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Stripdagen Haarlem is a biyearly comics festival in the city of Haarlem. The festival was initiated in 1992 by Dutch comics artist
Joost Swarte and comics expert Joost
Pollmann. Since then, it has steadily evolved into one of the foremost visual culture events in Europe.
The festival takes place early Summer in the historic city centre of Haarlem, with all important local cultural centres participating. Galleries, libraries, museums, rockclubs, cinemas all join hands to show their take on contemporary comics culture. In addition to this, Stripdagen Haarlem is famous for the large number of international comics artists
attending (see
this years list...)
Stripdagen Haarlem awards two important prizes. One is the VPRO Grand Prix for the best international comics artist active today. Some three months before the festival, during the official press presentation of the programme, the
VPRO Debutprize is awarded to the best new Dutch speaking comics talent entering the field in the past two years. Sponsor of the prizes is VPRO broadcasting corporation, a legendary Dutch media organization famous for its support of independent, groundbreaking artists.
Winner of the 2004
VPRO Debut Prize is Gerolf van de
Perre
Nominees for the VPRO Grand Prix 2004 are: Lewis
Trondheim, Juanjo Guarnido and Joann Sfar
(see http://www.stripdagenhaarlem.nl/nieuws_12mrt04(2)_ENG.htm)
Previous winners 2002
VPRO Grand Prix: Joe Sacco
VPRO Debut Prize: Benno Vranken
(see http://www.stripdagenhaarlem.nl/2002/english_grandprix.htm)
The 2002 edition of Stripdagen Haarlem was a highly successful mixture of comics, exhibitions, music and sunshine. It produced a lot of national and international media attention for contemporary comics and drew a crowd of 20,000 visitors to Haarlem.
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True stories
In 1986, Maus was like a breath of fresh air. For his impressive comics documentary, Art Spiegelman was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize. Ever since, the true comics story has been on the rise. Associating comics with nonfiction still raises many an eyebrow. Virtually all Maus reviewers have openly wondered how it was possible that comics could tell such a poignant story. Comics? Weren't those funny books about jolly big-nosed Frenchmen who set out to beat the silly Romans? To a certain extent, the puzzlement of the Maus reviewers is understandable. It is true that most of the comics specialty stores are filled with brightly coloured entertainment. But the last couple of years, the jolly big noses are joined with remarkable nonfiction work.
Impact
In that respect it seems like the drawn image slowly starts to fumble at the dominance of photography. For over a century photography has demanded the monopoly over the true depiction of reality. Photo- and filmcamera's were thought to depict reality with more authority than graphic artists. Newspapers and magazines underlined their credibility by illustrating their articles with photographs. Only with the introduction of the image manipulation software Photoshop did the general public realize that photographs are reproductions like any other. That camera's don't always tell the truth.
In addition to this, the stream of news images has grown to gigantic proportions. CNN and the internet keep their camera's focused on the world stage, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. However, these actuality images seldom make a mark. They rush by in the routine of the tv news or lose themselves in the immensity of the internet.
It is no coincidence that the documentary comics arises in this context. The comics artists realize their images have extra impact. Not only because the personal, intimate character of the comics medium stands out amidst the raging flood of actuality images. But also because, from behind their drawing boards, they can tell teir stories with maximum control: searching in relative rest for the right image rhythms, the right compositions, the right nuances of the truth.
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War
Figurehead of the documentary comics artists is Joe Sacco (1960). During the latest edition of Stripdagen Haarlem, Sacco won the VPRO Grand Prix for his pioneer work. His drawn war reportages from Palestine and Bosnia are regarded to be among the best documentaries on these regions.
Sacco puts himself right of the centre of his comics. He portrays himself not very flattering as an annoying know-it-all guy with little round glasses. From behind these glasses he observes the daily life of the people surrounding him. He alternates these observations of wood chopping Bosnians and playing children with factual backgrounds of the conflicts they find themselves in, the history of the region, maps. One of Sacco's most effective narrative strategies is to let his news sources tell their own stories. Thus, halfway a conversation, he lets them turn their heads to address the readers directly and - often surrounded by black borders - then tell their own stories first person. That is how, in Safe Area Gorazde, he tells of a nocturnal hunger tour in a way that no television crew will be able to do. The readers see the desperate tour happening 'live' before their eyes.
