Argentina's Intellectual, Literary Giant Borges Gets New Look

Intellectual, philosopher, translator, never-quite-a-Nobel-laureate: many are the labels applicable to Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, a character who, besides escaping the limits of literature, was and is an object of contemplation for artists of other genres, including cartoonists.

Now almost 31 years after his death, the walls of the most important graphic arts museum in Buenos Aires, the Humor Museum, are full of artworks that take a long look at Borges.

"He was a very interesting person for the plastic artist, for the cartoonist … because he was a real character," said Hugo Maradei, director of the Buenos Aires Humor Museum now showing the "Borges Illustrated" exhibition until May 14.

"Apart from his great literary worth, he was a conflictive personality, politically incorrect and who said whatever came to mind, something he was known for in his time," Maradei told EFE.

The exhibition combines both drawings and caricatures of Borges as a public figure, while a number of illustrations are in one way or another related to his works.

The exhibition accents Borges's significance as an artist, thinker and personality, as a one-of-a kind figure that was at the same time a specialist in ancient cultures and ahead of his own time and of ours.