One-Day-Comic
Henrik
With special guests

a.a.s, Access Local, Asia Alfasi, Simon & Tom Bloor, Celine Condorelli,
Hans Christian Dany, Shezad Dawood, Stefan Heidenreich,
Karin Kihlberg & Reuben Henry, Plastique Fantastique, Olav Westphalen.

Launch: Friday 5th December 7-9pm
6 Dec 2008 – 31 Jan 2009

Berlin based Henrik Schrat’s one-day-comic concept focuses on the short term, but intense cooperation of two artists or artist-groups. Without any previous preparation, two artists meet in the morning, and start to develop a comic strip together – to be completed in one day.

One-Day-Comic is the first publication series commissioning a sequence of one-day-comics with publication and exhibition bound into one. Henrik Schrat has collaborated with twelve artists to create twelve comic books over the last six months. The original pages and the completed comics are presented in the main gallery space of Eastside Projects as part of an installation crossing genres from Schrat’s comic world into the ‘Wild West’ film sets of Shezad Dawoods solo exhibition also taking place in the gallery. Schrat will present large scale drawings in the space and arrange the gallery as a reading room, mixing the original pages of the comics with the final products set within his own graphic world. One-Day-Comic represents the desire to collaborate by artists around the world and also the tendency for collaborative projects within the growing Birmingham art scene.

The comic form is adopted as a natural medium through which a convergence of individual’s ideas and practices can form seamlessly into a unique entity. Two minds come very close for a short period, metaphorically hearing each others’ brain tick, covering the whole distance from project idea to realisation. The production is proposed as an experiment in collaboration and form involving artists both experienced at producing comics and new to the process. Schrat is the originator of the project and has been using the comic form within his practice over the last 10 years with both published material and installations using comic making as a structure to question a wide range of human endeavour from economics to historical moments through to personal idiosyncrasies.

Positioned in the tradition of artistic co-operations, One-Day-Comic extends the nature of individual authorship and processes. An agreement on the procedure is established at the start of the day by the collaborators. The content is developed and agreed upon and the division of labour improvised or established up front. When drafting the framework or the storyboard, the amount of work realistically achievable is judged early on and led by Schrat’s experience. The task is complex and demanding, involving several levels of engagement by the artists involved - how to work as a team; how to communicate; how to focus – or not focus - on a target; are all parts of the challenge. Writing about the project Schrat finds that “besides the complex relation between images and text this footprint of an encounter is the central issue of the project. In One-Day-Comic EP2 with Philippe Mairesse, Mr. Turtle seems to solve problems by being slow. Doing a speed comic about a man who is utterly slow seemed not only a nice twist, it first of all indicates the dimension of time - in any given task. It is similar to us making the comic; the status of the comic as object in relation to the process of its making is diaphanous, the comic is merely a gate backwards to the process. Paris/Berlin, 28.05.2008, Philippe Mairesse and Henrik Schrat - that’s what it says on the back cover. The comic is like an extended On Kawara date–painting - the moment in time and amount of time of the one day which was invested.”

One-Day-Comic is then a project about personal encounters, the mutual influence on creativity and our attempts to nurture unpredictability towards unique agreements.

Henrik Schrat (b. 1968, Greiz, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. He has recently presented solo exhibitions at Galerie Olaf Stüber, Berlin; Meat Candy at MOCCA (Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art), Toronto, Canada; Sanskriti Kendra, Delhi, India; and Death by Text at University of Essex Gallery, Essex.

The one-day-comics are available for sale at the gallery at £2.50 each.
A signed and numbered box set edition of 50 will also be available at £40.

Shezad Dawood & Henrik Schrat Artists Talk: 5th December 5.30pm £3

6 Dec 2008 – 31 Jan 2009 open Thursday to Saturday 12-5pm

Eastside Projects 86 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham, B9 4AR, UK
Contact info@eastsideprojects.org www.eastsideprojects.org

Eastside Projects is a not for profit company Ltd by guarantee reg: 6402007, in partnership with Birmingham City University and Revenue Funded by Arts Council England West Midlands; with additional support from Business Link West Midlands.