Paris, Zurich and now Berlin: ILLUSTRATIVE 2009 will return to the creative capital to celebrate the cutting-edge works of contemporary graphic art for the fifth time around. From the 15th of October to the 1st of November, works ranging from drawing, graphic prints, painting and monumental mural collages to graphically inspired 3D-illustrations, book art and animation will be on show. With more than 60 artists from all across the world, ILLUSTRATIVE brings together an inspiring cornucopia of visual contemporary culture in the Villa Elisabeth located in the heart of Berlin.
ILLUSTRATIVE showcases an international scene of artist-designers, whose works have been inspired by subculture movements like comic and graffiti as well as by applied arts like illustration and book art. The exhibition explores the merging of infinite materials and techniques in widely unprecedented combinations, which challenge learned ways of seeing – e.g. the latest development, where illustration and graphics are translated into the third dimension, or new narrative strategies in 3D-animation.
New Artists in the Exhibition
Over 60 artists were selected for this year’s exhibition. Among them – next to renowned European and US-American illustrators (like Olaf Hajek, Erik Mark Sandberg, Tim Dinter, Roman Bittner or Tomer Hanuka, who draw “Waltz with Bashir“) – are also numerous artists from Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Swatch Young Illustrators Award
The Swatch Young Illustrators Award exhibition showcases the newest artist generation. The prize annually awards extraordinary new talents, handpicked by an international jury. It encourages and supports illustrators and graphic designers in their personal work and offers them an international platform. Members of the jury include, among others, Julius Wiedemann (Publisher „Illustration Now“), Olaf Hajek (Illustrator), Caroline Roberts (Grafik Magazine) and Bill Cranfield (IdN). The winners of the Young Illustrators Award 2008 were illustrators Rebecca Manley (GB), Miriam Frei from Switzerland, Christian Montenegro (ARG) as well as Jenny Rope from Finland with her animation work.
Background
ILLUSTRATIVE Berlin 2009 is a project of Illustrative e.V., a non-profit organisation based in Berlin. The project is led by Katja Kleiss und curated by Pascal Johanssen. Following the success of the first exhibition, ILLUSTRATIVE 2007 was held in Berlin and Paris. In 2008, the fourth Illustrative took place in Zurich.
