Friday Georg Barber aka ATAK came to my school (Ar.Co) to give an informal lecture about his work. I already knew his work superficially, but as of now, I am officially a very big fan. He is not only an amazing and extremely talented illustrator but he was also really charismatic and funny, in a very cute, nervous way. He was born in 1967 in East Germany, more specifically Frankfurt (Oder), in the German-Polish border. He showed us the very first drawing he did, of which he remembers being pround of. It was amazing. He also showed us a painting he did from 1975, from when he was 8, and it was more amazing. That shocked me.
He also mentioned in the 80's he had a band named ATAK, which is where his alias comes from, also that his band was more influenced by Einstürzende Neubauten rather than Kajagoogoo, haha. I loved the fact that he used many pop culture and music references. He mentioned various bands but what I remember the most is a project where he took inspiration from The Beatles' Revolution 9 and also another one by the Beastie Boys, which seemed to be his favourites. He mentioned he loved their attitude, borrowing things from many different places and transforming them however they wanted. There is kind of a punk feel to his artwork, too. He also uses a lot of references to popular comics and cartoons, but not just that, I also noticed one of Yoshitomo Nara's little girls in one of his pictures. You can really tell he is influenced a lot by Japanese pop art, I dare to say there's even a bit of Tadanori Yokoo in there. And Ukiyo-e, of course. He uses a lot of random kanji and katakana, too.
I remember he showed us one of the very first fanzines he made, and said that because it was very expensive to print in color back then and he had to use black and white - I'm thinking this was still in the 80's - he covered everything in different patterns so that they would somehow substitute colour. So that kind of determined his style. I like this idea! I wish there was more of the work he shared with us on his website, and more information about him in english on the internet. Still it was so very difficult for me to pick which images to share! I started out with 25, then narrowed them down to 10 - which is still a lot!
Everyone was very quiet and hardly ever asked any questions, which I guess made him a little nervous. Besides our teachers the only one who dared to speak was my rather strange classmate André, who lacks a certain filter and lives in his own world of odd interests and youtube memes. To finish the lecture he showed us the animated music video he made for the band Monoland, which was awesome, and when it was over it actually took people a while to start clapping. Then he pointed to some postcards of his work which were free to take, but there weren't many so I just took two. Some people reached over to talk to him, and even if he was a regular nice guy I didn't really have the guts to say anything. But if I had said anything it would just be "You're awesome, I love your work, I want to be you when I grow up". Not very exciting.
I just heard. It's not fair, it's really not fair. For a lot of us this means very little to look forward to at fashion week. I hardly can believe I will never see any more of his always, always magnificent creations. He has rewarded us with brilliance time and time again but we haven't had enough yet. Damn it.
Thursday 11 February 2010 at 7:04 pm
Yesterday me and my girls had picanha for dinner and afterwards, we made art on the table. Lovely! I should reeeeeally scan this but I have yet to figure out how to do it because it's gigantic. It's going on my bedroom's wall as soon as I get around to it :D
Tuesday 09 February 2010 at 9:00 pm
I had a lot of accidents with this one but I managed to save it. I'm glad. If you tell me it looks like Jack Sparrow, you'll die a slow painful death! I was going for John Galliano-esque gypsy magician.
Monday 08 February 2010 at 9:51 pm
In hopes of keeping myself active and avoid torment and despair, I have decided that I shall create something everyday and share it with the world. Even if it I think it's hideous, even if it is unfinished, sloppy, play, and even if it's on a napkin. Most likely I will be profoundly embarrassed all the way through, which is how I am feeling right now. One of the following I particuarly hate and wish it was never to see the light of day. However, I decided to do this, and here it is. I don't hate all of them though. These are all from my art journal, all of them from the past few days, except for the first collage which is actually a little older but I thought I'd add anyway. But this is where it starts being serious, so please cheer me on!
