Javier Mariscal

Javier Mariscal is a Spanish artist and designer whose work has spanned a wide range of mediums, ranging from painting and sculpture to interior design and landscaping. He was born in February 1950 in the city of Valencia, Spain into a family of eleven brothers and sisters. Since 1970, he has been living and working in Barcelona.

Mariscal's language is synthetic, with few strokes and a great deal of expressiveness. He started studying at Colegio El Pilar in Valencia. After he study design at the Elisava School in Barcelona which he soon left so that he could learn directly in his environment and follow his own creative impulses. His first steps were in the world of underground comic, a task that he soon combined with illustration, sculpture, graphic design and interior design.

In 1979, he designed the Bar Cel Ona logo, a work that would make him popular. The following year, he opened the first bar in Valencia designed by Mariscal, together with Fernando Salas, the Duplex, for which he designed one of his most famous pieces, the Duplex stool, an authentic icon of the 1980s. In 1981, his work as a furniture designer led him to participate in the exhibition Memphis, an International Style, in Milan. In 1987, he gave an exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and participated in the Documenta de Kassel.

Throughout the 1980s, he designed several textile collections for Marieta and Tráfico de Modas and exhibited at the Vinçon salon in Barcelona. In 1989, Cobi was chosen as the mascot for the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games. The mascot was the centre of great controversy because of its vanguard image, although time has shown its creator to have been right and now Cobi is recognised as the most profitable mascot in the history of the modern games. He later created the cartoon series The Cobi Troupe.

He opened the Estudio Mariscal in 1989 and has collaborated in several projects with designers and architects such as Arata Isozaki, Alfredo Arribas, Fernando Salas, Fernando Amat and Pepe Cortés. His most notable works include the visual identities for the Swedish social democratic party, Socialdemokraterna; the Spanish radio station Onda Cero; Barcelona Zoo; the University of Valencia; the Lighthouse Centre for Architecture and Design in Glasgow, the GranShip Cultural Centre in Japan and the London postproduction company, Framestore.

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