Emek (designer): Difference between revisions

Emek (born Emek Golan in Israel in 1970) is a popular artist/graphic designer/illustrator. He has made his mark through hand-drawn, highly-collectible posters advertising live rock concerts around the world since the early 1990s. He is widely credited with helping to revive the rock poster scene, transforming it as an art form more suitable for framing on a living room wall than a telephone pole.

In December 2007, Billboard (magazine) named [the top 25 rock posters of all time][1]. EMEK garnered 3 spots on the list, the most of any single artist.

He has become popular with collectors in the recent years. A November 27, 2006 profile of Emek in The (Portland) Oregonian described how people from miles away flocked to a San Francisco poster show sponsored by The Rock Poster Society to get a chance to see and buy his work. The article by journalist Joseph Rose hailed him as "a savior of rock 'n' roll. Not the music, but the art."

Emek's style, known for its attention to detail and layers of meaning, infuses socio-political commentary into pop culture imagery. In the tradition of psychedelic posters from the 1960's, Emek still draws his posters by hand.

He was shaped by both rock art posters from the 1960's, and punk flyers from the 1980's. He studied art at California State University at Northridge.

"Arrrght" History 1992-2006

Emek's poster-making career accelerated in the 1990's with alternative rock acts from Europe and North America, including Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Queens of the Stone Age, Tool, Marilyn Manson and the Decemberists. Over the last decade, Emek's work has been shown in galleries across the United States, in Berlin, London and Tokyo. He recently completed a European gallery tour that took him to Belgium and the Richard Goodall Gallery in England.

Also a fine art painter, Emek lives in Portland, Oregon, and comes from a family of five artists in California. He was born in Israel while his artist parents lived on a kibbutz. In the states, his family, including Emek's younger brother and sister, lived in the Los Angeles area. His father worked as a caretaker. There was no TV at the home, just a radio and a well-equipped art studio. His parents also stayed active in political causes ranging from social justice and the peace movement to environmentalism.^{"Artist's gig posters rock his fans' world," The Oregonian, Nov. 27. 2006}

His first commissioned rock poster was for a political benefit after the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The image -- a scratchboard visage of Martin Luther King Jr. rising above a concert crowd -- was stapled to the city's burnt-out buildings.

Emek incorporates traditional styles, from Russian constructivism to Asian woodblock. But he is also known for melding the mechanical with the organic, part of a statement on technology, consumerism and conservation. The poster promoting a show for Ween and the Flaming Lips, for example, shows a robot riding a robot horse, a green plant in his pouch, bowing his head in the middle of a barren field of tree stumps.

"At the end of the trail, tired old robots are the only ones left to mourn mankind's destruction of the planet," Emek explained in The Oregonian profile

College professors use his political imagery in classes and textbooks. Punk rocker and poet Henry Rollins dubbed Emek "the thinking man's poster artist."

Ten years ago, he had a hard time getting record stores to sell posters left over from a Pearl Jam show. The poster was only $12.50. Today, when the poster shows up on eBay, it goes for more than $1,000. His poster for Phish at Cleveland State University on 12/08/1995 has sold for over $3,000.

Moving into 2008

So far, 2008 is looking like another stellar year. He began the year by completing the art and packaging Erykah Badu's much-anticipated new album, New Amerykah. In addition to a gig poster for Badu's 2/2/2008 concert in Israel, he created much of the art featured in Badu's first video from the album, "Honey." The [video] [2]starts with Emek's signature hand-drawn lettering.

On February 7, Emek's 2007 posters for the Coachella and 10,000 Lakes festivals won 1st and 3rd place, respectively, in Pollstar's annual poll of the year's best rock posters. It was the third year in a row that Emek swept the awards