slanted 38
colours
slanted 38
1 001 GER
BEN JAMIN WURSTER
Benjamin Wurster → 001 Woodcut Words—Color This woodcut is an attempt to show the diversity of colors with only one color. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
THOMAS KÜHNEN
GER
005
GAZMEND ZENELI
GER
004
4
Gazmend Zeneli → 004 Jump Thomas Kühnen → 005 Rainbow Announcing poster for a letterpress workshop by the artist-duo Rainbow-Studio. Ayla Geldhof → 006 Somewhere in Between A series of screenprints presenting a feeling of being “out of place and out of space,” evolving around boundaries and finding a sense of self. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
5 006 BEL
AYLA GELDHOF
Slanted 38 — COLOURS
011 GER
010 CYP
STUDIO MARIAN FITZ
VIOLA DESSIN
GER
012
STELIOS PAPAGEORGIOU
BO NILS SEBASTIAN
SWE
009
8
Bo Nils Sebastian → 009 Destruction Unit An alleged hipsterized classic smiley symbol, punctured by a medieval dagger, showcasing a nihilistic aversion for happiness and joy. Stelios Papageorgiou → 010 Charon’s Obol An allusive term for the coin placed in or on the mouth of a dead person before burial. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
9 013 GER
OPEN STUDIO
Studio Marian Fitz → 011 Silogespräche Poster for a repeated series of talks under the direction of Prof. Dr. Sabiene Autsch and Prof. Max Schulze, University of Paderborn, Department of Art. Viola Dessin → 012 Neon (Ne) A small study on the element neon. OPEN STUDIO → 013 Paper Porcelain When life gives you lemons. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
SEBASTIAN CURI
USA
016
12
Sebastian Curi → 016 The Hand Series Kriszti Szepes → 017 Soap Bubbles Slanted 38 — COLOURS
13
017 HUN
KRISZTI SZEPES
Slanted 38 — COLOURS
027 GER
STUDIOMICHALT
024 POR
BO NILS SEBASTIAN
SWE
026
AFONSO CALIXTO
MAREENA DEGUZMAN RAFIQUE KHAWAR
GBR
025
16
Afonso Calixto → 024 KNIT NIGHT Made for a fictional Techno party with some experimental type and industrial layout. The aim was to create a poster bold enough to speak the Techno without listening. Mareena DeGuzman Rafique Khawar → 025 Salam—Peace Arabic typography and print of the word ‘Salam’ (= peace), in combination with traditional Arabic pattern ‘Kiffiye or Shamagh’ which is a symbol of freedom. Arabic in a formal form of symbol would be considered blasphemous. Here, it can be read from top to bottom eliminating that ‘fear’ of what’s right or wrong. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
17
028 SUI
ERICH BRECHBÜHL
Bo Nils Sebastian → 026 Poster for a gig were the main event band is called: Useless Eaters. Presenting one useless eater: the snake. StudioMichalt → 027 Jazz at Donau115 Berlin Posters for a series of Jazz concerts at Donau115 Berlin. Erich Brechbühl → 028 Between Me and Tomorrow Theater poster for a coming of age story, that takes place at a public swimming pool. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
STUDIO A JOT
GER
039
24
Studio Ajot → 039 Let’s Talk About Diversity Equal rights, anti-discrimination and diversity are process-related issues that need to be discussed continuously. The posters encourage to look behind the curtains of uncertainty and ignorance in order to see the colorful rainbow that represents peace, acceptance, tolerance, and diversity. Susann Zielinski → 040 Current Colormind Color gradients reminiscent of the surface of a balloon or similar structure, flexible but fragile, and here on the edge of bursting through a delicate spike. A tense situation, not unlike the current global circumstances, affecting the perception and mind, and what we end up creating. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
25 040 GER
SUSANN ZIELINSKI
Slanted 38 — COLOURS
STUDIO ES
AUT
067
40
Studio Es → 067 Meta Marathon Poster for the Meta Marathon 2020 at NRW Forum Düsseldorf (canceled). By utilizing the style of thermal imaging devices the union of human and machine as cyborg could be visualized in different ways, from slight body modifications to whole external limbs … Slanted 38 — COLOURS
41
068 FRA
MARC ARMAND Marc Armand → 068 Villa Noailles Posters for La Villa Noailles art center in Hyères, southern France. Its unique location, surrounded by the Mediterranean, luxurious nature and precious colors and light, has been the starting point of the creation of its visual identity, translating these components into highly sun-concentrated graphics. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
COLIN CZERWINSKI
USA
089
56
Colin Czerwinski → 089 Documentation the ongoing flux of novel events that are to be experienced. The goal is to share a perception of the world so that others can see the beauty, color, and humor in it, too. Sandra Ratkovic → 090 Labyrinth in Gorki Park A photograph from the project MOSCOW.MOSKAU.MOCKBA. showing a cycle of absurd, colorful, and disturbing photographs. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
57
090 GER
SANDRA RATKOVIC
Slanted 38 — COLOURS
DAVID HARTWELL
USA
091
58
David Hartwell → 091 Plausible Landscapes Three unrelated color photographs that were never intended to coexist. For each photograph, only one color channel of the RGB colorspace is kept. A new landscape emerges where the photographs overlap. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
59 092 GER
MARC PESCHKE
Marc Peschke → 092 THE COLORS Slanted 38 — COLOURS
RUXANDRA DURU
ESP
095
62
Ruxandra Duru → 095 Rock Moods Exploration of different atmospheres using painted and varnished rocks on different backgrounds. Photography: Enric Badrinas. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
63 096 USA
JOANNE LEAH Joanne Leah → 096 By freeing ourselves from the constraints of physicality, we vividly bend and lurch into new structures. The images themselves become proof of a vulnerable act, between skin and viscera, exhibitionist and voyeur, public and private. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
FORME BRUTE
FRA
173
102
Forme Brute → 173 Beats Across Borders Visual identity for a French association that aims to create parties to help refugees to integrate as a cultural get-together. Risoprinted by Oscar Ginter, founder of Quintal Editions. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
103 174 POL
BARTOSZ SZYMKIEWICZ
Bartosz Szymkiewicz → 174 Bartosz Ferments Lables for homemade fermented products. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
PIERO DI BIASE
ITA
184
110
Piero Di Biase → 184 Abstract Geometry Vector composition from the Abstract Geometry series, consisting of acrylic and oil paintings and digital files. The subjects explore the relationship between form, space, repetition, and color. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
111
185 CAN
KIROS CHU
