Anthon Beeke - It's a Miracle!

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Ovomaltine

Troilus and Cressida In Troilus and Cressida, Cressida and Helena are abused as whores. That is the age-old image of the woman: a whore without any other qualities. Troilus and Cressida also allowed themselves to be used; they had to in order to survive. But Helena had one more possibility: to

provide misleading information. For me that is the symbol of the Trojan Horse. The women’s movement thought it was a disgrace.

Even the actresses put stickers on the poster. But this is the poster for the women’s movement. The strap is a clamp.

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IJ catalogue (and poster) for the Design Academy Eindhoven I was told I couldn’t spell! (The Dutch compound letter IJ is pronounced the same as EI, which means egg.)

Postage stamps to mark the 250th anniversary of Douwe Egberts In 2003, Douwe Egberts marked its 250th anniversary. When you licked the postage stamp, you tasted coffee!

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Armour I made this logo for the exhibition ‘Armour, the Fortification of Man’ in Fort Asperen, where Lidewij Edelkoort was guest curator. Fifty renowned international artists, fashion and graphic

designers portrayed what the – far reaching – repercussions could be of 9/11.

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Dick Bruna During a meal with my friend Dick Bruna, I was teasing him a little by saying that his creation Nijntje/Miffy had basically experienced everything. And hadn’t he had enough of

it? Dick was imperturbable and answered with the unforgettable words: ‘I’m still making it simpler.’ With this poster, I wanted to beat him.

Seals Postage Stamp The former PTT wanted a series of 10 postage stamps about threatened animal species. I made the porpoise (50 cents) and the seal (70 cents). I had previously positioned the bar diagram showing how many porpoises washed up on Dutch beaches every year on the right. But then the seal leaps with his head into the bars, heading for

an accident. It had to be the other way round. And then I had made the porpoise black, because of the pollution. It became brown. The chemical structure I had positioned on the seal which had to represent PCB (pbc was the largest threat), was also not entirely correct.

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James Victore

Anthon Beeke – The Play Is the Thing

playing

Anthon Beeke is a player. When so many graphic designers are more like accountants with colour swatches, designing for business, unaware of their larger influence on the world, Anthon plays.

He plays to make himself happy and surprise himself. His work is not for a client or commission or lucre, it’s not even about work or design – it’s about him. And because it’s about him, it’s about us. The more authentic, the more personal Anthon becomes, the more resonant his designs become for us, his work takes on a deeper meaning and connection, we feel his giddy delight. He speaks directly to us because he gives us a piece of himself. Anthon plays.

Anthon plays with our perceptions, our senses, our morals and prejudice. He asks us to be open and tolerant and to widen our perspective about the world. He leads important conversations and keeps our prudishness about politics and sexuality in check. He urges us to be game for chance and change, for success and failure. He blazes a trail, and then gives us permission to follow our own path, and to take chances and fight for the freedom and creativity and room necessary for our play.

Visually, Anthon is like a groovy ‘Bebop’ horn player of the jazz world, his riffs pop and bounce from one visual language to the next. He has no commitment to fashion and is a master at photography, typography, collage, even the human form.

Rearranging our bodies and features, one could say Anthon ‘plays well with others’. And he invites us to play along, to dance with him in his beautiful world of fat men and alpha­ betized women, mismatched colors, cocks and toys, of faces we’ve never seen and yet completely recall, of folk art and fantasy. Anthon’s is a world we would all love to live in if we just had the freedom, balls and bravery necessary to just play.

Anna Tiedink

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Design House, Bicycle The exhibition ‘Bicycle’ in the Design House poses and answers the question of how many variations of bicycles are designed in the Netherlands.

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A collection of visual proofs from the 19th century from the printers Joh Enschede en Zonen in Haarlem was used for the 2006 summer calendar.

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Tijd-gift mailing Twice a year, Kampert and Helm Rotaform sent post to its most important clients. We used the construction of a replica of the sailing ship De Zeven Provinciën (The Seven Provinces) – also in Lelystad – as our starting point. There was always a relationship with the 17th century: seafaring, Dutch East India

Company, trade, Peter the Great in Zaandam, the map of Europe published by Adriaen Gerritszoon in 1587, but the most important historic cartographic document from that era. Right down to the envelope. Henk Raaff often hid a joke in the texts: where historic facts were absent, we added details, often to mythical proportions.

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Mickery At Mickery in Loenersloot, the foundations were laid for a pioneering international centre for avant-garde drama, performance art and experience theatre avant la lettre. Ritsaert ten Cate was the driving force. The breakthrough of Mickery came in 1967, when Ten Cate succeeded in booking the New

York theatre company La Mama. Their involvement, the intensity with which they acted and the social commitment of their shows were eye openers for both spectators and reviewers. After several years, Mickery moved to Amsterdam. I was allowed to make the posters and other printed matter.

