Over a period of four months, illustrator Christoph Niemann and creative director of The New Yorker, Nicholas Blechman had a fluid, ongoing conversation via their smart phones. Only this conversation was unlike most we experience every day.
No words were used at all. Rather, the dialogue was an exchange of visual material created by the two of – drawings sketched in notepads and photographs snapped their phones. The result is a book called Conversations and an exhibition Talking Pictures: Camera-Phone Conversations Between Artists.
How do you communicate your ideas to someone without using words? The answer is right in your pocket.
Chatting with It’s Nice That, Blechman explains that the project (initially called 100%) actually started in the late 90s as a way to escape from the exhaustive nature of mainstream illustration.
“I worked as an art director at The New York Times and also needed a break from editorial design,” he explained. “Each book was a collaborative limited edition drawing project on a theme (maps, architecture, love). After September 11, we drew on the theme of evil and published with Princeton Architectural Press. That was in 2005 – we have not done a book since.”
The pair ressurected the project in 2016 as part of the Met Museum’s new group show, which is running until December, titled Talking Pictures: Camera-Phone Conversations Between Artists.
“The premise of the show is to use the cameras in our phone to have a visual conversation. Christoph and I both saw this as an opportunity to publish another edition,” said Blechman
The only rules for the conceptual “conversation” was that Blechman would use black ink, while Niemann would use blue ink, and that the no words were to be exchanged.
The result is a wonderful cornucopia of everyday musings and observations that shift and slip between two creative minds, each complimenting the other without any real context or stimulus, just a single visual trigger.
The subject matter is varied, from a “lonely cargo container of empty tarmac of Tegal airport, a skiing trip in the Alps”, as well as some “political anxiety, inspired by our shock of Trump”.
You can see a selection of pages from the book below or grab a copy of it here.
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[via It’s Nice That]
