Hasta La Ideas

Art galleries are rarely the place to find comedy, yet a new exhibition at the V&A in London offers giggles aplenty, as it looks back at the first 50 years of satirical magazine, Private Eye…

The exhibition, which opens tomorrow, focuses especially on the cartoon art within the magazine, a key element of the publication from the beginning. “It’s one of the things about Private Eye that is often overlooked,” said editor Ian Hislop at the press view this morning. “In all the talk about the journalism, the trouble and the courts and the writs, people often forget that every fortnight Private Eye presents about 25 beautifully drawn jokes, and the cartoonists will tell you that, essentially, is why people buy Private Eye.”

Cluff, 1990

Michael Heath

Hislop sees the Private Eye cartoonists as part of a great history of British satirical art stretching back to Hogarth. Since its beginning, the magazine has promoted and published the work of more than 90 artists, including Willie Rushton, Gerald Scarfe, Ralph Steadman, Michael Heath and Nick Newman. One wall of the exhibition celebrates this with a display of work by 50 Private Eye cartoonists, each represented by one drawing. There is also a short documentary showing Ken Pyne creating a cartoon for the magazine.

James Hunter, 2002

Simon Key, 2008

Elsewhere, the cartoons are split into themes, covering cartoon strips, political cartoons, and a wall of drawings that demonstrate Private Eye’s ability to superbly sum up, and send up, the fashions and trends of the times. Shown above are two more recent cartoons, mocking our obsessions with the internet and London’s bendy buses, respectively.

No. 75, 30 October 1964

No. 594, 21 September, 1984

No. 1147, 9-22 December, 2005

Opening the exhibition is a wall of Private Eye’s trademark front covers (detail of the wall, shown top). Hislop has picked one cover for each of the last 50 years, and the display demonstrates how little the magazine’s design strategy and production techniques have changed over the years.

Display of notes and pages from the magazine, revealing the design techniques once employed by art director Tony Rushton, before he switched to using a Mac

The editor’s office

Other displays offer deeper insights into the working life at the magazine. In one, art director Tony Rushton’s early design methods are revealed, while another corner hosts a recreation of the Private Eye editor’s office, the place where the main joke-writing team at the mag get together to bash out their collective spoofs.

Current issue of the mag, featured on the editor’s desk

Notes for the current issue cover

Notes for a story that appears inside the current issue of the mag

The first ideas and sketches for the stories are written out in longhand on pink paper, and delightfully, the editor’s desk in the exhibition contains the notes for the latest issue, which focuses on the travails of Dr Liam Fox and his travelling companion Adam Werrity (described in the notes above as ‘Twitty’). I am assuming these are the genuine notes, and it would certainly be a nice touch if these were updated in the exhibition with each issue.

Detail from the editor’s office

Detail from a display of Private Eye memorabilia, much of which is focused on legal letters and court judgements. The cartoon above reads. “Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a superinjunction!”

The exhibition pays homage both to Private Eye’s comic and artistic brilliance, but also its resolute devotion to print. “We hear a lot now about how print is dying, it’s on its way out,” said Hislop at the opening. “I refuse to believe that, obviously. One of the reasons is whoever got that pleasure of seeing a pen and ink drawing on a screen? It doesn’t happen… it’s about the material and it’s about the craft and it’s about the skill. That’s why I think it will continue to be important to have print on print. That’s partly what this is a celebration of.”

Private Eye: The First 50 Years opens at the V&A tomorrow and continues until January 8. Admission to the exhibition is free. More info is at vam.ac.uk.

There are so many graphic T-shirt projects in the world that we don’t normally write about them here on the CR blog. However, just this once we’re making an exception – for the Spirit of the Animal tie-die & animal print T-shirt collection…

Spirit of the Ape, Matthew The Horse

The project is the brain child of illustrators Matthew “the Horse” Hodson and Jon Boam, who have have created T-shirts featuring their own animal illustrations but also asked some of their favourite fellow image makers to get involved too. The result is a range of striking, super-limited edition tie-die T-shirts, with prints designed by Boam, Hodson, Andy Rementer (his Spirit of the Owl illustration is shown at the top of this post), Marcus Oakley, Drew Millward, Jay Cover, Jack Teagle, and more…

Spirit of the Bear, Drew Millward

“Matthew and I really enjoyed collaborating on our DOOOM 3.0 exhibion/project for Nobrow,” explains Boam of how the project started, “and we are often bothering each other with daft phone calls and stupid e-mails about all sorts of ridiculous nonsense. Actually, this was mostly Matthew’s idea. I just kind of went along with it.”

Spirit of the Hedgehog, by Jon Boam

“Matt already had experience selling his own tee’s with his h-o-r-s-e label and a fondness for hippie tie dye animal shirts,” continues Boam. “We both love animals and find shamanism and spiritual stuff genuinely fascinating so we asked a bunch of our favourite drawing pals to draw spirit animals and amazingly they all agreed!”

Spirit of the Cat, Marcus Oakley

“One of the initial reasons for the  project was to work with some of our favourite artists,” Hodson affirms. “Beyond the actual T-shirt illustrators, we’ve had some amazing [animal art] submissions to the Spirit of the Animal blog we’ve set up. It seems to be an idea lots of image makers want to respond to. As a result we’re planning on a zine release with some of our favourite submissions.”

“We did the tie dyeing in Jon’s garden in Chesterfield,” Hodson continues. “Apparently his neighbor was heard grumbling ‘bloody tie dye’ at the sight of 50 shirts drying in the wind. Most of the shirts are dyed with two colours, one more subtle than the other. We screen printed at Leeds college of art.”

