Christoph Niemann, Illustrated

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Wednesday, we met with illustrator Christoph Niemann. He’s done editorial illustration, silkscreens, covers for the New Yorker, a column for the New York Times called “Abstract Sunday,” several children’s books, and his own book “Abstract City.”
(http://www.christophniemann.com)


“What probably makes me not an artist is my confidence in my work relies a lot on how its received,” Niemann said, “Fukishima—the New Yorker cover, in retrospect that’s probably what I’m after, to get that reaction.” He illustrated the cover for the March 28, 2011 issue of the New Yorker, following up the disaster in Japan without any words.


Niemann wanted to do something journalistic, bring deadlines back into his work, “tight deadlines are great, if you stare at something too long you begin to question it.”


He ran the New York Marathon, drew on a drawing pad while running it, took pics and uploaded them from his iphone. The physical part wasn’t bad – it was the mental thing, the thinking for 10 hours that’s tough. Niemann was stopped at the security gate for two hours because of his backpack with batteries and drawing supplies, and this guy walk right in with a flag with a spear at the top of it.


“In the beginning people thought I was writing a book,” Niemann said, “but by the time I got to Central Park they were like ‘Oh there’s the guy who’s doing the live drawing.’”


Nearing the end, he started drawing his shoe, he stopped on the finish line to draw the finish line around it and take a picture, and then he stepped over the finish line.


He’s from Southern Germany and went to school there though he always felt he had to get out. To make up for it, he did internships in New York, and that’s how he ended up there after graduation.


“I still think New York is the best place to work,” Niemann said, but “I couldn’t move left and right, New York was too tight-fast.” He lives here in Berlin now, and there are advantages that come with that.


“The greatest advantage is the time difference,” Niemann said, “for New Yorkers, I get up at 3 a.m.” There’s a six hour time difference between New York and Berlin, with Berlin ahead. So Niemann has his emails in before anyone else. “Worst case scenario, I have a phone call at 10 at night.”


“There’s a lot of talent in Berlin, in New York everything is priced out.” It’s cheaper to live in Berlin, so easier to work with other artists as they aren’t worrying so much about paying their super high rent, and can work on what they want. No, ‘If my apartment wasn’t so small’s – “here if you want to do it, you do it.”

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