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Skin, White and Organic This worldwide campaign (with Lidewij Edelkoort) for the French-German paper manufacturer Job Scheufelen shows what can be done with paper. The campaign was made up of three clips – Skin, White and Organic – in which a variety of printing, folding, embossing

and groov ing techniques are used. Organic is made up of photos of microorganisms taken by Lon van Keulen. The photos were processed by hand. The harness of the beetle is printed in two kinds of metallic ink in order to make the beast look mummified – as it does in real life.

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Naked Ladies Alphabet from 1969, later renamed Body type This alphabet was a reaction to the computer alphabet made

by Wim Crouwel. I admit: it’s absolutely unreadable and hence

unusable. But if you’re going to make something unusable, you can at least make something people are able to enjoy.

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Joyce Joyce Boutique Holdings is a famous luxury fashion chain in Hong Kong with shops inside and outside China under the name Joyce. In 1971, she was the first to introduce international designers in Hong Kong. Together with Lidewij Edelkoort, I made various campaigns for Joyce.

Steven Heller

Anthon Beeke sensual politics

erotic artist

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It is disappointing that the word ‘provoke’ is not somehow incorporated into the title ‘graphic designer’ – terms like ‘provocadesigner’ or ‘designprovocateur’, would perhaps suffice. Provocation is arguably the essential goal of all good graphic designers – and this holds very true for poster designers, who have only a brief moment to attract public attention. Among the most determined and agressive posterprovocators, Anthon Beeke deserves (and would doubtless be proud of) the title ‘Design Provocateur’.

Provocation is measured by many different degrees of intensity. Some work provokes a simple glance, others a seering stare; some trigger joy, others sadness, and still others rage. Sometimes the cause is inadvertent, sometimes the result is surprising. Beeke’s provocation is quite deliberate – he is not an innocent, his imagery is not naïf. In every single design piece, the integral element sparks an emotional response – positive or not. Such a calculus caused the scandal in America over twenty years ago when his poster for Globe Speelt Shakespeare’s ‘Troilus En Cressida’ was scheduled to be hung at an exhibition of his work at the Cooper Union gallery in New York City.

Beeke’s theatre posters are never neutral – points are made, statements are visualised, senses are challenged. Beeke’s mission is to educate while promoting the client. This poster was all this and more. It was, on first, second and third look both sexist and sexually violent. The savagely trussed and painted backside of a woman bending over to show her vagina, attached to her truss is a horse’s tail. Made to look like a horse (a Trojan horse?), this symbolically represents how Cressida is sent into bondage by her father to be used and abused like any other beast of burden. Realistically this photograph is of an actual women transformed – dehumanized and violated.

When the poster was hung, members of the New York design community were outraged; a printer refused to print it in a

design magazine; editorials were written and letters were received condemning either the poster or the censorship that resulted. The framed image was removed from the gallery wall. Many liberal and conservative tenets were brought into focus. What was allowed in Amsterdam failed to pass muster in New York.

Beeke’s conceptual equation was simple: difficult image + public consternation = critical conversation. His posters do more than promote a product, they advocate a concept while testing the limits of free expression.

That there is an outlet for Beeke’s most strident works is a testament either to the clients’ courage or Beeke’s determination. He may compromise, but one would be hard-pressed to see any trace of him thwarting his vision. ‘Troilus En Cressida’ is not pleasant to look at, but its mnemonic is indelible. By transcending the immediate purpose to advertise a performance, it also rose to the level of manifesto, which kills the proverbial two birds with one stone.

This is not an exception, but rather Beeke’s rule. Seeing a collection of his posters is like bring exposed to the behavioral modification in ‘A Clockwork Orange’. If forced to stare at each of the posters reproduced here the eye wants to look away. But the viewer cannot help but engage. Beeke forces his audience to go slightly over the edge, but does not push them into freefall. There is a safety cord – an aesthetic balance that keeps even his most disturbing images within control.

Beeke’s typography enables this provocation to engage.

If all he did was produce-startling pictures, then he would be little more than a pure artist. But graphic design is the marriage of type and image – art and message – for a purpose.

Beeke is continually aware that even his most challenging photographs must guide the viewer towards some action other than revulsion. Turning off a poster is not an option.

Shock alone is not convincing. Every one of his images

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Penthesilea It’s only after you have seen the show by Toneelgroep Amsterdam and have seen the poster in the street that you understand the statement I am making. That’s also the experience you have if you see the poster for the next show before seeing the show itself. For theatre posters I usually look

for a metaphor for something that is itself a metaphor. Penthesilea is at the head of a group of very feminist women who only tolerate men to procreate. Naturally she falls in love with Zeus, who completely fucks her up – just as naturally.