Kiros Chu → 185 Crossing Brushes What happens if colors were in an argument? Slanted 38 — COLOURS
189
114 Blankposter #Acid by Jan Pulfer macherei.com
GER
STUDIO KATRAHMANI
STUDIO LENNARTS & DE BRUIJN
NED
192
191
MACHEREI
SUI
190
IVO KONINGS
NED
DON‘T MESS AROUND WITH:
Ivo Konings → 189 Damage Posters inspired by abstract compositions of old comic explosions. Macherei → 190 Acid Part of the Blankposter project. Studio Katrahmani → 191 Studio Lennarts & De Bruijn → 192 LOCH 10.20 Program poster for the unconventional all-you-can-eat center for arts & culture LOCH in Wuppertal, Germany, October 2020. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
115
193 FRA
BEN&JO
Ben&Jo → 193 Lovestore Gift poster campaign in Strasbourg to the clients of the design studio during the pandemic. This poster presents (dé)boutonné.e.s, a lovestore in Strasbourg, France. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
JOHANNE LIAN OLSEN
GBR
194
116
Johanne Lian Olsen → 194 Process Books A series of process / sketch books showcasing the development of the master thesis / project. The books are designed to function on their own, but also as a part of a system. Varied number of pages, 21 × 26 cm. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
117 195 SVK
ANDREJ & ANDREJ
red yellow blue
196
COLORS pink green
もも
orange
あお
violet
B
GEL
だいだいいろ
ROSA あか きいろ あお ももいろ みどり だいだいいろ むらさき
いろ
みどり
きいろ
LILA
Andrej & Andrej → 195 Flaam Festival 2019 A series of 22 artist avatars for the Flaam Festival, Slovakia. Thomas Kühnen → 196 Symposium: Shape / Thinking Announcing poster for a philosophical symposium, part of a BAUHAUS-Festival questioning the meaning of shape in the context of art and design. Screenprinted per hand in ten colors with six screens in nine print-runs. Michaile Brooks → 197 Color of Language What is the color of language? What are the similarities on sounds / letters that these languages share? Slanted 38 — COLOURS
MICHAILE BROOKS
か
あ
DIE FARBE
USA
BLAU
rot gelb blau rosa grün orange lila
197
ORANGE
THOMAS KÜHNEN
む
き
さ
ら
GRÜN
GER
いろ
ROT
SÉBASTIEN MILLOT & MATEUSZ ZIELENIEWSKI
GER
203
122
Sébastien Millot & Mateusz Zieleniewski → 203 Stellwerk Theater S18 / 19 Program for the Stellwerk Theater of Weimar for the 2018 / 19 season. 34 × 46 cm. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
123 EN SOMMERDAG EN SOMMERDAG PÅ BELLAHØJ PÅ BELLAHØJ BELLAHØJ AMFITEATER 30.-31. AUGUST, 2019
BELLAHØJ AMFITEATER 30.-31. AUGUST, 2019
& BJØRN RASMUSSEN • MAJA OG DE SARTE SJÆLE • MØRTEL • DJ’S SLICK NICK & DULFI RICHARDS (AV GODAW)
EN SOMMERDAG PÅ BELLAHØJ BELLAHØJ AMFITEATER 30.-31. AUGUST, 2019
ALBERTE • BARSELONA • NIKOLAJ NØRLUND • DAIMI • FRIBYTTERDRØMME • TUHAF • LISE WESTZYNTHIUS & BJØRN RASMUSSEN • MAJA OG DE SARTE SJÆLE • MØRTEL • DJ’S SLICK NICK & DULFI RICHARDS (AV GODAW)
• •
KIOSK Studio → 204 En Sommerdag på Bellahøj 2019 Posters for the music festival En Sommerdag på Bellahøj. Typeface: Lars-Bold Extended, by Mads, Bold Decisions. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
• •
KIOSK STUDIO
• •
DEN
& BJØRN RASMUSSEN • MAJA OG DE SARTE SJÆLE • MØRTEL • DJ’S SLICK NICK & DULFI RICHARDS (AV GODAW)
ALBERTE • BARSELONA • NIKOLAJ NØRLUND • DAIMI • FRIBYTTERDRØMME • TUHAF • LISE WESTZYNTHIUS
204
ALBERTE • BARSELONA • NIKOLAJ NØRLUND • DAIMI • FRIBYTTERDRØMME • TUHAF • LISE WESTZYNTHIUS
STUDIO WELL & LAURA GRAF
GER
205
124
Studio Well & Laura Graf → 205 Kultur bildet Stadt Every two years the city of Erfurt, Germany, invites creatives to apply for a cultural grant. From April to September 2021, Erfurt became the stage for 40 project teams. The curtain, the key visual of the campaign, forms an integral part of the stage. The curtain opens and closes, dividing the space and bringing individual actors to the front. Each participant and each project team is unique and this cultural diversity is reflected in the choice and composition of colors. Colors that catch the eye, that shine, that meet each other, occasionally mix and create new transitions. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
125
206 FRA
ARP IS ARP
Arp is Arp → 206 Art Nouveau Revival Visual identity for the exhibition including the painting that Georges de Feure made in 1900 to announce the Art Nouveau Bing fair at Musée d’Orsay. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
BUI LUU QUYNH NGUYEN & DANIEL MASULLO
GER
223
134
Bui Luu Quynh Nguyen & Daniel Masullo → 223 BerlinFor F’s Sake A play with transparency in the realms of the world wide web. What is kept a secret? What information do I really provide? Slanted 38 — COLOURS
135 224 GER
INES HANF 225 GER
LUIS CALLEGARI
Ines Hanf → 224 Of Mood Poster series with merging photos of the city Offenbach, Germany. Luis Callegari → 225 The Power of Sunday In colors we trust! Slanted 38 — COLOURS
234 GER
MARIUS C. MERKEL
JULIA HARIRI
GER
233
WOJCIECH GAWROŃSKI
POL
232
140
Wojciech Gawroński → 232 Spectrum of Love Experiments with colors, shapes, and new techniques to let the expression and joy of creation take over. Julia Hariri → 233 Ecstatic Clash An ecstatic collection that focuses on women and the female body and a visualization of the future woman celebrating freedom and the full control of her body, mind, and soul. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
141
235 USA
DANIEL BROKSTAD Marius C. Merkel → 234 Creativity Flow The original poster was designed on the occasion of the workshops at the beginning of the semester at Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design, Germany, and printed by hand using screen printing. Daniel Brokstad → 235 Space to Create Typographic series for Foundry 852. Agency: Ogilvy Hong Kong, creative direction: Michele Salati, design: Daniel Brokstad, 3D design: Edu Torres. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
CIN CIN
AUT
241
146
CIN CIN → 241 Being ImPulsTanz A face filter designed with 3D makeup artist Ines Alpha for the ImPulsTanz festival campaign. The filter can also be tried out on @cincin_vienna. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
147 242 POR
OFICINA ARARA Oficina ARARA → 242 Oficina ARARA X Mão Morta Collection of hand-made posters made by Miguel Carneiro & João Alves in collaboration with Mão Morta musical cosmology. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
HAKKI TOPCU
GER
243
148
Slanted 38 — COLOURS
149 244 GER
VERENA ZIRNGIBL
Hakki Topcu → 243 The Blaze A new and surreal world of the visual representation and fashion of Hip Hop culture. Verena Zirngibl → 244 Starstruck Slanted 38 — COLOURS
TOBIAS GUTMANN
SUI
280
170
