The Puppets of Zlatko Bourek

On March 6th, the exhibition "Uglies: The Puppets of Zlatko Bourek" opened at Galerija Kresija in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The exhibition was curated by Tjaša Juhart of the Puppet Museum of the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre.

Zlatko Bourek mostly created for an adult audience. The exhibition also presents his cult play Hamlet, which was the biggest hit in the field of puppet performances for adults in his oeuvre. In this, he first staged his own derivative of the Japanese technique of cart puppets, which the animators hold in their laps and lend them their legs. The play was a turning point for both Croatian puppetry and puppetry in the former commonwealth. It is inscribed in the canon of world puppetry, and it has traveled practically the entire world.

Zlatko was a true Renaissance man. He was a painter, sculptor, costume designer, scenographer, and illustrator. He directed theatre plays, feature films, and animated movies. 

I was pleased to see that the curator of the exhibition, Tjaša Juhart, decided to include my poster for his play Hamlet in the exhibition.

I met Zlatko for the first time when I was seventeen years old and I had a summer job working at Zagreb Film. In 1981 I was fortunate to design a poster for his puppet show of Hamlet by Tom Stoppard.

He was one of the most generous, soft-spoken people I have ever met. That's probably why we became friends, and that's probably why he painted me in one of his paintings.

 

Tattooed Part 2

In 1996, I was asked to create an image for the new single Bulls on Parade by Rage Against the Machine. I’ve always loved the band and had already done a few other things for them. I really liked the song and its message and energy.

I drew inspiration from the first verse of the song : "The microphone explodes, shattering the molds". I quickly drew an image with a marker, thinking it needed to be as rough and energetic as the song. The image was mostly printed in negative, that way, it became even more visually dramatic.

The art was used in several applications, including singles, CDs, posters and even T-shirts. You can see some of them below.

What I didn’t expect was how many people would choose to get the image tattooed on themselves. Here are some photos.

 

My New Poster Design for JDP-Yugoslav Drama Theater

I am pleased to share my new poster design and illustration for the play "Eldorado" by Marius von Mayenburg for JDP-Yugoslav Drama Theater in Belgrade, Serbia.

The play starts, as the smoke rises from another city saved by coalition bombs, with a graphic account of a city where the government quarter is in ruins, refugees are confined to the sports stadium and animals have fled the bombed-out zoo. But although devastation for the majority becomes an investment opportunity for the minority, the play deals with the mental disintegration that accompanies urban disaster. Anton, an estate agent seeking to sell a surviving complex to his rich mother-in-law, becomes progressively more unhinged. 

Behind the play lies an implicit question: how do we go on living when unspeakable crimes are being committed in the name of Western democracy?

Here below, you can see my poster designs from the last eight seasons for JDP-Yugoslav Drama Theater. Some of the seasons had fewer shows due to Covid. For every season of JDP, I create a slightly different look.

This season, designing the posters, I try to emphasize diagonal composition and dark, realistic illustrations. It seems it's not only appropriate for the subjects of the plays, but also appropriate for the times we are currently living in.

More about my JDP's posters and my other work can be seen here.

 

"Design Activism" Lecture at the University of Ljubljana

On Tuesday, March 4th, at 12 PM, I gave a lecture titled "Design Activism" at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. 

The lecture was organized by Maja Budec Stanicic and Aljosa Puzar.

 

Exhibition at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana

It's my pleasure to share with you that on Monday, March 3rd, I opened an exhibition of my work at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. The exhibition will be open until May 5th.

The exhibition was made possible by the relentless efforts of Maja Budec Stanicic and Aljosa Puzar.

Tattooed

In the early 80s, I drew this drawing for the cover of the book "The Turning Point" by Klaus Mann, published by the Croatian publisher GHZ. In 1987, I used that drawing for the poster of my solo exhibition in New York. Then in 2012 Dejan Krsic used it on the last page of my monograph "Fist to Face". Then in 2012 they used it again to promote my exhibition in Montenegro. And yesterday I see it tattooed on this person's back. Some things just won't go away. 

Otherwise, this is not the first time that my drawing has been tattooed on someone's back. This is what my drawing looked like tattooed on the back of Timothy Robert Commerford, the bassist of 'The Rage Against The Machine'.

'Modesty Blaise' #1178 by Jim Holdaway

My recent acquisition—the original art used for an episode of 'The Black Pearl', the 10th Modesty Blaise adventure, drawn by Jim Holdaway, and appeared in the 'London Evening Standard' in February 1967.

You can see more of my 'Modesty Blaise' comics in my collection here.