess what they represent, dear reader.) He gives them ambiguous titles to suggest context, drawing on classical references such as Botticelli’s Nastagio degli Onesti. You can’t get more classical than that. Nor more of an impostor, in the best sense—his influences defy lazy thinking or clichés. They have depth. And if the internet ever shuts down for good, Fran would have no problem confronting us with the timelessness of bawdy jokes from old almanacs, the grotesque laughter of Paul McCarthy, the caricatures of Honoré Daumier, or the allegorical genius of Don Quixote.

So I’ll end with a confession: age doesn’t matter. Cultural background doesn’t matter. Where or how you write doesn’t matter. Impostor syndrome is with us always. For everyone. Let this mask of a text be proof. Spoken by none other than the greatest impostor: Yours truly.(Oops! I forgot to sign it.)

Guadalajara, May 3, 2025