More than 20 years ago, shortly before the fall of the Wall, Georg Barber—also known as Atak—worked as a graffiti artist in East Berlin. Since then, he has created a body of work that draws inspiration from this underground past as well as comic books, Romantic paintings, toys, vernacular typography and children’s books .
Although a painter at heart, Atak’s preferred medium is the book. In Pierre Crignasse or in L’Étranger mystérieux—works of which the original illustrations are present in the exhibition—one can perceive a color palette that belongs only to him. His lavish pictures can be considered as the improbable synthesis of 19th century German Romanticism and American 1950s comic books.
For his exhibition at the Studio, Atak joined forces with Gudrun Haggenmüller, who transposed his visual and typographic language in embroidered pieces. “My Deer” was conceived by both artists as a fairy tale which illustrated, in images and words, the struggle between Nature and Man.
