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11/30/2004: "AMERICAN ILLUSTRATION AND PHOTOGRAPHY ANNUAL PARTY" by Walter King
I went to New York over the weekend to go to a party. I flew into La Guardia Friday around noon and caught a cab to Williamsburg where I stayed with an old friend and former studio mate . Steven Burkart shared a studio loft with me in Columbus for about 8 years during the mid 90's. Steve is a fantastic abstract painter and also an art handler involved in moving the work from and to the Museum of Modern Art during their recent new construction period.Steve's studio is on one of the quaint streets of Williamsburg with its long rows of 3 and 4 story brick and clapboard apartments amid warehouses and random bodegas and cafes. There is a contemporary art gallery on the main floor of the old warehouse called Momenta.
Steve was still at work when I arrived but I had keys and let myself in. I phoned Zach Dilgard a friend who is subletting a studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, till January. I will sublet the same space from February to end of April in 2005 while on sabbatical -- a story I'll blog during my stay. Zach is a fashion and fine art photographer from Columbus making his move on the Big Apple. Zach and I hopped a subway train and immediately got lost ending up in China town looking at a tattered Manhattan map and debating whether or not it would be considered cheating to hail a cab. Typical male syndrome. After walking around lost for about 45 minutes we decided it wouldn't be cheating. So we hailed a cab. We were really only a few blocks away.
The American Illustration and Photography annual publishing party-- NYC Nov.5th 2004-- was huge! Zach and I arrived at around 7:45. The event took place at the Angel Orensanz Foundation established in a lovely old synagogue near the Bowery. The American Illustration Annual (the only rival and contender with the Society of Illustrators Annual) and the American Photography Annual showcase some of the hottest, most cutting edge talent working in North America today. In contrast to the Society of Illustrators which has a lot of cross over the American Illustration Annual highlights a lot of conceptual, attitudinal, even post modernist (if you can find a clear definition for this let me know) illustration. Much of it could just as easily be done on large canvases and hung in a gallery or a museum with little argument. I'm not sure how I got into the book this year but it was quite an honor.
The crowd was enormous! I'm guessing between 1000 and 1500 artists and significant others like art directors, publishers and artist reps all trying to talk to each other, looking at the pages of the two new books displayed on the walls, eating and drinking while not spilling cosmos on each other. There was, of course, spillage none the less.
Now I'm going to drop a lot of names in this blog. Some are rising talents, some currently on top of their game and some have been around since Altamira. But they really were, the artists that is, the reason for the celebration. Please forgive me if I sound like a sycophant.
This years American Illustration Annual includes some 'old school' artists from the 60's, 70's and 80's still doing cutting edge work like Sue Coe whose work I first saw while in grad school in the 80's; R. Crumb the underground comic artist from the 60's known for his Devil Woman and Mr. Natural; Milton Glaser who did the famous Bob Dylan poster with rainbow hair and started Pushpin studios and the magazine of same name with Seymor Chwast in the late 60's which had such a huge impact on illustration and graphic design at that time; Ralph Steadman of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas fame;
and the late but singular Saul Steinberg whose images graced the covers of the New Yorker so often from the 60's through the 70's. I have met Coe, Glaser and Steadman briefly in the past. Sue Coe gave a lecture at CCAD and visited with me in the office for about 45 minutes several years ago. I talked with Ralph Steadman at FIT during an American Illustration/AIGA weekend studio tour about 7 or 8 years ago. And Glaser presented a new counting book last year at the Illustrators Conference in Philadelphia. I also met him again briefly when he gave the key note address at the Society of llustrators Educators Symposium some time ago. But I didn't see any of the 'old school' at the party. Maybe the ghost of Saul Steinberg passed through the old synagogue. On the upper balcony where we were allowed to smoke I was trying to light a cigarette and the match kept blowing out. Saul
was that you? I know, I know, I gotta quit smoking.
Some of the more well known contemporary illustrators in the book are: Gary Baseman with his absurd Bosch like cartoons, Steve Brodner who's twisted and tortured caricatures I first noticed in Mother Jones in the 80's, Anita Kunz and Joe Sorren.
I saw Anita and tried to make my way over to say hi. But the crowd around her was pretty thick. So I decided to get a drink and a little to eat first and try later. They had these great little salmon kabobs that looked delicious--so were the lamb chops. And I got another pomegranate martini as well before trying again.
Anita is at the top of her career just now and has many admirers. She was the most prominent and visible artist at the opening and was kind of the queen of the event. She's a Canadian but does much of her work in the States. I'm not sure but she may keep an apartment in New York. I had invited her to speak and participate in an Illustrators Round Table discussion at the college about a year and a half ago. Eventually I managed to find an opening and touched her arm. When she turned I said 'Hi' and we
shared a few words but the crowd was shifting and I had to flow with it or find my drink separated from my hand as bodies closed in. I did catch her later with a smaller group of friends and her significant other standing in line at the Pioneer Bar on Bowery St. for the after party. That's her shooting the Peace sign. Sorry Anita. This is not the most flattering photo--I think I can actually see your tonsils.
