Eurocature ’19

I had the pleasure of attending the 7th annual Eurocature Festival of Caricature Art in Vienna, Austria this past week. I’ve attended a lot of cartooning and caricature events over the years and Eurocature ranks up there with the best and most enjoyable of them. It is a true celebration of the art of caricature with artists from all over the world participating.

The festival is part convention with speakers and events and part competition, although the latter element is only a competition in that some of the works produced get recognized at the end. The focus is on the creative process and the joy of both sharing your work and seeing the work of others created around you, not winning awards.

Over 60 artists from all over Europe and as far away as the U.S. and Japan gathered in an event space at the Wien Energie complex in Vienna. They are presented with three different themes on which to base a piece of art they are to create in the medium of their choice. Over the next four days, the participants draw, paint, and sculpt their way to creating a piece of caricature art to hang in the Wien Energie gallery space in a show that will be open to the public through the late summer. Each artist was also asked to bring a “studio piece” with them, which is also part of the show. So each artist had both a studio piece and one that was created completely at the festival in the show. I put a print of my “Merry Poopins” MAD spread in the studio show and I posted the art I did for the exhibition yesterday. I actually spent the first day doing a different watercolor piece for a charitable cause, which I will share sometime soon.

Amid all the creative chaos, there were seven guest speakers that did presentations about their work or other aspects of caricature throughout the week. The Speakers:

Daniel Stieglitz– Daniel is a German caricaturist with a background in animation and filmmaking who now does a lot of live gigs and event work. He does these elaborate crowd scenes drawn spontaneously that are really wonderful. He spoke about his career path and his work, citing the great Sergio Aragonés as a major influence.

Ruxi Chibrit– Ruxi is the business (and life) partner of the fantastic Romanian artist Valentin Chibrit. She did a fascinating talk on the psychology of the creative mind and how to mix business and art using neuroscience.

Xi Ding– Xi is originally from China and now lives here in Vienna, and is a caricaturist, illustrator and master painter. He spoke about the fundamentals of painting light in terms of both value and color. This was a highly informative presentation, and I learned A LOT about the different kinds of reflections and how different surfaces reflect light.

Kage Nakanishi– Kage is the Japanese “Kingpin of Caricature”. He’s not just a terrific artist but owns multiple retail caricature stands throughout Japan and has over 100 artists working for his company “Caricature Japan Inc.”. He did a presentation about the genesis of his caricature business and his philosophy behind it.

Frank Hoppmann– Frank is a German illustrator known for his award winning, biting satirical caricatures in magazines and other media. He shared his work and a video tour of his studio which had the crowd in stitches.

Milan Ilic– Milan is freelance illustrator from Linz, Austria whose caricature illustrations and cartoons have appeared in many magazines and publications, including the U.S. Playboy. Milan shared his great work and cited artists like Mort Drucker and Jack Davis as influences.

I did a talk on the final day, mostly about the process of doing a MAD movie parody and how caricature works within that format.

There were also several different events over the course of the week, including a visit to the Karikaturmuseum in nearby Krems, where we saw some amazing exhibitions of cartoon art; a “Live Caricature” drawing night where we drew each other in live style; and a “Likeness Contest” where we all worked from projected photos and were given 10 minutes to do a caricature. The week wrapped up with the opening of the exhibition and the awards ceremony, which allowed patrons and people from the public to attend. There was also live caricature drawing to raise money for a worthy cause.

What I liked the most about Eurocature, and what separates it from the bigger U.S. caricature event “ISCA Con”, put on annually by the International Society of Caricature Artists, is that while there are awards being given out that aspect is not really important or emphasized. The focus is the art, not recognizing artists. I enjoy the ISCA event when I am able to attend, but ISCA Con really is primarily a competition and too many of the attendees are focused on winning awards and little else. There was no feeling of the need to be validated at Eurocature. It was just a bunch of artists getting together to share their mutual love of the art of caricature.

A huge thank you to Bernd Ertl, Bernd Weidenauer, Birgit Vlk, Xi Ding and Geronimo for putting on such a fantastic event. I highly recommend this if you are a caricaturist and fancy a trip to Vienna.. and who doesn’t?

Here’s a gallery of some pics from the festival: