• As in the three previous editions, the person in charge of designing the Itzulia poster is the person who the previous year received the Euskadi Prize for Literature in the Illustration of Literary Works category.
• Itzulia will start on April 4 in Hondarribia and will end on April 9 in Arrate
This morning the poster for the 61st edition of the Itzulia Basque Country was presented at an event held at the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum. As in the last three editions, and after recovering a tradition prior to the Civil War, in which high-level Basque artists made the posters for this historic cycling race, the winner of the Euskadi Prize for Literature in the category of artwork illustration Literary is in charge of designing the Itzulia poster. In this edition, the person in charge of making the poster was the artist from Bilbao, Javier de Isusi, who won the award with his work “Transparentes. Stories of Colombian exile”.
The Minister for Culture and Language Policy and spokesperson for the Basque Government, Bingen Zupiria, the president of OCETA (Euskadi Cycling Organizations) organizer of the Itzulia, Julián Eraso, and the author of the poster, Javier de Isusi, have participated, together with the director of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, Miguel Zugaza, at the presentation of the cycling race poster.
The author has pointed out that “the main motive of the poster is a figure pedaling on a bicycle. He is a deliberately androgynous figure, it could be a man or a woman since cycling is no longer the exclusive preserve of men and Itzulia has a men’s and a women’s edition”. De Isusi explained that the drawing “is made with a single continuous line that goes back and forth like the roads on which the race runs and like the chain of the bicycle itself. This continuous line is what builds both the main figure and those in the background: to his left the platoon that is chasing him and to his right a landscape that summarizes four characteristics of Basque geography: mountains, sea, towns and industry. The colors used also refer to these characteristics: the red of the Itzulia letters is related to the industry, the green of the other letters is the predominant color of the Basque landscape and the bluish-gray of the figure and its shadow refers to the Cantabrian Sea. ”.
Regarding the creation process, the author explained that “it is a drawing made by hand, with pencil and watercolor on paper, a physical technique, not digital, just as physical is the effort made on the bicycle. However, cycling also includes technology, especially when it comes to the bicycles themselves, which is why I have also applied flat computer colors to the entire drawing. The yellow tones of those colors refer to the color of the Itzulia winner’s jersey”.
On the poster where the names of the municipalities where the race is passing also appear, which, as Javier de Isusi explained, “is as if they came out of the bicycle itself, which is, in some way, how cycling races are experienced.”
“We have been with this collaboration for 4 years and we are delighted. The race has taken on an even more relevant character in Euskadi society by uniting sport with culture. Many people ask us where they can get these posters, it is a pride to travel throughout our territory with works by local artists”, says Julián Eraso.
The posters for previous editions were made by Yolanda Mosquera, Asisko Urmeneta and Miren Asiain. All of them are stored in the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum where many of the posters from before the Civil War are also stored.
Xavier de Isusi
The author of the Itzulia Basque Country 2022 poster is from Bilbao and an architect by training, but he is an author of comics by vocation and profession. His works have been translated into French, Basque, Finnish, Portuguese, German, and Polish. He debuted with the series of graphic novels Los viaje de Juan Sin Tierra (2004-2011), a series inspired by his own trips to Latin America and which has been the subject of university theses in Italy and the United Kingdom. With the work The Divine Comedy by Oscar Wilde he won the 2020 National Comic Award. That same year he performed for the Truth Commission of Colombia Transparents. Stories of Colombian exile, with which he won the Euskadi Prize for Literature 2021 in the category of illustration of literary works.
Itzulia Basque Country 2022
The 61st edition of the Itzulia Basque Country will be held between April 4 and 9. The first stage will start and finish in Hondarribia, the second between Leitza and Viana, the third between Llodio and Amurrio, the fourth will start in Vitoria-Gasteiz and finish in Zamudio and the fifth will be between Zamudio and Mallabia and the sixth and last stage will start in Eibar and will end at the Arrate ramps.