For the occasion of the VPRO Grand Prix, Sacco guestcurated his own exhibition on the changing faces of war. He illustrates his own changing vision of war with works by Francisco Goya and George Grosz and pages from comics like 'Maus', 'Barefoot Gen' and 'Sergeant Rock'. Apart from that, his own experiences are on show in the form of original art from his books 'Palestine' and 'The Fixer' and a complete comics reportage from 'Details Magazine' on the International Criminal Tribunal in The
Hague.
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Expositie Joe
Sacco:
Teylers Museum
Museumcafé
Spaarne 16
OPEN 4 juni t/m 4 juli
za 10-17 uur
zo 12-17 uur
www.teylersmuseum.nl |
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Headscarf
Another prominent exponent of the true comics story is
Marjane Satrapi (1969). In the four part autobiographical series 'Persepolis' she recounts clearly, moving and with humour the islamic revolution in Iran and her life as an Iranian teenager in Europe.
Satrapi's images are less detailed than Joe Sacco's. Nonetheless, she knows how to express with simple, thick lines the oppression of living under a fundamentalist religious regime - plus to correct the twisted European images of women wearing headscarves.
Saturday evening June 5 at 8.00 PM, Satrapi will give a public lecture on the backgrounds of her groundbreaking Iranian comics
autobiography.
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lezing Marjane
Satrapi:
Stadsbibliotheek Haarlem
Doelenzolder
Gasthuisstraat 32
OPEN
za 20-21 uur
www.sbhaarlem.nl |
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Adventure
The changed status of photography in the age of digital reproduction is an aid for the documentary comics artists. However, comics artists and photographers do not necessarily oppose each other. In 'Le photographe', comics artist
Emmanuel Guibert (1964) and photographer
Didier Lefèvre work closely together on a reportage on the struggle between the Soviet army and the mujahedin in late 80s Afghanistan.
Drawings and photographs merge in telling the story of a Medecins Sans Frontieres team that crosses the Afghan mountains with an illegal caravan. Some of the photographs have been crossed with a marker, suggesting that the photographer was not satisfied with them. Thus raising questions about the aim of the trip and the final vision of the photographer.
In Spaarnestad Photo Archive, everyone can join Guibert and Lefèvre on their visual adventure. To eventually ask oneself how essential it is that stories are labelled
'true'.
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The Photographer in the Heart of Afghanistan
Spaarnestad Fotoarchief
Groot Heiligland 47
OPEN 28 mei t/m 22 augustus
di-za 12-17 uur
zo 13-17 uur
www.spaarnefoto.nl |
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Fireworks
The sevenshooter of the 'netherground'. Such is the motto
Peter Pontiac chose to bundle his complete works in seven 'Pontiac Reviews'. During this edition of Stripdagen Haarlem, the final volume of the Pontiac Reviews will be presented: 'Dossier X-11 (In Autobioscope)'. A monument for the godfather of the Dutch underground.
It took no less than two months. Only then Peter Pontiac (1951) was fully satisfied with his art for the 'Rolling Stones Songbook' he published in the early seventies collectively with his Leiden commune members. The drawing teems with detail: the Tumbling Dice-motif on Mick Jagger's bath towel, the empty syringes from Keith Richards's junkie days, the Hell's Angels bouncer who with his pals turned the Stones gig during the 1969 Altamont rock festival into a nightmare. Years later, Pontiac could laugh at his endless labour. The uncertainty of the self-trained artist, he recognized. A drawing filled till the very last millimeter to disguise his doubts at his own talent. But also his experiments with drugs: 'you can't stop drawing when you're stoned'. And his perfectionism. Horror vacui rex, fear of emptiness reigns supreme, as, two decades later, he noted ironically over a likewise hyperdetailed work.
Elusive
Pontiac starts out in the slipstream of underground artists like
Robert Crumb and Rick Griffin. Like them he strives after the raw power of rock 'n roll on paper. He publishes his short stories in legendary Dutch countercultural magazines like 'Hitweek-Aloha', 'Modern papier' and 'Tante Leny presenteert'. Also he lives out his fascination for sex, drugs and rock 'n roll with hundreds of illustrations for music magazine Oor.
Constant in his work is a preference for strong emotions, translated on paper with likewise icons like swastika's, dollar signs, smileys, hammers and sickles. Short and shap as the three minutes energy rush of a popsong. A steady base for the artist who grew up amidst the rich iconography of Roman Catholicism.