Tobias Gutmann → 280 Öffne, Flowr, Play, Stars, Tree, ???, Zoom, Wave, Loop, Life “Zooom … Snow is falling like spam into my mailbox, while viruses dance to the rhythm of time. Where is my life, where are my flowers? I open the door, hug a tree, sing a song, ride the wave and lose myself in the endless colors of play!” Slanted 38 — COLOURS
171 281 CAN
DENISE GROESCH
Denise Groesch → 281 Cool Underground Music Poster design for the debut of Cool Underground Music (C.U.M.), a collective of music lovers. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
GEORGE DAVIDSON
GBR
298
184
George Davidson → 298 Days In the Life—Acrylic Paint Pens on Paper Exercise in balancing colors by focusing on their position, size and shape within each composition. They are only two pages from two separate fold out (concertina) sketchbooks which are each 170 cm in length. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
185 299 AUT
PUNKTFORMSTRICH KREATIVSTUDIO 300 POR
SEEHUNDMANN
PunktFormStrich Kreativstudio → 299 Love What You Love The question of someone’s sexual orientation should be as unproblematic as the question of your favorite vegetable or which fruit you prefer. Love what you love! SEEHUNDMANN → 300 See the Line Part 2: I Live By the Sea The illustration is based on personal experience living next to the sea and not being able to go to the sea for different reasons such as a strict lockdown in Portugal or barriers created in ones head. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
DAVID CARSON
USA
303
188
David Carson → 303 Collages Slanted 38 — COLOURS
Slanted 38 — COLOURS
MAISON ARTC
MAR
309
194
Slanted 38 — COLOURS
195
Maison ARTC → 309 Artsi Ifrah for Maison ARTC Slanted 38 — COLOURS
DAMIEN POULAIN
FRA
312
198
Slanted 38 — COLOURS
199 313 GER
SIMONE KARL 314 LUX
TRIOMETRY
Damien Poulain → 312 There is No Me Over 2,000 pompons, wool, Japanese rain coat. 115 × 140 cm. Simone Karl → 313 En Theos / The God Inside Every day we are surrounded by countless images and can read them virtuously and subconsciously. But even the smallest change irritates our eyes and pulls us out of the usual flow of vision. Multi layered collages. Triometry → 314 Robot Fabric relief on frames. The artwork is inspired by the work of illustrator Malika Favre. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
DAMSELFRAU
GBR
318
202
Slanted 38 — COLOURS
203
Damselfrau → 318 Left page: LYS, 2020. Right page: top left: Zaeke, 2021. Top right: Soorie, 2021. Bottom left: Ayyn, 2020. Bottom right: Leysu, 2021. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
Greenstone by Connor Davenport, Stone carving by My-Lan Thuong
sharptype.co
A Bunch of Colorful Readings
E
SA YS DAVE PEACOCK IAN LYNAM ANTONIA DIETI NOVO TYPO PAULINE MORLON RUXANDRA DURU LAUREN HOLLOWAY DERMOT MAC CORMACK JULI GUDEHUS BEN JAMIN WURSTER LARS HARMSEN
Some of the images in the essays should be viewed in color due to their relevance to the content. Simply scan the QR codes next to the images to see them in color.
S
DAVE PEACOCK
USA
E01
242
B R I G H I E S D A T How Tide and DayGlo Changed the Consumer Landscape On a recent trip to my neighborhood supermarket in Seattle, I found that, due to capacity restrictions, I was nearly alone in the store. Without other shoppers and carts to navigate I had almost every aisle to myself, and for once I felt like I could take my time and really look around. As I made my way down the laundry aisle I was confronted with a cacophony of intensely vivid colors, graphic shapes, and loud typography shouting out names like Tide, Cheer, Gain, All, and, well … Shout. Tide, a brand that at one time was sold only as a powdered detergent in a single scent was now displayed in an array of options: Original Scent, Spring Meadow Scent, Free and Gentle Unscented, Clean Breeze High Efficiency liquid, Ultra Oxi Pacs, Tide Pods with Downy April Fresh—you get the idea. Perhaps it has something to do with my design background, but I have a certain affinity for the Tide brand, with its orange and yellow bullseye motif and bold, angular typography. As a product category, American detergent brands have a visual vocabulary that has remained largely consistent over the years. Perhaps no attribute is more associated with the laundry aisle than the bright fluorescent colors that adorn the packages and compete for attention in a limited space. When, I wondered, did the intense, fluorescent visual look of the Tide box originate? I decided to learn more about a brand that I’ve known Slanted 38 — COLOURS
243 about for decades. What started as a simple question became a story about secretive research, glow-in-the-dark magic tricks, and a psychedelic color called “Blaze Orange.” When Tide incorporated DayGlo fluorescent ink in its packaging at the end of the 1950s, they not only created a first in the consumer packaged-goods space, but also defined the visual look of a category, became unforgettable in the minds of consumers, and helped fuel the growth of the brand into the following decade. A Washday Miracle: The Tide Origin Story
For Procter & Gamble, a company founded in 1837 as a soap and candle maker, the company’s early decades were defined by steady growth punctuated by two hit products—Ivory soap and Crisco shortening. The company had done well but by 1930 were looking for further growth opportunities. In 1931 Robert Duncan, a process engineer at P & G, took a research trip to Europe to look for ideas and inspiration he could take back to the company. On one of his stops he visited the I. G. Farben Research Laboratories in Ludwigshafen, Germany. It was there that he learned of a new product development, a synthetic wetting agent (a chemical substance that increases the spreading and penetrating properties of a liquid) intended for use in dyeing textiles. He realized that this new wetting agent could potentially work for detergents as well. After seeing a similar product in development at the Deutsche Hydrierwerke laboratory in Berlin, Duncan was hooked. He bought 100 kilograms of the agent and sent it to the P & G research laboratory back in Cincinnati, Ohio. For most of the 1930s, P & G chemists and engineers worked on creating a heavy-duty detergent capable of cleaning heavily soiled clothes, a project internally dubbed Product X. The initial promise of the technology fizzled as researchers found that boosting (or “building”) the cleaning agent enough to work on heavily soiled clothes also increased the amount of deposits left on clothing washed in hard water (water with mineral content, as found in many regions of the United States). Instead of the planned product, P & G entered the market in 1933 with Dreft, a mild synthetic detergent that, while promising, didn’t offer the ability to
Tide detergent, original 1946 carton front panel design.