Friday 05 February 2010 at 10:34 pm
I'm back from the Netherlands! I had a great time, I'm so glad I went. I wish I didn't have to return so soon. I uploaded photos from our day in Wageningen & our day at the amazing Kröller-Müller Museum in the Hoge Veluwe National Park. The museum has a really amazing collection, I recommend it to everyone. By the way, if for some reason you want to go see Van Gogh's works, don't go to the Van Gogh museum and go here instead, plus you'll get to see a load of other very important painters, as well as discover new ones. Besides it is now one of my most favourite places, the Hoge Veluwe National Park was particularly beautiful this time of the year, beautiful colours! It was really dreamy and wonderful, I took so many photos. Mostly of trees! I like trees! I also discovered I'm really good at taking baby photos, and that I've become pretty good with babies, which is a little disturbing.
Here's a teaser, if you want to see the whole set it is on flickr. I really like them.
Wednesday 03 February 2010 at 01:38 am
I really liked Amsterdam! It is really very pretty. At least that's what it looks like from the bus! And on the way to the museum. Maybe I'll take a better look another time this week! I would really like to. I couldn't even take a picture because we were just running around. So I drew one! Hahahahah.
It looks EXACTLY like this. From the bus. Except it has people, and cars. :P
The Van Gogh museum was nice, there was no Gauguin afterall, I'm actually pretty disappointed. I think I would've enjoyed it. It's actually a really different experience to watch Van Gogh's paintings live. They're very honest I think, if you know what I mean? I don't know how to explain. But it's kind of adorable. Some of them are really, really impressive. The last couple of floors were dedicated to Van Gogh's contemporaries and outside influences, so there was all this expressionism, impressionism, pointilism, symbolism, all that stuff. It was interesting. I was mostly impressed by Odilon Redon's paintings, not so much by the paintings themselves but by his technique, which is really amazing! I think it was probably my favourite part of the whole museum.
Hmmm. What else? During the day it rained quite a lot so the snow in the back garden melted away. However a few hours ago it started snowing again! So everything has snow again. And it's so cool, I went outside for a while and it was really fluffy fresh snow and I was playing around with my footsteps. I really love snow! Because I live in Portugal and we don't have any.
It's really cold here. Star Wars Weather Forecast says it's like Hoth out there; cold, ice, freezing desolation. The weather in Amsterdam was pretty nice actually during the afternoon. It is cold, very cold, but it wasn't windy or anything like it is in Rhenen, it was very pleasant. But I only thought so because I have an anorak - that is something I thought I'd never, ever say, but here I am, saying it: I have an anorak. And it's lovely.
Tuesday 02 February 2010 at 12:18 pm
Hi! I'm in the Netherlands! In Rhenen, specifically. I had already written a post here but for some reason it's gone. It's pretty annoying. I came here to visit my cousin Maria João. She is wonderful. She just had a baby girl called Uma (poor child!), and since my sister and my niece Leonor are also here the house is full of children. I don't really like children, but I really love Leonor and Uma, so it's not like I can just ignore them! They are both lovely though.
When I arrived here there was a 4 cm thick blanket of snow all over Rhenen. It has just been raining, so all the snow is melting. It was really pretty. I have to go outside to smoke so I took pictures of the table in the back garden. I really like snow!
Late at night I went back outside and gave the table a face.
"Hi!", says Table. Table has a face a little like Mameshiba, it's because I am obsessed. でも豆じゃないよ！
Today I am going to Amsterdam for the first time! I come to the Netherlands a lot to visit Maria, but I've never been to Amsterdam. She has always lived in Rhenen or Wageninger, never big cities. So this time we'll do some sightseeing, I'm looking forward to it. Will I love it, will I hate it? Oh! The suspense! We are visiting museums. Today we probably will go to the Van Gogh museum, there is also a Gauguin exhibit there. I don't like Gauguin, but I've never seen any of his paintings live. One should always look if given the chance. Thinking about it, I have never seen any of Van Gogh's paintings live either! I am also hoping to see other museums and painters, but we'll see, don't want to impose.
Anyway, I'm going! Uma is crying her lungs out and I can't concentrate, plus it'll soon be time to leave. I'll take Camera!
dapper who?
The dapperfish goes by the name of Sara, and is delighted to make your acquaintance.
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