VAROOM 17 – the illustration report
Illustration, Culture, Society Winter 2011/2012
Cover illustration created for Varoom by Edel Rodriguez Purchase here
FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE:
Varoom 17 investigates illustration in the emerging economies of the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – with interesting insights and a wealth of imagery.
CHINA: CULTURE VS COMMERCE
Alan Male discovers the faultlines in Chinese commercial image-making as the economy booms. Will a new illustration community emerge?
INDIA: BOLLYWOOD RENAISSANCE
The Bollywood hand-painted film poster is revealed to be far from dead, with a whole a new global audience in the digital age, as recognition of the craft value of painted posters and the whole tradition surrounding it drives this apparent renaissance.
BRAZIL: POP BAROQUE
Brazilian illustraion is as rich and diverse as its country. Tristian Manco spots nine key illustrators who typify nine trends in Brazilian illustration.
Brazil’s Eduardo Recife is interviewed his collaged illustrations that give the bright, upbeat and vintage, a twist of the modern, downbeat and alienated.
RUSSIA: THE POLITICS OF PLURALISM
Contemporary Russian illustration is a rich mix of Soviet era modernism and pre-Soviet republic folk styles. Varoom talks to Russian illustrator Victor Melamed about irony, dialectics and Winnie the Pooh
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF A MODEST MEDIUM
At the end of the 19th Century new technology transformed illustration. At the beginning of the 21st Century technology is reshaping the illustration landscape again. Nanette Hoogslag shares some research-in-progress on possible futures for an editorial medium that has often lived in the shadow of photography.
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Varoom’s contributing editors dig into a selection of great new work in various fields, including Beatrice Alemagna’s new children’s book, cooking app for kids, the Tree of Life (and Death) from Will Dawburn, ritual slaughter reportage from Indonesia and intriguing illustrated maps by Herb Lester Associates.
Gary Taxali (who recently collaborated with the Royal Canadian Mint to create a series of six celebratory coins) selects the image that makes him think ‘I Wish I’d Done That’.
Marian Bantjes’ painterly centre spread for Varoom beautifully describes a possible small scale future for humans.
Paul Davis takes on Globalisation whilst imagining Vlad The Impaler on Linked-In showing his portfolio of recent projects.
Varoom 17 is available from the AOI Shop