Julius Wiedemann
Andrea Offermann for creative face Magazine
For the fifth time, after Berlin, Paris and Zurich, ILLUSTRATIVE 09 started this weekend again in Berlin. ILLUSTRATIVE is the leading international forum for contemporary illustration and graphic arts. Over the course of two weeks, the festival celebrates the illustrative arts, presents new talents and trends, exchanges ideas, marvels at progressive technologies, and rediscovers forgotten styles. ILLUSTRATIVE features an exclusive exhibition and shows works from 60 internationally recognised illustrators in addition to hosting conferences, a film program, and parties. Illustrative displays not only the quality and fantasy of the latest graphic arts but also shows how the visual effects of graphic design, illustration, book art, comics, concept art, and animation spill into and influence the field of art. The exhibition is accompanied by the Swatch Young Illustrators Award. The exhibition highlighting the contest winners displays the most intuitive inclinations of the genre and is an exciting measure for new trends.
Julius Wiedemann was one of the jurors for the Swatch Young Illustrators Award. He studied graphic design and marketing in his native Brazil and has worked as an editor in Brazil, Japan (for digital and design magazines), Germany, where he worked as an editor-in-charge at TASCHEN and created a number of titles ranging from design to pop culture, and the United Kingdom. He has edited over 25 books in the last seven years, in areas such as advertising, Internet, computer graphics, art, product design, computer games, and others, collaborating with people from over 50 countries. He has spoken at several events around the world, including TED 2007 (Monterrey), Art Directors Club (Madrid), Benetton Fabrica (Italy), Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), EFX (Germany) among others. Julius Wiedemann is also the editor of the Illustration Now! Series published by TASCHEN.
The artist, designer and publicist Andrea Offermann interviewed Julius Wiedemann for creative face Magazine:
creative face Magazine: Julius Wiedemann, the TASCHEN publishing house has recently released the third installment of Illustration Now! How and when did you get the idea to start a book series focusing on illustration?
Julius Wiedemann: About 4 years ago we were looking at a lot of Illustration showcases, but we thought that they needed to be more diverse, in countries, styles, and also mixing illustration stars and young talents. This way we set out to create a more global publication that we hope reflects more the transformations in the field. There is so much stuff out there that need to be seen, and so many people working really hard. We though we needed to look into that and surprise people. The content in a book has always 3 layers. The first one is the connection, something you know about. I call it the comfort zone. You feel identified. The second is the curiosity zone, where you give people something they might know, but is not mainstream yet. And the last layer is the learning one, where you give people completely new things to see and read. A good book for me is a book that combines all this.
creative face Magazine: You were one of the jurors of this year’s Illustrators Awards at the Illustrative. How do you view the future of illustration in different areas, e.g. product design, environmental design, fine art?
Julius Wiedemann: Because now people do not care so much about technology (which is a good thing), illustrators are having more freedom, so what you see is a new breed of work, exploring all kinds of mediums. I really like it. And the good thing is that a number of industries are taking it, and using illustrated work in the most diversified way. This freedom play a big role, as it generates much more original ideas. I see a bright future, specially in interior architecture.
creative face Magazine: The Illustrative is one of only a few showcases focusing specifically on illustration. How does it change the art to be shown in a gallery out of context with the articles or projects it was produced for? Can the pieces stand alone? Do you see a line between illustration and fine art?
Julius Wiedemann: I think that having it in a gallery changes completely the perspective of the work, and of course the artists doing it. Until a few yeas ago nobody would think about buying illustration to hand in the wall. Now, you have people collecting it. I claim that illustration today one of the artistic forms of expression that connects with people in the most intimate, fastest way. Many times, contemporary art has become something so dissociated from our reality, that we barely connect with it. There is still the ”prejudice” of the briefing, but illustrators are also having more freedom. On top of that, I also think that visual culture within the commercial context has become really mainstream culture. It is today hard to dissociate commercial and non-commercial. When Pop came, I think the boundaries have been broken a lot. But now, it is hard to find any boundaries. Specially because fine artists are all the time commissioned to produce commercial work by big brands. So I come to the conclusion that commercial culture has been accepted as mainstream culture. It is a controversial statement, and is there for people to judge. But that scenario changes a lot the perspective for illustrators.
In part II of the interview Julius Wiedemann talks about illustration as an art-form and its meaning for our culture.
