Lucky - Happy Hans - Maguma

Lucky / Happy Hans by the Brothers Grimm, illustrated by Maguma. Text by Gita Wolf and Divya Vijayakumar / ISBN 9789390037049 / A hardcover, accordion-folded, printed offset with five special colors, from Tara Books (India) / A very cool object.

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In the classic story by the Grimm brothers, a young man called Hans exchanges his hard-earned piece of gold for one object after another, in a series of increasingly unprofitable trades… until he is left with nothing. Is Hans just a naive young man duped by wily strangers looking to make a profit, or is he wise beyond his years, searching for something greater than monetary value?

Spanish artist Maguma reinterprets this classic tale of greed and need for a contemporary reader, creating two parallel visual narratives—one set in times past and the other rooted in a dystopian present. The fates of Hans and those he encounters abound with possibilities and calamities. As possessions and fortunes are rapidly exchanged, who wins and who loses? And what exactly does winning and losing entail?

Maguma is the pseudonym for Spanish artist Marcos Guardiola Martín, who is based in Madrid and works for a growing number of publications, including dailies, weeklies and political journals across Europe and Latin America. Trained as an architect in Madrid, Maguma brings to his work a sense of space and surface that is unique.