Berlin Graphic Days
The growing international scene of graphic artists, illustrators and Street Art artists meet at the Berlin Graphic Days.
They are sometimes looked upon as the stepchildren of art – although graphic artists, illustrators and Street Art artists have long made it into the museums of the world. Even comics and cartoons have taken up a permanent place in contemporary culture, and this not only since Art Spiegelman won the Pulitzer Prize with his graphic novel Maus – A Survivor’s Tale.
Are future Pulitzer laureates bustling about at the Berlin Graphic Days? Who knows? The ambitions of participants are, to begin with, of another kind. The festival is about networks, inspiration, looking over the shoulder. Graphic artists and illustrators will gather for the third time at the creative centre “Urban Spree”. The home of the movement is the United States, but the scene is also active in France. Berlin, say the organizers of the festival, is currently developing into another initiator: “An incredible number of new artists are settling here. Influences that go out into the whole world are coming from Berlin.”
The works that can be seen at the Berlin Graphic Days are created by quite classical techniques such as ink and screen printing or on the computer with all the refinements of technology. The backgrounds of the some 60 artists are as various as their methods. One of them, for example, is “Zellerluoid”, an Austrian illustrator who lives in Barcelona and there likes to listen to the sea and his old vinyl records for inspiration. Or Kunny van der Ploeg from the Netherlands, whose music posters reveal a passion for old printing methods and who has a short way to the festival because she has settled in Berlin. Likewise resident in the capital is the fashion designer “Yackfou”, who decorates her clothes with graphics. From a student project, she has developed her work into a company with customers all over Europe.
The Berlin Graphic Days want to provide a forum for all these and other stories – and of course for the art that emerges from these stories. The meeting will commence with an exhibition lasting for several days; then on the weekend comes the real festival for all lovers of graphic art. Many of them can be easily identified as such. A sure sign: drawing ink on their hands.
Berlin Graphic Days, 20 to 26 January 2014