I met the very popular Joe Sorren briefly at the first Illustrators Conference in Santa Fe about 5 years ago --not that he'd remember me. Same with Baseman. I've never met Brodner although I really like his work. If any of them were there at the party I didn't see them. But then it was quite crowded.
I did run into Scotty Hull who is an artists' rep from Dayton Ohio and friend. Scotty and I went to school together in Columbus. I think he was a year or two ahead of me. He's a talented artist himself and has run a very successful agency now for many years and handles a number of artists nationwide. You can visit his business site at:
www.scotthull.com
American Illustration is really commentary on Pop culture and popular attitudes. It is primarily editorial illustration at its most vibrant and intelligent. What I like about both American Illustration and American
Photography is that it raises what most consider to be 'commercial' and therefore not important, to the level of fine art. In fact I'm seeing more and more fine art that really looks more like the work in these annuals than ever before. Makes one wonder about the traditional relationship between the two endeavors. No I'll fo further than that...there is, as in many aspects of modern culture, a shift in attitudes at work. The theory has always been that the commercial or applied arts find their sources in the skills and ideas of fine art. But today it seems that the reverse is just as likely. I think, and have held this opinion for years, that the best of any field is high art. The rest is not unworthy, just not the best. History has always maintained that at the top the dividing lines are always blurred. Goya is
claimed by both fine arts and illustration, as is Daumier. Picasso and Matisse both illustrated poetry books. It has only been in the last 50 years or so that illustration and fine arts painting and drawing have been artificially separated so aggressively. But the larger history suggests they are twin sisters of the same mother. The American Illustration Annual reunites the family each year.
Brad Holland was missing from this years Illustration annual, whose work has influenced a generation of younger artists. His is also one of the most prominent and important Illustrators alive in the U.S. today with work published by every important magazine, many newspapers and even exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art. C.F. Payne-- a friend and colleague here at CCAD who is often called the modern Norman Rockwell is also missing. He has also had a big influence on younger illustrators. Brad and Chris are founding members of the Illustrators Conference and more importantly the Illustrators Partnership of America which takes a lot of their time and may explain their absence from the book. Chris has also taken over the Chairs position here at CCAD when I stepped down in January of 2004. The Illustrators Partnership is endeavoring to create a collecting society to police licensing of illustrator's rights much like ASCAP or BMI for songwriters and recording artists. It is becoming the most important organization for the support of artists since the Graphic Artists Guild of which Brad was also a founding member back in the late 60's. I think the IPA will also have an effect on the way rights for all visual art is valued and paid for in the long run. I was a little disappointed by the absence of these two artists as I was really looking forward to being in the same book with them.
The poster(detail) is for his lecture at CCAD in the early 90's. Brad was one of the first artists I invited to speak at the art college when I became Visiting Artist Coordinator. When I asked for the image for our poster he told me it had never been published and that he'd done it some time ago. I don't remember seeing a date on the piece so it could go back a ways. The poster was included in the New York Art Directors Club Annual that year. John Kirk was the designer, I was listed as the Art Director although about all I did was ask Brad for the drawing. John did all the real work. I asked Brad for an illustration that had something to do with education. The image is that of a child suckling at the nipples of wisdom while riding on the shoulders of giants.
You can see Payne's work on the back of the next Reader's Digest.
As I mentioned earlier...I'm not sure how I got selected for the Illustration Annual. I'm no longer a working illustrator even though I get a few things published each year in various venues. I still make the effort because I teach illustration. It is an honor to be published alongside some of the best current and past heavyweights some of whom I've admired since high school. Below is the piece they selected for the book from my entries. It is called 'The World Complete' and refers to a shared Hebrew and Islamic saying that "one who saves a life saves the world complete.'
I wish I was a little more knowledgeable about the current field of photography so I could tell those of you who are more interested in that field about who is in the Photo annual. What I can tell you is that American Photography selects the best from the fields of Fashion, photo journalism, editorial photography and yes even fine arts photography. But you can see the selected work for yourself on line at the twin American Illustration and American Photography site:
www.ai-ap.com
You can also purchase copies of either annual ($45 on line) at the address above. They are really big coffee table books and quite beautiful to behold.
Zach and I eventually found our way back to Brooklyn in time for last call at my favorite watering hole in NY--the Brooklyn Ale House on Berry St. If you make it through there say hi to 'Trippy' the bartender who is also from my home state of Oklahoma.
