This is our bitter prophecy: 2026 will be a flop.
Starting tomorrow, everything will go downhill. In fact, perhaps things have already been going downhill since Christmas, if our wishes have been heard...
We Wish You a Flop Christmas
So if the future is going to be stormy, it's better to look back on the idyllic past, when we were young and beautiful. Let's think, for example, of 2025, which we are about to leave behind, a year full of resounding successes. We began on 1 February with the exhibition Cremona illustrata (Cremona illustrated) held in the Sala Alabardieri of the Palazzo Comunale (Cremona), where all the illustrations from the revamped Guida di Cremona (which, incidentally, is already almost sold out)
Cremona illustrata – Foto 360
March saw the arrival of Voilà, the 20th International Exhibition of Contemporary Illustrators, held in three different venues in Cremona: the Padiglione Amati of the Violin Museum, the San Lorenzo Archaeological Museum and the Tapirulan gallery. Our eyes still light up when we remember the magnificent illustrations by Gilles Bachelet, guest of honour at that edition.
Group photo with the illustrators of the Voilà exhibition and guest of honour Gilles Bachelet
Set-up of Gilles Bachelet's exhibition in Cremona
The exhibition Voilà then moved to the Castello D'Albertis in Genoa. Speaking of Gilles Bachelet, we would like to point out that his solo exhibition – Funghi, carrots and other animals – is still on display in Cividale del Friuli and can be visited until 6 January 2026 at Santa Maria dei Battuti. Don't miss it: the exhibition features over 100 original watercolour works from his most important books. Among other things, we have had the honour of publishing six of his books in limited edition (four of which have never been published in Italy before). And while we're at it, here is a greeting illustration by Gilles Bachelet himself.
Best wishes for a happy 2026 from Gilles Bachelet
In September, thanks to our collaboration with Inchiostro Festival, we hosted the exhibition Queeriosity (for which we published the catalogue): a project involving around twenty illustrators and six writers to tell the story of the queer world.
The last collaboration of 2025 was with RaiCom, which, in the winter edition of Cartoons on the Bay at the Palazzo dell'Emiciclo in L'Aquila, asked us to curate, together with Allegra Dami, a small exhibition of illustrations by Tony Wolf.
The exhibition of Tony Wolf's illustrations in L'Aquila
The most attentive among you will not have failed to notice that in 2025, the illustration competition, which normally opens in July and closes in October or November, also to allow for the selection of images for our traditional calendar, was published much later, almost at the end of the year, the theme is Flop and registration is open until 25 February 2026. Here is the first flop of 2026: not being able to hold in our hands the calendar that has been hanging on our walls continuously for twenty years (but for now, we can remedy this with Guido Scarabottolo's calendar, which is as beautiful as ever!). The reasons for this delay would be long and tedious to explain, but it will certainly be more exciting to see the flops of those participating in the competition. We console ourselves with the thought that if the calendar comes out in March, it will certainly be a commercial flop, but it will also be perfectly on theme... In the meantime, let's enjoy the last day of Natalia Averianova's illustration published in the 2025 Calendar.
Illustration by Natalia Averianova (December of Tapirulan's 2025 calendar)
As usual, we would like to thank all the members of the Association who contribute to making Tapirulan's initiatives possible. Anyone who would like to continue doing so (or start doing so) can register here. The membership fee of £15, as well as being a welcome contribution to our activities, allows you to participate free of charge in the year's initiatives and to enter exhibitions free of charge when a ticket is required. And yes, you will also receive a free calendar, but as you will have understood, not immediately, and it will certainly be poorly printed, perhaps with the wrong dates, or it will be lost by the courier... In short, it will be a flop like the rest of 2026.
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