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IDN
Jon Burgerman: Pens Are My Friends
Text by Harlan Levey, Peter Thaler, Lars Denicke.
For the first time, British artist and illustrator Jon Burgerman's commercial, personal and collaborative works are collected together in this lavish and fun publication. Burgerman's brightly colored parades of monster faces and abstract glyphs have found their way onto a huge range of merchandise--toys, clothing (for Ripcurl), snowboards, exhibitions, murals, customizations, sketchbooks, even a sick bag--as well as galleries around the world (he is especially popular in China and Japan, whose graphic arts traditions his work draws on). Burgerman's personal pantheon of like minds includes Phil Frost, Mr. Jago of the Scrawl Collective, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Barry McGee--all of whom make sense as inspirations, and none of whom quite resemble his maniacal, over-the-top style. Accompanying the hundreds of pages of brain-melting doodles, drawings, characters and colors are essays by the Pictoplasma team and editors of Modart magazine, insights into Burgerman's working process and, of course, photos of salads. The included DVD is packed with animated goodies, documentary stuff and things to beautify your computer. Enter the world of Jon Burgerman's art, where no surface is safe from his meandering lines!
"The Colouring Room was what Pictoplasma fittingly decided to call this extravagancy into the world of duudles. After three days of constant duudling under the influence of strong tea and two ipods oozing out the best of duudley music…an entire room was duudled over. When the gallery opened, every visitor was invited to fill in the Hello Duudles with sparkling colours."
Sune Ehlers, excerpted from Pens are my friends, from which this featured image is also reproduced.
"Burgerman belongs to a generation of artists whose practice is both influenced and informed by Graffiti, comics and their offspring. Graffiti because of its bravery and authenticity, its struggle for style and the positive nature of its violent modern birth; and comics, because, they were everyone in our western pop lives (cereal boxes, Saturday morning cartoons and so forth) and yet, from Superman to the Simpsons they have managed to remain the only accepted media vehicle (aside from so-called art) to deliver news too real for the 11 o'clock broadcast and packed chock full of opinions that could not be proven right or wrong, but made certain sense. The connection is not spray-paint or style or sarcasm. It isn't Spy vs. Spy or something from Hannah Barbara. It can't be flossed out of a character's three teeth. It is not about branding oneself or just writing your name. It has little to do with laws or preconceived public perception. It shares influences, but also imaginative drive. It is about art and forgets art. Reflective of this moment in history, it values evolution over revolution and shares a desire to show things as they are. As they are, but where are they? Where is Jon?"
FORMAT: Hbk, 8.5 x 9 in. / 310 pgs / illustrated throughout / DVD (PAL). LIST PRICE: U.S. $55.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $65 ISBN: 9789889959142 PUBLISHER: IdN AVAILABLE: 6/30/2010 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: *not available
Published by IdN. Text by Harlan Levey, Peter Thaler, Lars Denicke.
For the first time, British artist and illustrator Jon Burgerman's commercial, personal and collaborative works are collected together in this lavish and fun publication. Burgerman's brightly colored parades of monster faces and abstract glyphs have found their way onto a huge range of merchandise--toys, clothing (for Ripcurl), snowboards, exhibitions, murals, customizations, sketchbooks, even a sick bag--as well as galleries around the world (he is especially popular in China and Japan, whose graphic arts traditions his work draws on). Burgerman's personal pantheon of like minds includes Phil Frost, Mr. Jago of the Scrawl Collective, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Barry McGee--all of whom make sense as inspirations, and none of whom quite resemble his maniacal, over-the-top style. Accompanying the hundreds of pages of brain-melting doodles, drawings, characters and colors are essays by the Pictoplasma team and editors of Modart magazine, insights into Burgerman's working process and, of course, photos of salads. The included DVD is packed with animated goodies, documentary stuff and things to beautify your computer. Enter the world of Jon Burgerman's art, where no surface is safe from his meandering lines!
