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JAN VOLLAARD KEYNOTE
ART & RECORDSLEEVES
Jan Vollaard writes on pop music for NRC Handelsblad, nrc.next and various other publications. A recurring theme in his 25 years as a critic and interviewer is the relationship between sound and image as seen on record sleeves, in music videos and in live performances. In 2009, in cooperation with De Lakenhal in Leiden, he produced an article and lecture titled “Bubbles and High Art: Relating Barney Bubbles to Theo van Doesburg and contemporaries” in which he discussed the influence of the artists Theo van Doesburg, El Lissitsky and their contemporaries on album design. Vollaard is an avowed lover of art and architecture.One of his hobbies is playing the theremin, an electronic instrument which is played without touch.
In his keynote Vollaard will consider the relationship between art and album design, from Sgt. Pepper to the Sex Pistols and from hippie music to the hi-tech record sleeves of New Order and Orchestral Manouvres In The Dark. Record sleeve designers such as Barney Bubles and Peter Saville were directly inspired by examples from art and architectural history. Artists such as Peter Blake, Andy Warhol, Anton Corbijn and Banksy designed ground-breaking record sleeves and even Salvador Dali dabbled in rock & roll. The record sleeve is the ultimate in pop art, contemporary art accessible to all. Vollaard will illustrate this with visuals and, where necessary, audio under the motto “Sex and Art and Rock & Roll”.
CINERAMA
WESTBLAAK 18
THURSDAY 28 OCTOBER
13:00 > 13:20 HRS
STUDIO FRONTAAL KEYNOTE
Vera is a club with a rich history that has been around since 1974, featuring concerts, movies and dance nights. Before that it was a sorority, but as the years passed the members became more and more politically active and organized lectures, poetry nights and jazz-concerts. After a few years the members voted for a direction towards live-music. Peter Weening initiated this change and nowadays still works as our mainstage promoter.
The concert posters of the Vera Club exist since the 80ties due to a group of always changing, enthusiastic young designers. The posters are screen printed in the attic of the club that locates a small graphic studio. Besides screen printing the studio also locates facilities where the famous Vera Krant is produced. This little club magazine is made with the help of a small semi-automatic offset machine and always full of colourful illustrations.
The Vera posters are unique pieces of art, printed in a run of maximum 70 pieces, which makes them true collector’s items. The prints are often peeled from the walls even before the concerts even started. At the moment the Vera Club has 11 poster designers that print a little over one poster a month.
Kunny van der Ploeg and Mirjam Dijkema of Groningen based collective Studio Frontaal, have both been working for the Vera Club for several years as poster designers. Their shared passion for authentic design methods -such as collage, drawing, letterpress and screen printing- brought them together collaborating on several projects. ‘The work we make for Vera, is feeding our more regular design work. We have so much freedom in creating the posters; legibility is the only requirement. Therefor the Vera club is a dream client; we explore, associate freely on themes and songs and band names and experiment with several illustrative methods. That’s how we stay fresh and inspired. It’s wonderful making your hands dirty with ink, not staring at a screen the whole day. The hand made aspect makes it very personal and gives it an immediate originality. We strive to continue this in all the work we produce; it should be authentic, surprising and personal.
Kunny van der Ploeg (1980) studied Graphic Design and Illustration at Academie Minerva in Groningen and got a scholarship to study at Edinburgh College of Art to get her Masters Degree in Graphic Design. Ever since 2004 she works as an independent graphic designer for a broad variety of clients.
Mirjam Dijkema (1984) gor her BA at Academie Minerva in Groningen where she studied Graphic Design, Illustration and Animation. After that she studied History of Modern Art at the University of Groningen.
They formed the collectieve Studio Frontaal in the spring of 2009, together with Josje Kobes.
CINERAMA
WESTBLAAK 18
THURSDAY 28 OCTOBER
14:30 > 14:50 HRS
RUFUS KETTING KEYNOTE
THE FLYER IS DEAD
Rufus Ketting is mostly known as one half of multi disciplinary art duo ‘HuMobisten’ (2000), a contraction of ‘humor’ and ‘mind your own business-ism’. Apart from doing performances, making videos, doing graphic designs and making art which they allow to be as funny as life itself, also keep a much read blog on which they show their work plus speak their minds about the circumstances under which their work is formed.
After Gyz La Rivière (the other of the two HuMobisten) and he decided in 2006 to not share their workspace anymore, they focused more on their solo work (yet still remaining HuMobisten). Gyz attended to his professional art career, Rufus –from early childhood lured into the graphic metier because of the magic of logos, album covers and especially film posters– went back to being a graphic designer and became more and more so occupied with motion and title design, making title sequences for befriended film makers. Apart from the usual designing logos, visual identities, websites, books and what have you, Rufus (still) does tons of flyer and album cover designs. Last year, amongst many others, he made the cover design for Benjamin Herman’s ‘Blue Sky Blond’ which became the years best selling jazz album of 2009, and this year he did the design for The New Earth Group’s ‘Eurafricarabia’ in a collaboration with Suus Allewelt (with whom he had earlier made the design for their debut album). He also designed the visual identity for the Utrecht based Rosa Ensemble (an experimental modern chamber music outfit), including the artwork for their last album ‘No Ark Dead Eel’.
Apart from all this Rufus still performs quite a lot and also shows his autonomous (2D) work from time to time. This sort of work takes place under his monicker ‘Homey Universalis’ a self proclaimed black (or off-white) child in a white, mature world. He participates on exhibitions in and outside The Netherlands (recently he took part in one on ‘pop/musical influence’ in the The Dutch Cultural Pop-Up Space (London) called ‘Nederpop-Up Shop’ and he made a mural on quotes in the Sara Tim Trust at the Rotterdam annual Museumnight (‘50 Huge Feet’, 2010). Besides this, he sometimes DJ’s for the kids, organizes parties, writes columns and does cameos in films of friends.
CINERAMA
WESTBLAAK 18
THURSDAY 28 OCTOBER
11:10 > 12:00 HRS
SANDER VAN BUSSEL KEYNOTE
THE RELIC SIDESHOW
If you believe in Rock and Roll…
Worshipping the former belongings of popstars and moviestars sometimes becomes a religious veneration. Worldwide Fame is the new belief, ultimate unreachable. The pop-hero or moviestar is seen as a new, better, super-human. By watching the Relics the viewer gets, for a brief moment, a chance to be close to the unreachable.
The Relic Sideshow is a travelling exhibition of pop-relics by artist Sander van Bussel. Van Bussel (1970) works as an artist/ designer. Recent Projects are ‘Ambassade van het Hoofdhanglied’, a way to collect and remove songs that stick in your head, ‘Het Sterkste Verhaal van Nederland’ a competition in telling strong stories and ‘Book To Be’ publishing books that still have to be written. Last two are project of Tilburg CowBoys, a collective of three of which Van Bussel is co-founder and member that initiates and realizes different artprojects since 2001.
The Relic Sideshow can be found at the Cinerama location where Sander will also hold a keynote at 28 October.