Tide detergent, early 1960s carton front panel design featuring DayGlo Blaze Orange fluorescent ink. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
246 Suds,” a phrase that, according to company history, was an off hand remark that Byerly made in a marketing meeting and the agency team latched onto, knowing they had a memorable slogan. While the phrase “Oceans of Suds” would not ring quite right today, the idea of a powerful, bubbly cleaning detergent that would wash away without residue was an immensely popular idea at that time. Tide has the fortuitous distinction of debuting the same year (1946) that fully au tomatic, top-loading agitating washing machines entered the consumer market. In an innovative marketing strategy, P & G cut licensing deals with top manufacturers to include a box of Tide with every washing machine, thereby equating Tide with a new, exciting technology. Tide’s immediate popularity spoke to the excitement that built up around the product as it rolled out nationally. While the preceding brand Dreft had a small measure of success as a light cleaner, there was now a heavy-duty detergent available that could remove tough stains and not leave a residue. Max Schmidt, a manager at a Kroger grocery store in Wichita, Kansas in the late 1940s, later reflected that on the day Tide debuted at his store, “people lined up for a block and more were coming.” His entire stock of Tide, which he had hoped would last a few years, “was gone in a matter of four hours … I had never seen anything like this before and to my knowledge I have not seen anything like it since.” 4 A Miracle in the Dark: The Invention of DayGlo Color
The Tide brand has remained a ubiquitous part of American life for decades. A staple in many American homes, the instantly recognizable brand is known as much for its intense, fluorescent packaging as for its cleaning power. The bright, fluorescent colors known as DayGlo, an important part of the Tide story, may not exist today if it weren’t for an unfortunate accident. In the early 1930s, brothers Joseph and Robert Switzer lived in Berkeley, California, where their father and mother operated a pharmacy. In the summer of 1931, while working a summer job with the H. J. Heinz Company on his summer break from the pre-med program at the University of California, Robert suffered a serious injury while unloading a freight car. “I remember waking up in the hospital, looking in the mirror and seeing two left eyes puffed out like ripe tomatoes,” he wrote in an unpublished memoir, “I had a bad skull fracture, heavy internal bleeding, brain damage, a partially severed left optic nerve divergent left eye, double vision, and extensive loss of memory.” 5 His doctors implored him to avoid direct light, and he spent months recuperating at home in a
Robert and Joseph Switzer. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
247 darkened room. Meanwhile, his high school-age brother Joseph was developing an interest in blacklight effects, having learned about the phenomena in Popular Mechanics magazine. He was anxious to figure out how to create fluorescent pigments that he could use in his stage shows as an amateur magician, and enlisted Robert to help as it was something he could work on while convalescing. The brothers set up a portable blacklight in their father’s pharmacy storage room to see if any of the chemicals would reveal luminescence. The general principle behind a blacklight device is that it emits ultraviolet (UV) light that is not visible to the human eye. When fluorescent materials absorb the UV light, it gets re-emitted in the visible spectrum. Thus, in a darkened room the fluorescent material will emit a glow while other objects remain dark. The brothers were thrilled when a compound called Murine Eye Wash glowed luminous yellow under black light. By adding the liquid to shellac they were able to create a fluorescent paint that would create a glow-in-the-dark effect. Joe debuted the effect at a magician’s convention in 1934. His act, The Magic Balinese Dancer, featured a dancer with a costume painted in fluorescent pigment. When her headdress was removed in the darkened theater, it gave the appearance of her head floating away from her body. The show was a resounding success with Joseph’s illusion earning the top special effects prize. The brothers knew they were onto something. Joseph and Robert soon had a small business, The Fluor-S-Art Co., operating out of their home. To their mother’s chagrin, their base of operations was the laundry room and their favorite tool was her new Mixmaster mixer. They started out selling cans of the fluorescent paint to other magicians and theater acts. The brothers had an eye for marketing and promotion: an early two-page typed brochure promised “Color displays that shock the senses!” 6 Within months the Switzers started collaborating with San Francisco artist Delmar Gray to create fluorescent displays for commercial clients. A big break came when they formed a partnership with Continental Lithograph in Cleveland Ohio, a subsidiary of the film company Warner Bros. Pictures. Relocating their business to Cleveland, the brothers developed fluorescent colors for use on posters for movie theater lobbies, where the darkened environment was perfect for blacklight displays. Early posters were hand-painted, but to meet production demand the brothers worked with Forbes Ink Co. to create a fluorescent lithographic ink that could be used for large-run printing and silkscreen processes.
