Tonight a conversation with the artist, Viktor Koen, about the opening of Viktor Koen: Phenotypes at the Type Directors Club on November 15, 2018.

Join us for an opening-night reception and talk at this Type Directors Club exhibition of the work of Viktor Koen, an award-winning artist, designer, educator and TED speaker.

Exploring the cross-section between typography and illustration is fascinating, but often challenging to understand. Viktor Koen’s talk for this exhibition opening will examine if this duality should be approached as specialty, trend or obsession by providing insights on inspiration, concept and methodology behind the Phenotypes exhibition specimens.

Viktor Koen is a regular contributor to national and international publications. His prints are exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide. Clients include The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Nature, The Economist, TIME, Entrepreneur, Bloomberg, Fortune, Penguin Random House, TOR, Doubleday and Harper Collins. He serves on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts at both graduate and undergraduate levels. Viktor is also the director of the Illustration Residency Program at School of Visual Arts in New York.

From Type Directors Club website

 

I’ve been doing this show for over 25 years now and I’ve known Viktor for most of those years. I think it must be a toss up between Viktor and Jeff Siger as to who’s made more appearances on Graffiti though, having known Viktor longer, I’d have to lean toward him.

One of our shows together left an indelible print on my soul. It was a show we did back in January of 2010 to mark the opening of his exhibition called: Sylvia. The exhibition was stunning…stunning not in the sense of being breathlessly beautiful but in the sense that it stunned you…shocked you.

Sylvia was Viktor’s maternal grandmother who had survived Auschwitz. Viktor and his family including Sylvia of course, had gone to Auschwitz and Birkenau, Majdanek, and Treblinka back in 2004 as part of the “March of the Living” delegation from Greece. Viktor’s camera is never far from reach and was put to use during the time spent visiting these places that will always be remembered for the horrors committed there.

But we’ve also had fun doing shows like the one we did back in January 2017 where I spoke to a number of fantasy writers who had written pieces for the special catalog that had been put together for his exhibition: BESTIARY: Bizarre Myths & Chimerical Fancies.

I look forward to tonight’s show for many reasons, including the fact that it will allow us a chance to catch up.

So be listening tonight at 7pm at our website CosmosFM.org or on the radio at WNYE, 91.5 or use the TUNEIN app on your smart device.

Here are some links that you may find useful.

 

Click here for Viktor’s website.

Click here for information about the exhibition.

Click here for more information on Mount Olympus: to Glorify the Cult of Tragedy at the Skirball/NYU.