“We printed 240 shirts, so that’s 26 garments per artist,” Hodson tells us. “They are  super limited and won’t be reprinted. Jon and I are hoping to run a second series for next summer, this time with female artists. Essentially, the project is about liking animals and feeling good. Some people are put off by the tie dye thing, but I’d encourage them to try one on. It’s just like a green T-shirt but with bits of white in it. I want to endorse monkeys and peace and I don’t think I’m alone.”

Fans of the T-shirts will be delighted to know that they will be exhibited for a few days at Beach London‘s East London gallery and shop from October 13-18. They are also available to buy online (while stocks last) from spiritoftheanimal.bigcartel.com. Do check out Spirit of the Animal blog too at spiritoftheanimal.tumblr.com

CR in Print

Thanks for reading the CR Blog but if you’re not also reading the magazine in print, you’re really missing out. Our October issue includes the story of Blackpool’s Comedy Carpet, a profile of Jake Barton whose studio is currently working on the 9/11 Memorial Museum, plus pieces on branding and the art world, guerilla advertising coming of age, Google’s Android logo, Ars Electronica, adland and the riots, and loads more.

And, if you subscribe to CR, you also receive our award-winning Monograph booklet every month for free.

If you would like to buy this issue and are based in the UK, you can search for your nearest stockist here. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 292 3703 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

Victorinox, the company behind the famous Swiss Army Knife, recently teamed up with UK artist Rob Ryan for a campaign to promote the launch of their new pocket-sized model, the Tomo…

It’s the first time that Victorinox has reinterpreted the classic Swiss design and the new Tomo is the work of Kazuma Yamaguchi of Tokyo studio, Abitax. ‘Tomo’ means ‘companion’ or ‘friend’ in Japanese. The studio also conceived the Tomo packaging, which uses recycled pulp to enclose the fold-up knife (see here on the Abitax site).

As part of the Modern Art Cutting campaign, which was created by agency Pd3, Rob Ryan was commissioned to create an A1 ‘tree of life’ drawing (detail shown, top) where characters are depicted carving messages and seemingly generating the artwork itself. The work, say Pd3, “depicts how the Swiss army knife is shared and passed down from generation to generation, always ready and waiting in your pocket to help. The backdrop of the piece draws on the beauty of Swiss forests, inspired by Ryan’s trip to Ibach.”

It’s an appropriate link-up as Ryan’s art centres around paper-cutting and his own technique is also explored in a short film created for the campaign, which you can view below. Paper-cutting, says Ryan, allows him to strip his drawings down to their bare essentials.

The new campaign also enables users to download stencils (of varying levels of intricacy) to make their own Ryan-inspired work. Once these have been cut out, the designs can then be layered together to create a single piece.

And if you need some help, Ryan is on hand, digitally. He’s made three ‘masterclass’ films, which can be viewed on the Tomo microsite, victorinoxtomo.victorinox.com, where the stecils can also be downloaded.

A final part of the fun takes Ryan’s bunting-style lettering to Twitter. Using the tag #alphabunting, users can to turn short messages and tweets into pieces of digital artwork, using a bespoke alphabet that Ryan created for Victorinox. Entering a message into the online generator, users receive a jpeg artwork of the message (an ‘alphabunting’ no less) to share or tweet. Here’s what they look like:

More of Rob Ryan’s work is at misterrob.co.uk and his A1 artwork created for Modern Art Cutting will be on display in Victorinox’s London flagship store on New Bond Street (artwork shown in full, below). Pd3’s work can be viewed at pd3.co.uk. The new Tomo is available at £17.99.

Artist and illustrator Stuart Whitton’s first solo exhibition, Origin, opens at the Exposure Gallery in London tomorrow evening. Whitton will be exhibiting a series of his exquisitely drawn portraits alongside typographic pieces.

Working largely in pencil, Whitton has produced work for a range of commercial clients, including CR. His show will feature both old and new work, as well as collaborations with others. Shown here are a selection of drawings that you can expect to see.

Detail of Origin (shown in full top)

Mischief

Detail of Mischief

Origin opens at the Exposure Gallery on Little Portland Street, W1, tomorrow evening. Whitton will be signing and numbering a limited edition of Origin postcards at the private view tomorrow evening, which he will give to those first through the door (the PV opens at 6.30pm).

Go Play

Go Play (work-in-progress shot)

Alphabet

Alphabet (detail of Q letter)

Whitton is repped by Handsome Frank. More of his work can be seen online at stuartwhitton.co.uk or handsomefrank.com.

Design duo Crispin Finn have just launched an exhibition of new screenprints at the Soma Gallery in Bristol. Each of the six prints brings together a selection of objects from the duo’s burgeoning collection of ephemera from around the world…

Yes, the new prints showcase Crispin Finn’s Womble-like tendency to hoard the kind of stuff that everyday folk leave behind or simply chuck in the bin. Sweet wrappers, food packaging, drinks bottles, airline sick bags, stamps, straws, lollipops, drumsticks, information cards… these object and more all appear in the six new prints, all rendered, but of course, in the duo’s distinctive palette of blue, red and white. Here are some images of the show and of the prints themselves:

Each of the prints is available as a 38 x 48cm embossed, two colour screenprint at £40 each. Or you can buy a set of all six for £200.

To see more of Crispin Finn’s work, visit crispinfinn.com.

Pack Rat by Crispin Finn runs until November 13 at Soma Gallery, 4 Boyces Avenue, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 4AA.

somagallery.co.uk