The DayGlo factory in the 1960s. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
E02 JPN
IAN LYNAM
252
OTHER P RO CES SE S Assessing Color, Race, and Processes in the Japanese Context We are so easily fooled. We tend to think of so many aspects of design as being set, given and intractable, notably formats. When I was a designer living in the United States, I tended to think in only North American paper sizes (letter, legal, ledger). Since living in Japan, I tend to think in only ISO paper sizes (A3, B4, etc.). Things become so set so quickly in my mind, though I know that this is not the case: my tendency is still toward measuring things in inches rather than millimeters or centimeters, as I was raised using inches, not the metric system. So many formats and processes are relatively new. The gamut of the ISO paper sizing system was widely adopted globally in the mid 1970s—really not that long ago. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
253 It is the same with processes. When we use the term “process printing,” we tend to think of CMYK printing, but that has not and is not always the case. There are standards that deviate elsewhere and elsewhen. I have always been drawn to these other forms of process printing: the assorted colors that were used to print comic books and Tijuana Bibles in the early 20th century, the CMY (no K) process that was predominant throughout Asia for so long, notably the variations in Southeast Asia where the cyan was brighter, almost a fluorescent blue, and the magenta was more of a hot pink. The material printed using this process visually booms off the printed page and feels almost surreal. Others have definitely noticed it. Years worth of collage work by the Japanese con temporary artist Ohtake Shinro pays special attention to material that was printed in this fashion. His scrapbooks from the 1980s place Southeast Asian printed material in contrast with each other, having created assemblages of 3-color process, antiquated 4-color process, and spot color in diametric opposition. These, as well as the reproductions of many of his works throughout the 1980s and 1990s, are elegies to assorted printing processes. His approach to examining print ephemera is something that has always implicitly been on the fringes of design culture proper, yet has been periodically revisited by the Japanese graphic design magazine Idea over the past three decades. Over the course of this time, three different editors-in-chief have noted Ohtake’s fascination with color. Blood Citizen
There is a particular series of books that does not use black in the printing and yet is about a character that is black: Norakuro, a series of manga written, drawn, and designed by Tagawa Suiho 田河水泡 (meaning “River Water Bubble,” the pen name of Takamizawa Chūtaro 高見澤仲太郎, who also adopted the name Takamizawa Michinao 高見沢路直 in the 1920s). Norakuro is a 24-volume series of installments of the life and times of an anthropomorphic stray dog (“nora のら” meaning feral and “kuro くろ” meaning black) who has been conscripted into an army of all-white dogs to fight an army and populace of anthropomorphic pigs of a land the dogs are trying to conquer and colonize. The dog army, called “The Fierce Dogs’ Fighting Brigade” is a stand-in for the Kwantung Army, a division of the Japanese Imperial Army and the pigs represent the Chinese, Manchurian and Mongolian militaries and citizenries circa 1919 to 1945. Initially humorous, the manga series devolved further and further into a propaganda mouthpiece promoting the annexation of “The Continent” by the “Dog Islands,” a stand-in for Japan. Norakuro as a character is constantly talked down to, ordered around, generally browbeaten, and made to feel different despite his unwavering patriotism and commitment to his fellow dogs. Of particular note is the physiology of the Norakuro character himself—his ap pearance is an amalgam of the Little Sambo character derivation (originally a Southern Indian or Tamil character which evolved into a wide array of racist pickaninny depictions of African peoples globally¹) with a sprinkle of Mickey Mouse thrown in for good measure. I have often wondered as to Tagawa’s intentions in rendering the character in this manner, though simultaneously see Norakuro as an analog for Tagawa himself: he was orphaned, his mother dying during childbirth, his father dying a few years later, and his resultant foster father uncle dying shortly thereafter. The young Tagawa was placed into the state foster care system and was enlisted in the Japanese Imperial Army at 19 years old. Norakuro is Tagawa, the out-of-place parentless child caught in perpetual arrested development in a foreign land, fool and outsider to all, but amplified and given a differing appearance to illustrate Tagawa’s feelings of un-belonging. All of this: the seeming ferality, displacement, isolation, antagonistic ostracization, and conscription, they were all processes. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
256 Marinetti from the Futurists, Kandinsky from the Constructivists, and was largely responsible for importing a lot of avant grade aesthetics and philosophies to Japan from Europe in the early 1920s. After the Great Kanto Earthquake, the members of MAVO helped out with reconstruction efforts, creating temporary structures for people to live in and temporary retail spaces called “baraku” or barracks. Beyond constructing these temporary homes and businesses, the MAVO members also decorated businesses. The MAVO members collaboratively designed one book as well: Death Sentence 死刑宣告, written by MAVO member Hagiwara Kyojiro in 1925. Death Sentence is a book of highly expressive anarchist Dada poetry. MAVO executed the entire layout of Hagiwara’s anthology, deciding every tiny detail. It is one of the finest early examples of a successful integration of text, design, typography, and illustration. Hagiwara’s poetry set in highly articulated expressive typography using shifts in type choices to illustrate and emphasize the dramatic onomatopoeia utilized throughout the text. At the time, Death Sentence was considered extremely experimental graphically. The author was an anarchist and the book was designed to fit Hagiwara’s dangerousseeming public persona. MAVO as a group was only around from 1923 to 1925, but they helped set the tone for Modern Japanese design before World War II through stylistic experimentation, connotative lettering and typography that explored multiple modes of reading. The collective embodied one variant of what has been called “a multitude of languages, dialects, and accents”6 that formed early 20th Century Modernism. Takamizawa was one of the collective, a hyper-capable designer beset with behavioral extremism: as a MAVO member, he was documented throwing stones at the glass roof of an exhibition space in protest of established art exhibition, smashing the glass and driving an exhibition jury out of doors only to be apprehended by the Tokyo police; as a cartoonist, he was a willing propagandist who reprinted his former Leftist ways only to have his work suppressed in Japan’s lead-up to World War II; and in later life, Takamizawa was a repentant Christian writer who wore a beret to signify his alliance with the arts. The Hermeneutics of Process
The term “process” has so many meanings. As a verb, it can signify a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end, a natural series of changes, or a systematic series of mechanized or chemical operations that are performed in order to produce something. Process as a verb can also mean the making, iteration, exploration, traversing the endpoints of a line or experience—where making and intention converge and diverge. It can mean to think something through or an entropic action breaking something down. Process can also be an instance of a program being executed in a multitasking operating system, typically running in an environment that protects it from other processes. Alexander Galloway posits in his book The Interface Effect that “software” processes are actually physical processes reliant upon electricity and hardware, though “hardware” is also software because it is designed as part of an operational ecosystem. Of course, there is “being processed,” the initial state of becoming imprisoned—part of the historical and contemporary condition that blackness is so prone to—as explained in detail in Jackie Wang’s book Carceral Capitalism. Process as a verb can mean dealing with someone or something using an official procedure, to be in the process of doing something, to be continuing with an action that has already started, to be ensnared in the process of time, and / or to walk or march in a procession. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
257 As a noun, process can signify a legal summons to appear in court, and for designers, as an adjective, process often refers to the aforementioned methods of printing. All of this can allude to multiple metaphoric approaches to exploring process, the erasure of color, and the exaggeration of it—process is a multi-variegated thing that ensnares both the historical and the contemporary, societies, cultures, and individuals. In regard to process, each of us, as Buckminster Fuller proposed, is a verb. We do with it what we can.
