The brief

Compare Steinberg and Niemann in your learning log.  What are the similarities/differences in the use of objects in their work?  Are these fun or serious pictures?

Christoph Niemann

Christoph Niemann (born 1970) is an artist, author and animator.  His work appears regularly on the covers of The New Yorker, National Geographic and The New York Times Magazines.

Niemann says in his TED Talk, The Power of Visual Language (April 2018), “We as readers are incredibly good with filling in blanks when it comes to images.  How much information do we need to trigger understanding of an image?”  Niemann says that his goal as an artist is to use the smallest amount of information possible.  He tries to achieve a level of simplicity where if you were to take away one more element, the whole concept would collapse.  His most favourite tool as an artist is abstraction. (Niemann, 2018)

He uses a system called the Abstract-O-Meter, and this is how it works.  He says, “I am an artist, so I can draw this symbol for love (figure 2) to any degree of abstraction.  If I go too realistic, it will just gross everybody out, and if I go too abstract, nobody has any idea what they are looking at. (See figure 3)

“I have to find the perfect place on the scale, and in this case, it is somewhere in the middle.  Once we’ve reduced an image to its most simple form, all sorts of new connections become possible, that allow for new angles and storytelling.”

“What I like to do is take images of remote cultural areas and bring them together.  (See figure 4).  As a designer, it is key to have a good understanding of the visual and cultural vocabulary of your audience.” (Niemann, 2018)

Christopher Niemann says further that he doesn’t want to show a realistic scene, but like poetry, make you aware that you already had this image with you, “but only now I have unearthed it and made you realise you were carrying it with you all along”. “I try to become a better artist by becoming a better observer of images.  I started an exercise for myself called Sunday sketching.  I will take a random object I have found around the house to see if the object can trigger an idea that has nothing to do with the purpose of that item.” “Maybe the most important skill for an artist is empathy.  When coming up with an image, you need to step back and look at what you have done from the perspective of your audience.” (Niemann, 2018) 

Saul Steinberg

Steinberg lived a very different life, considering the 19-year-old Saul abandoned Bucharest, Romania, for Milan in 1933.  “I was a college student for a year”, he would recall later, “but I hardly went to school because there was an atmosphere of brutality”.  More and more young Romanian Jews thus emigrated to France or Italy for their studies.  He remembered 1934 and 1935 as unhappy years of loneliness and poverty.  He had to wait until 1936 to have a good year. From Milan, he moved to America in 1942.  (Tedeschini-Lalli, 2016) 

He published his first drawing in The New Yorker in 1941, nine months before he arrived in America, and he continued to submit and publish his work here until 1999, the year he died. (Frazier, 2014)

Reflecting on the similarities/differences in the use of objects in Christoph Niemann and Saul Steinberg’s work

Niemann regularly uses objects as part of this creative process to generate ideas.  His work is simple, and unlike Saul Steinberg, he uses colour.  Due to money and time constraints, many photographers did not use colour before 1970, and Steinberg’s Photoworks was produced in the 1950s.  Putting this reason for not using colour aside, it seems like Steinberg’s work was more serious and even sad at times, while Niemann’s work is upbeat and humorous.

Niemann also uses animation and video in his art, which was unavailable when Saul Steinberg did his Photoworks.  Today’s technology plays a significant role in how artists use objects in their work.  Steinberg would draw on top of the actual photo or draw on the objects/scene he is photographing, while Niemann uses digital art to add his drawings to objects or a scenery. 

Another technique Niemann does that I don’t see in Steinberg’s Photoworks is integrating the photograph with his drawing by creating the illusion that objects in the photo are behind the drawing or part of the drawing is behind objects in the photograph.  This creates the illusion of space, as seen in figure 6.

Both Niemann and Steinberg use scale of the photograph or drawing to create a new perspective.  Steinberg uses more detail in his drawing, while Niemann likes to use areas of solid black shapes.

The different time era in which these artists created their work is evident in the context of their work. For instance, the game Pac-Man was released in 1980 and would not make sense to the audience before that time.  (See Christoph Niemann’s Pac-Man illustration in figure 1).

Still, they are both exceptional artists, and a great deal can be learned by observing their work.

Works Cited

Niemann, C. (Director). (2018). TED Talk: The Power of Visual Language [Motion Picture].

Tedeschini-Lalli, M. (2016). Decent from Paradise Saul Steinberg’s Italian Years (1933-410. Architectural Association School of Architecture, 40-56.

Frazier, I. (2014, September 8). Cover Story: Saul Steinberg’s Centenary. Retrieved from The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/cover-story-saul-steinbergs-centenary