At this stage, Pontiac's life and art are one. The artists rambles from commune to squat with a serious Monkey on his Back. He adds temporary art job to temporary art job and repeatedly fully disappears from the radar, swallowed by the narcotic Dutch night. In these days, every Dutch music and comics aficionado is familiar with Pontiac's work, only without knowing 'where it all comes from.' Pontiac's drawings are instantly recognizable, yet they are blown about the multitude of publications that publish them. All this time, the artist Pontiac remains elusive. As early as 1983 there is talk of collecting his work, but it will take until 1991 before the artist has found the calm and the distance to make the seletion for the first volume of the Pontiac Reviews. It is only then that the coherence of his art becomes fully visible.
Triumph
This is the same period that Pontiac makes his first steps outside of the subcultural scene. Against the backdrop of the slow rhythm of the subsequent Pontiac Reviews, Pontiac's illustrations start to appear in national publications like
'VPRO Gids', 'Algemeen Dagblad' and 'NRC
Handelsblad'. Only at this time, the general audience starts to put his name and his art together, although probably no more than a few recognized the underground artist's hand in the funny 'weather mice' that illustrated the newspaper weather reports in 'Algemeen Dagblad' for years.
In 1997, Pontiac is awarded Dutch national comics prize Stripschapprijs for his complete works, in 1998 the Professor Pi-award for 'De pen en het zwaard' ('The Pen and the Sword') volume of the Pontiac Review. Encouraged by the subsidies, which, at that time, are starting to be accorded to comics artists, he finally starts working on the project he has been talking about for twenty years: a comics biography of his fascist father who disappeared on the island of Curaçao. This book 'Kraut' turns out nothing less than a triumph. Pontiac draws it coolly in ballpoint and richly illustrates it with egodocuments from his father, which show how the good catholic boy slowly but surely sinks into the extreme rightwing political morass. One of the most intriguing comics ever published in the Netherlands, is but one of the rave comments for Kraut. Together with the Pontiac Reviews, Kraut forms the pinnacle of Pontiac's art - so far. The exhibition 'Peter Pontiac - Dossier X-11' proves that after seven shots, there's no reason why the fireworks should be over yet.
Pontiac blues
Peter Pontiac's art is virtually unthinkable without a rock 'n roll soundtrack For decades, he drew spot on portraits of rock icons like Lou Reed, Neil Young and James Brown for the national music magazine Oor. On these portraits Pontiac feverishly fuses myth and person, like he had a hellhound on his trail while drawing. A selection of these drawings is on show during the Stripdagen Haarlem festival in cd shop Tipitina, right on the way to the Pontiac exhibition in Zanderzaal. In Tipitina, Pontiac leaves little doubt: if the blues wouldn't have come about in the Mississippi delta, it would have come crawling from the delolate emptiness of the Dutch flatlands.
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Peter Pontiac - Dossier X-11
Zanderzaal
Groot Heiligland 47
za 10-17 uur
zo 11-17 uur |
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Pontiac Blues
Tipitina
Schagchelstraat 12
za 10-17 uur
zo 11-17 uur
www.tipitina.nl |
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Clear lines
He designed the Toneelschuur theatre. But he also put a flower stall, stained glass windows, illustrations and comics to his name. ABC Architectural Centre looks back on the 3D designs of
Joost
Swarte.
For Joost Swarte (1947) it is clear: drawing, designing and thinking are not to be separated. They follow each other naturally. If you are drawing a jukebox, then you start thinking about what the machine looks like. And that is connected to how it should work. Functionality and beauty are the two sides of Swarte's works. The form is not to be thought separate from the content.
Such is clearly to be seen at Swarte's most recent design for the charming Simon ter Metz flower stall in the centre of Haarlem. In the limited space of eight square metres, everything on the outside instantly communicates 'flowers, nature, beauty', while on the inside the daily life of the flower salesman is made as easy as possible. Right to differing Summer and Winter variants of the stall. 'Everything works, from the first to the last screw', the stall owner proudly concluded.
In ABC Architectural Centre, Joost Swarte's pinching and scraping, dreaming and thinking can be followed closeby. A clear feast for the thinking man's eye.
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ABC Architectuurcentrum
Groot Heiligland 47
di-za 12-17 uur
zo 13-17 uur
www.architectuurhaarlem.nl
www.joostswarte.com |
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