Notes 1. It is important to note that this was not merely a phenomenon that happened in North America. The popularity of this character is incredibly wide-reaching in regard to its appeal. The original book, The Story of Little Black Sambo by Scottish author Helen Bannerman is beloved in Japan. Little Black Sambo (ちびくろサンボ, Chibikuro Sanbo) was first published in Japan by Iwanami Shoten Publishing in 1953. The book was an unlicensed version of the original, and it contained drawings by Frank Dobias that had appeared in a US edition published by Macmillan Publishers in 1927. Sambo was illustrated as an African boy rather than as an Indian boy. Although it did not contain Bannerman’s original illustrations, this book was long mistaken for the original version in Japan. It sold over 1,000,000 copies before it was pulled off the shelves in 1988, when The Association to Stop Racism Against Blacks 黒人差別をなくす会 launched a complaint against all major publishers in Japan that published variations of the story, and this triggered self-censorship among those publishers. In 2005, after copyright of the 1953 Iwanami Shoten 岩波書店 edition of the book expired, Zuiunsya 瑞雲舎 reprinted the original version and sold more than 150,000 copies within five months’ time, and Kodansha 講談社 and Shogakukan 小学館, the two largest publishers in Japan, published official editions. These are still in print. An equally controversial “side story” for Little Black Sambo, called Ufu and Mufu: The Cute Little Twins’ Big Adventures うーふとむーふ, a series of publications and animations featuring Little Sambo’s younger twin brother and sister living in the African jungle and dancing with animals when not hiding in the bush or dwelling in their primitive hut. ufumufu.com The continued racial othering that is offered by the assorted publishing companies associated with Little Black Sambo and Ufu and Mufu continues to prop up a xenophobic social and cultural narrative that pervades Japan—again, a process. 2. Pigment is another trope in Tezuka’s breakout anime series, Jungle Emperor Leo or Kimba the White Lion, the inspiration for the Disney movie The Lion King. Within the story, an albino lion cub rises in power to become “the king of the jungle,” as much as stand-in for imperialism and colonialism as Tarzan, that other white “king of the jungle.” 3. Miyazaki has condemned the low wages that Tezuka instilled in the animation production studio system, creating a standard of undervalued labor for the work that goes into making animated movies, television shows, and commercials that have incredible appeal globally and that generate quite a lot of money. 4. “Even James Watson, who won the Nobel prize in 1962 as one of the discoverers of the double helix structure of DNA in 1953, repeatedly claimed that Black people are less intelligent than white people, and that the idea that ‘equal powers of reason’ were shared across racial groups was a delusion. Such claims were not just his private opinions: he based them on his work on DNA. And he was not alone in this— many racists try to ground the hierarchy of race in biogenetics. The main greatest politician in Slovenia claims that Slovenes are genetically closer to Scandinavians than to other Slavs (his point is, predictable, to detach Slovenes from the Balkans and make them part of the northern German ethnic group). The very unrepresentability of life’s lettering confers on racism an aura of scientific magic.” — Slavoj Žižek, Like A Thief in Broad Daylight, p. 59. 5. Other objects were mass-exported from North America and imported en masse to Japan in the late 90s and early 2000s as symbols of African-American urban culture, namely vinyl records. The United States and Canada has since re-engaged their love affair with physical forms of music, though despite a much diminished rate. With the onslaught of music being digitized and turned into compact discs, and later purely electronic forms of music, hundreds of Japanese citizens scoured North America and imported records by the shipping container just a few scant decades ago. Music Millennium, Portland Oregon‘s largest retailer of used records at that time, saw its most profitable clientele in these buyers from Japan. It was the same for Amoeba, California’s largest retailer of used records around this era. (Note: I have no statistics to back this up. This phenomenon has not been recorded in any academic study that I am aware of and I am reliant upon word of mouth interviews with dozens of employees of these assorted music retailers to stake this claim.) (Another note: I am very excited that I can buy actual records where I live at present instead of via the Internet.) 6. Experimental Jetset, SuperStructures, 2021.
