The other odyssey: Antoni Hervàs’ ‘Cabeiria’ 10 years on
Cover Story, September 2026
This month marks the 10th anniversary of one of our most rewarding curatorial experiences: Antoni Hervàs’ ‘The Mystery of Cabeiria’, presented in 2016 at La Capella, Barcelona, as part of Barcelona Producció, the annual open call for artistic projects.
Toni’s project revolved around a Greek mythic adventure replete with perilous sea travel, strange lands and monsters, and a hero’s eventual return home. Not the ‘Odyssey’, but the earlier myth of Jason and the Argonauts’ quest for the Golden Fleece. And not a big-budget cinematic spectacle, but a nevertheless expansive and fantastical experience told predominantly through drawing, painting and humble materials such as cardboard.
‘The Mystery of Cabeiria’ occupied the entirety of La Capella’s 380 m² exhibition space and was divided into eight multicoloured chapters. It began with Jason’s stop at Lemnos, the island of fire in the northern Aegean. Here, women live under the gynaecocracy of Queen Hypsipyle, guarding a grisly secret: they have slaughtered the island’s men. Toni then brought together two seemingly disparate mythologies: the Cabeirian rites of Classical Greece, and the legends of Barcelona’s dwindling cabaret scene.
But ‘The Mystery of Cabeiria’ could never have been confined to the exhibition space. The project expanded beyond La Capella through a series of performances, screenings, live events and a small publication throughout its two-month run. On 18 September 2016, male rhythmic gymnast Gerard López and musician-dancer Juan ‘el Rosillo’ de la Cruz, each performed at the site of the former Copacabana Cabaret on Passeig de la Banca. Later, a Halloween screening programme, organised in collaboration with filmmaker Eduardo Gión, brought together underground horror films by the showman Pierrot (1942–2011), and on 3 November, Victor Guerrero presented a choreographed runway show. ‘The Mystery of Cabeiria’ became a constellation of encounters, connecting Toni’s drawings to the bodies, voices, gestures, and histories of Barcelona’s queer nightlife and once thriving variety culture.
Looking back ten years on, the project continues to generate its own exuberant afterlife. It was awarded both the 2016 Premis Ciutat de Barcelona for Visual Arts and the 2016 Artistic Project Award by the Associació Catalana de Crítics d’Art. More recently, in 2024, one of the project’s central chapters, ‘The Stench’, joined the Museu de Valls as part of the National Collection of Contemporary Art of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Its protagonist is Gilda Love, a transvestite starlet once familiar the audiences at venues such as the now-defunct Bodega Apolo. Its acquisition by the National Collection offers another act of preservation in a project deeply concerned with conserving, through drawing, performance, and memory, the lives and histories of a vanishing Barcelona.
This summer, Gilda Love died in Barcelona, aged 100. Also known as ‘La cachonda de Cádiz’, she was one of Spain’s longest-performing drag artists, remembered for her sing-along repertoire, including songs such as ‘Colorete’. Her life and later years were documented in films by Enric Ribes’s ‘Cantando en las azoteas’ (2022) and Elio Colen's “Gilda” (2023), which portrays Love with a warmth that echoes Toni’s own tender enthusiasm to the lives and theatrical worlds of performers often excluded from official histories—but who, like the heroes, heroines, and monsters of myth, continue to voyage through our collective memory.
Toni’s project revolved around a Greek mythic adventure replete with perilous sea travel, strange lands and monsters, and a hero’s eventual return home. Not the ‘Odyssey’, but the earlier myth of Jason and the Argonauts’ quest for the Golden Fleece. And not a big-budget cinematic spectacle, but a nevertheless expansive and fantastical experience told predominantly through drawing, painting and humble materials such as cardboard.
‘The Mystery of Cabeiria’ occupied the entirety of La Capella’s 380 m² exhibition space and was divided into eight multicoloured chapters. It began with Jason’s stop at Lemnos, the island of fire in the northern Aegean. Here, women live under the gynaecocracy of Queen Hypsipyle, guarding a grisly secret: they have slaughtered the island’s men. Toni then brought together two seemingly disparate mythologies: the Cabeirian rites of Classical Greece, and the legends of Barcelona’s dwindling cabaret scene.
But ‘The Mystery of Cabeiria’ could never have been confined to the exhibition space. The project expanded beyond La Capella through a series of performances, screenings, live events and a small publication throughout its two-month run. On 18 September 2016, male rhythmic gymnast Gerard López and musician-dancer Juan ‘el Rosillo’ de la Cruz, each performed at the site of the former Copacabana Cabaret on Passeig de la Banca. Later, a Halloween screening programme, organised in collaboration with filmmaker Eduardo Gión, brought together underground horror films by the showman Pierrot (1942–2011), and on 3 November, Victor Guerrero presented a choreographed runway show. ‘The Mystery of Cabeiria’ became a constellation of encounters, connecting Toni’s drawings to the bodies, voices, gestures, and histories of Barcelona’s queer nightlife and once thriving variety culture.
Looking back ten years on, the project continues to generate its own exuberant afterlife. It was awarded both the 2016 Premis Ciutat de Barcelona for Visual Arts and the 2016 Artistic Project Award by the Associació Catalana de Crítics d’Art. More recently, in 2024, one of the project’s central chapters, ‘The Stench’, joined the Museu de Valls as part of the National Collection of Contemporary Art of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Its protagonist is Gilda Love, a transvestite starlet once familiar the audiences at venues such as the now-defunct Bodega Apolo. Its acquisition by the National Collection offers another act of preservation in a project deeply concerned with conserving, through drawing, performance, and memory, the lives and histories of a vanishing Barcelona.
This summer, Gilda Love died in Barcelona, aged 100. Also known as ‘La cachonda de Cádiz’, she was one of Spain’s longest-performing drag artists, remembered for her sing-along repertoire, including songs such as ‘Colorete’. Her life and later years were documented in films by Enric Ribes’s ‘Cantando en las azoteas’ (2022) and Elio Colen's “Gilda” (2023), which portrays Love with a warmth that echoes Toni’s own tender enthusiasm to the lives and theatrical worlds of performers often excluded from official histories—but who, like the heroes, heroines, and monsters of myth, continue to voyage through our collective memory.
- COVER STORY, SEPTEMBER 2026
The other odyssey: Antoni Hervàs’ ‘Cabeiria’ 10 years on
Cover Story, September 2026
Cover Story ArchiveThis month marks the 10th anniversary of one of our most rewarding curatorial experiences: Antoni Hervàs’ ‘The Mystery of Cabeiria’, presented in 2016 at La Capella, Barcelona, as part of Barcelona Producció, the annual open call for artistic projects.
Toni’s project revolved around a Greek mythic adventure replete with perilous sea travel, strange lands and monsters, and a hero’s eventual return home. Not the ‘Odyssey’, but the earlier myth of Jason and the Argonauts’ quest for the Golden Fleece. And not a big-budget cinematic spectacle, but a nevertheless expansive and fantastical experience told predominantly through drawing, painting and humble materials such as cardboard.
‘The Mystery of Cabeiria’ occupied the entirety of La Capella’s 380 m² exhibition space and was divided into eight multicoloured chapters. It began with Jason’s stop at Lemnos, the island of fire in the northern Aegean. Here, women live under the gynaecocracy of Queen Hypsipyle, guarding a grisly secret: they have slaughtered the island’s men. Toni then brought together two seemingly disparate mythologies: the Cabeirian rites of Classical Greece, and the legends of Barcelona’s dwindling cabaret scene.
But ‘The Mystery of Cabeiria’ could never have been confined to the exhibition space. The project expanded beyond La Capella through a series of performances, screenings, live events and a small publication throughout its two-month run. On 18 September 2016, male rhythmic gymnast Gerard López and musician-dancer Juan ‘el Rosillo’ de la Cruz, each performed at the site of the former Copacabana Cabaret on Passeig de la Banca. Later, a Halloween screening programme, organised in collaboration with filmmaker Eduardo Gión, brought together underground horror films by the showman Pierrot (1942–2011), and on 3 November, Victor Guerrero presented a choreographed runway show. ‘The Mystery of Cabeiria’ became a constellation of encounters, connecting Toni’s drawings to the bodies, voices, gestures, and histories of Barcelona’s queer nightlife and once thriving variety culture.
Looking back ten years on, the project continues to generate its own exuberant afterlife. It was awarded both the 2016 Premis Ciutat de Barcelona for Visual Arts and the 2016 Artistic Project Award by the Associació Catalana de Crítics d’Art. More recently, in 2024, one of the project’s central chapters, ‘The Stench’, joined the Museu de Valls as part of the National Collection of Contemporary Art of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Its protagonist is Gilda Love, a transvestite starlet once familiar the audiences at venues such as the now-defunct Bodega Apolo. Its acquisition by the National Collection offers another act of preservation in a project deeply concerned with conserving, through drawing, performance, and memory, the lives and histories of a vanishing Barcelona.
This summer, Gilda Love died in Barcelona, aged 100. Also known as ‘La cachonda de Cádiz’, she was one of Spain’s longest-performing drag artists, remembered for her sing-along repertoire, including songs such as ‘Colorete’. Her life and later years were documented in films by Enric Ribes’s ‘Cantando en las azoteas’ (2022) and Elio Colen's “Gilda” (2023), which portrays Love with a warmth that echoes Toni’s own tender enthusiasm to the lives and theatrical worlds of performers often excluded from official histories—but who, like the heroes, heroines, and monsters of myth, continue to voyage through our collective memory.