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What I am looking for is a “neutral” among colors. While thinking of the term “neutral,” I immediately associate colors with it. This emerging pool of colorfulness is united by giving off the feeling of boredom, an absence of contrast, and the subduction of saturation. But a “neutral” seems to me more than a feeling, an absence, and the taking away of something. I try to access the concept of the “neutral,” to formulate its characteristics and peculiarities. I seek help in Roland Barthes’ notes of his lecture given during a thirteen-week summer semester in 1978 at the Collège de France, published in the collection The Neutral. In general, at this point detached from the field of colors, he characterizes the “neutral” as that which overrides a paradigm. Here paradigm is synonymous with conflict. Slanted 38 — COLOURS
259 The “neutral” avoids the conflict that creates meaning. It thus suspends it. Its aversion to conflict is innate. Since an affirmation of the one simultaneously means a denial of the other, it does not choose, but withdraws from giving a statement, a positioning. Roland Barthes uses various figures to depict the “neutral.” One of them is color. Diving into the spectrum of colors, he finds the neutral in form of the colorless. Consequentially, Barthes’ colorless is a blackish gray. A can of liquid color that reads the name “neutral.” I am irritated by this explanation of the colorless, as it is directly opposed carried by terms of color. Both the colorless (a term that makes me think of invisibility, transparencies, of a color that is unable to match with currently thinkable impression of color) and the (blackish-)gray were among my associations of the term neutral in the very beginning. With the colorless, the “neutral” would be found in total nonexistence. But is nonexistence the only way to find the “neutral”? Can a “neutral” exist only in nonexistence, since pure being is at least some kind of statement in itself? I am looking for a “neutral” that exists in existence. I try to find it in the opposite—in the existence of plenty, of everything. Isn’t a “neutral” aware of everything that is present and shows itself pondering, balancing all factors in search of finding a middle way? But careful, a “neutral” does not originate from compromise but is perhaps a purposeful mean, an average. Barthes’ concept of colorlessness does not refer to an absence or a transparency. Barthes sees colorlessness in the significant opposition between the colored and the colorless. The colorless is thus not devoid of color but of meaning. He finds his “neutral” in the color gray. Gray is now equated with colorlessness and thus with meaninglessness. I like the tension in the significance of meaninglessness as opposed to neutrality, the subtle nuances that distinguish them. But why does gray not depict a suitable “neutral” to me? On the one hand, gray, as a hybrid of black and white, eludes the color spectrum and thus could only look neutral onto it on it from the “outside,” but without being part of it and is therefore unable to represent a “neutral” in the midst of it. On the other hand, I see gray as having a strong meaning precisely because of its association with insignificance and facelessness. I would like to try to describe what—for me—the characteristics of the color “neutral” are. There are primarily two points that strike me. The first is a certain freedom perhaps also an unconsumedness. This is the point that probably comes closest to Barthes’ explanation as well. The “neutral” is supposed to be free of any anchoring, free of definition. The color I’m looking for should not be established in Western culture like red symbolizing love, blue evoking thoughts of water and our planet, or like green representing the environment. Certainly, we have associations with any color, yet I am looking for one where these associations are not conventionalized connotations. So that the color is associated individually, based on personal experiences and feelings, and not on acquired concepts seemingly fixed since time immemorial. A second point seems to me the holding of a certain universality, the appearance as a unicum. An always-being, a timeless existence. An existence that is possibly even often unnoticed, and possibly only noticeable in its absence or replacement. A color similar to a silent observer. The “neutral” thus hides in its constant presence. Personified, it seems to me to draw a person that is a little charismatic. It captivates through boredom, speaks through coziness, and stands out through the absence of an opinion, a statement. Nevertheless, it shows itself everywhere quietly, and thus loses a conscious gaze. It lacks an acquired thought, an association, a mnemonic. It is an adaptable being that always surrounds us, in the natural, as well as in the artificial habitat. Its name is Beige.
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272 prior to traveling to Rome, but discovering the immense tomb of St. Ignatius in his chapel off to the left of the main transept, I was immediately struck by a deep rich blue globe positioned over a stunning lifesize silver statue of the saint. The altar is adorned on either side by fluted pillars inlaid with the same opulent blue. The combination of rich blue and silver was something to behold. It wasn’t until later that I found out that these intense blues were achieved by using lapis lazuli. Of course, today, most of my physical interactions with color occur via pixels and a screen. Backlit high definition screens offer ranges of colors simply inconceivable to the artists of the Baroque era, or the cave dwellers in Bamiyan. And yet, here too, colors can be used to convey or heighten emotion. One only has to look at Pixar’s CoCo or Soul and you’ll see the manipulation of colors that heighten a mood, or emphasize an emotion that the animators want to elicit from the viewer. My first exposure to this color manipulation was as a child, and seeing Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey on a very large CinemaScope screen. A few years ago, I happened to catch a screening of a digital remaster while on a visit to Dublin, and the intensity of the colors was breathtaking. There are several important scenes that use blue, but the one that caught my attention was during the now-famous “stargate” scene. Although there is quite extensive use of blue throughout the film, there are numberable scenes towards the end of the “stargate” sequence that relies on hues of blue with varying luminance. When I saw these same colors as a child, they filled me with a sense of wonder, and awe, even though I could fully not articulate it at that time. Even when I watch them now, I still feel that palpable sense of longing that those blues invoke in me, as if there is something primal in their essence. For want of a better word, those blues invoked in me a sense of the cosmos and its vastness. Perhaps the ancient painters of the Bamiyan Valley also made that connection between the spiritual and terra firma? After all, one of the massive Buddhist statues7 (sadly destroyed by the Taliban in March 2001) had its robes painted using Ultramarine. Maybe, it is not so surprising, that many cultures around the world use the color blue when it comes to invoking the spiritual world. The Native Cheyenne of Colorado, for example, used blue pigments in their suede clothing, pigments found in a secret location in the vast plains8. In Europe, in the middle ages, the color blue was associated with mourning, and so began its use in the depiction of the Virgin Mary throughout Christendom, as artists depicted Mary in detailed finery, painted in ever more luminous shades of blue. And when astronauts from the Apollo 17 mission looked back at Earth9, they could not help but marvel at the blueness of our home planet, silhouetted and floating in the black void of space. The very same blue that runs through our oceans, runs through our cultures, rituals, imagination, and our understanding of the world we live in.
1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studies_on_Homer_and_the_Homeric_Age, accessed in April 2021. 2. ulyssesguide.com/1-telemachuse, accessed in May 2021. 3. trinitygallery.ie/artists/padraig-lynch/724, accessed in April 2021. 4. Anne Varichon, Colors, What they mean and how to make them, Abrams, 2006, p. 165. 5. Evert Barger, Exploration of Ancient Sites in Northern Afghanistan, The Geographical Journal, The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) May 1939, Vol. 93, No. 5 (May, 1939), p. 388. 6. Anita Albus, The Art of Arts, University of California Press, 2001, p. 349. 7. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan, accessed in April 2021. 8. Anne Varichon, Colors, What they mean and how to make them, Abrams, 2006, p. 162. 9. nasa.gov/content/blue-marble-image-of-the-earth-from-apollo-17, accessed in April 2021.
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A person in the white truck in front of me On the way to the preserve To look at the flowers without crushing them Is it possible? That blast of sacral healing judge the influencers Taking off their masks for Shein spon con pics Everything is happening so fast The passenger’s hand was held out the wind So striking Held straight up open
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Asking to receive the sun In its sweet little palm of desire “I want” when plainly spoken is a birth The part of me that hopes I’ll be taken care of But knows I probably won’t cried on the road to the California poppies So impossibly orange brave instantly crushed by a sandal. Will I bloom? Slanted 38 — COLOURS
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I felt close to someone today.
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276 Later, color film was not used for many years, although it had long been available. The fear was that one could not show the colors realistically enough. These monochrome aesthetics burned themselves into people’s minds in such a way that the majority of people still considered the representation of images in grayscale to be of higher quality and more artistic than color photography or color film. Everything was just better in the past! This dogma was deeply rooted in most of society at that time and remains so today. Anything new has a hard time catching on at first. But somehow, that’s logical. There is an endless stream of books, exhibitions, and documentaries about the great creatives of the past. You can learn from their experiences, follow their rules and copy their styles. Doing something new or unconventional always requires courage and will always bring criticism from one side or another. There are people in every generation who intentionally rebel against the old. They ignore proven rules and experiences that others have made before them. However, most of creative society usually chooses the safe way and prefers not to take any risks. The color-reduced design has always worked well and will continue to do so. Excessive Demand
But is monochrome design always the result of a conscious decision to reduce to the essentials or a deliberate invocation of classic design patterns? I’m convinced that the infinite choice of colors can also quickly become a big challenge for designers. I believe that the decision to work colorless is often also made out of excessive demands or fear of failure. At least, that’s how I feel now and then. Monochrome design is right and good if it is used consciously and can be justified. Fear of self-doubt should never be the drive for designing without color. The question should not be, “What colors are particularly trendy right now?”, “What colors do other creatives use?”, or “What do others think when I use this or that color?”. The question should be much more like, “What colors are right for my project?” or “Do I need color to communicate something specific?”. It is essential that such big design decisions—like color—are not seen as a subjective matter of taste, but as logical conclusions of a well-thought-out concept. After all, I’m still a big supporter of monochrome design. And yet, I want to keep reminding myself that, in some cases, the brightly colored option is the better one. I always want to be inspired to try new things. And I want to take risks to get the best result in the end. That’s why I call on all creative people like me: More courage for color!
Slanted 38 — COLOURS
Slanted 38 — COLOURS
LARS HARMSEN
As a child, I was often ashamed to be German. I grew up in Chicago and Geneva and moved to Germany when I was twelve. I often claimed to be Swiss. Today I wouldn’t do that anymore. I say I am European, born in Germany. My relationship with the German national flag is probably as complicated as it is for many other Germans. Aside from the fact that I don’t like the color combination (it’s not particularly exciting), there are reasons for my discomfort—whether due to history, education, or simply, my way of life. Black, red, and gold was first used in 1813 during the wars of liberation against Napoleon, when soldiers of the Lützow Free Corps (in which many students served) wore a similar color scheme on their uniforms. The colors symbolized the darkness of despair, from which the golden light of freedom was to be achieved through bloody-red battles.1 Due to the history of National Socialism, many Germans have a hard time with nationalism, patriotism, and national “feelings” more generally. Black-red-gold has nothing to do with National Socialism or the 3rd Reich. In fact, post-1945, detached from war and terror, these colors became the symbol for Germans in all occupation zones (when the two German states were founded in 1949, they both used these colors to evoke unity). Simultaneously, at the height of the Cold War in Germany, each nation increasingly demarcated themselve from one another, and set different accents in their culture of remembrance. At that time living in Germany, from the end 70s to the early 90s, I had an even more difficult relationship to national feelings. When my parents took us children on holidays from Switzerland to our relatives in northern Germany, there were no flags. I can remember once, at an oldfashioned uncle in his backyard garden. For Germany, hosting the 2006 World Cup marked a turning point. The official motto was “Die Welt zu Gast bei Freunden” (The world as a guest of friends). The German colors seen en masse for the first time—people in jerseys, cars waving flags, and even pets being decorated with scarves. In 2014, years after the 2006 World Cup, my concerns were heightened again by images of right-wing extremists demonstrating, and waving the German colors. Author Enrico Brissa speaks of a creeping reinterpretation of the colors: “the joy over the World Cup victory in Brazil (July 2014) had not yet faded away when, a few months
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From the perspective of a European, Colours is the opposite of our old metropolises. The sprawling multi-dimensionality is alien, and for many, gets on our nerves: the tangled network of highways and the constant driving around (damn you, General Motors streetcar scandal!), the emphasized nonchalance and never-ending optimism of everyone, the sunny weather, the ingenious modernist architecture, the film industry, the tourists and the shitty art museums ... perhaps, just perhaps everything about this city gets on our nerves. Despite, or maybe because of all of this, L.A. is a fucking awesome city, both in the Biblical sense and the slang sense. This staggering awesomeness is fucking undeniable. We wanted to meet Ed Ruscha to talk about his mysteriously seductive and motionless-looking reductive paintings. Unfortunately it didn’t work out, but his piece Hollywood is a verb inspired the three different titles / cover variations of this issue. We would also have liked to see David Hockney, who fled the austerity and gray oppression of England (an early Brexit) to Colours to discover a sunny and hedonistic city. No dice there, either. But hey!, in a town like L.A. and on a production like Slanted’s, not everything has to work out. Often, the best things happen when they’re not planned, just as they did here. We hung out with the wonderful actor Udo Kier and learned a lot about Hollywood and his life. We spent a superb evening with Sarah Lorenzen and her husband, photographer David Hartwell, who meticulously restored the Neutra VDL Studio and Residences, the home of architect Richard Neutra (see our video interviews), and a number of other luminaries. Our partner-in-crime Ian Lynam introduced us to tons of great designers, artists, and teachers, who all—really, all—when asked where their allegiance lies: with N.Y. or L.A., yelled “L.A.!!!” without batting an eyelid. We knew that numerous German intellectuals chose L.A. as a refuge from the Nazis. Among them were Bertolt Brecht, Marlene Dietrich, Fritz Lang, Heinrich and Thomas Mann, and Billy Wilder. Artists from other countries found their home here, as well. Luis Buñuel, Jean Renoir, Igor Stravinsky, Arturo Toscanini and many others took up residency in Tinseltown. The emigrants made the Colours of the 1940s a lively center of European culture. They lived their individual and collective dreams ... because it was possible.
This issue of Slanted Magazine goes along with additional video interviews which have been conducted by the Slanted team in August 2019 in Colours. To watch videos scan QR code or visit slanted.de/losangeles