Olaf Ladousse

June 1st, 2008

Olaf Ladousse (www.olafladousse.com) has been a persistent reference in the creative subworld of Madrid since long before Subaquatica started trying to be a window open to that scene of creative people below the surface. And precisely perseverance is one of Olafs trademarks along with talent and a restless spirit. That spirit has made him embark in to many different initiatives to mention. Among them a comic book zine that he’s been publishing for over 15 years or the “El cartel” project (www.elcartel.es) where Olaf, along 3 other illustrators design and print a poster that they paste around downtown Madrid just for the sake of it. Here’s the interview with this French living in Malasaña (a neighbourhood traditional epicenter of Madrid alternative scene).

First a question we ask everyone that we interview here: When, why, how and where did you start to consider yourself as an artist and designer?

Mi designer status is easy to define: It comes from graduating in the Higher National School for Industrial Creation “Les Ateliers” in Paris in 1992. Later, when I understood that a big ego wasn’t necessarily something negative, I assumed my artist status.

And when did you first felt the need to take it to the streets?

In fact that’s where I started. As a teenager I was in a crew of “stencilers” in my school. It was the 80s and I was living in the suburbs of Paris and it was time to emulate activist artists such as Blek, Kriki or Bergu. I would cut the stencils, my friends got the spraycans and we covered the high school in our last year without being caught. I got into the design school with a portfolio entirely consisting of stencil illustrations. Before hitting the streets the walls of my bedroom became too small and the parking lots, the commuter train, the towers in my neighbourhood of La Défense were desperately asking for some color. Later I got my driver’s license and started rescuing old 50’s fridges with my mother’s car that I took when she was sleeping. I would discard the compressor, empty the fridges interiors and paint the outside. It was the opposite process: Taking elements from the streets and painting them at home. The “El cartel” came much later already after moving to Madrid. I had published the Street issue of my “¡Qué Suerte!” zine that was in fact a poster that I would paste on top of a extreme right pamphlet-poster: La Voz De España . Mutis thought that it was a good idea and we started it with other 2 illustrators. That’s how “El cartel” started with the two of us, César Fernández Arias and Eneko; later with Jaques Le Biscuit too.

Your creative activity is an example of multitasking, almost like a renaissance man. You are, besides a professional illustrator, a comic book artist and publisher, maker of sound machines , street and linoneum artist and on top of that musician with two different bands. Is all this activity part of a same discourse or is it just the person what all this have in common?

¡Viva el Renacimiento! It’s fun trying different mediums to see what comes out of it.The person behind it is the same but the message gets adapted to the technique. For instance, the comic pages I do for the Mondo Brutto magazine are aimed at their lovers of the bizarre readers; what I do for “El Cartel” is more universal because the readers are more varied and casual and there’s a finger-pointing attitude. With music I don’t give a damn if people get it. I just make some noise and enjoy playing with people I feel comfortable with. The quality of the music and the genre is for the hypothetical listener-live show goer-buyer of our records to decide. I do have recurring obsessions that I tend to reflect in all my graphic work such as being a personal enemy of God in all its religious variants and also an enemy of the compromising of freedom speech in favor of comfort and security.

And between your personal work and your commercial work, is there a clear difference?

Of course!. If you accept a project you have to accommodate to what the client wants. But in your artistic work you also have the insidious temptation of trying to please the buyer which is not as different after all. I suspect that there are artists that show their work to sell it but I don’t have many ocassions to confront with that dilemma. Most of my work is commissioned personally by Olaf Ladousse to the bohemian situationist I pretend to be.

And how do you deal with clients trying to have you repeat something you’ve done before and you don’t feel like doing again?

It’s part of the job defending your proposals in front of your client if you are lucky enough to find one. Often work comes through an agency and it’s them that deal with the final client. It’s difficult to avoid dealing with them and you never know how are they going to defend your work in front of their client so the agency is the client. Sometimes I suspect they ask me for a first sketch to present it to their client as a radical proposal to get away with the less extrem proposal they really expect to get approved. That’s why I always try to set a price for any sketch and then a price if the projects gets approved. And obviously they know your work and that’s why they call you so it’s very difficult to get away with something very different unless they just call you because you name is big and in that case the signature is more important than the work but I’m not there yet.

And back to the less lucrative activities, besides art in the streets or music, there is the publishing of the “¡Qué suerte!” zine that you’ve been doing since 1992. Well, how come you still find time and motivation to chase artists from all over the world for their contributions, take the zine to the shops, get paid by them…? How do you see the role of “¡Qué suerte!” in the comic book world of today dominated by manga? It was quite alternative back them and now it seems like it’s even more…

“¡Qué suerte!” is quite a nice and satisfaying graphic adventure. It started when I was showing my design portfolio around agencies and I met many good illustrators so I decided to invited them to collaborate in a zine. The first issue was the Egg issue. If it worked I would commit to do the Chicken issue and if it didn’t the Omelette issue. People seemed to like it so we went for the Chicken. More illustrators came aboard, professionals or novice, musicians and kids. Whenever I would find artists I liked in another zine I would invite them. Most of them would accept. The quality of the zine depends on the contributors and I merely invite them and publish it. I publish everyone that I contact and accepts. Thanks to the zine I’ve known a few really good artists and with some of them I’ve been in touch by regular mail for years without seeing their face. It’s like Myspace without a computer and with stamps. As long as there’s people willing to draw for “¡Qué suerte!” it will continue. I publish 500 xeroed copies of every issue and put a lot of care into printing the cover with linoleum. It’s something I can afford doing once a year. It costs as much as publishing a 7″ single. Getting paid from the shops and having a decent distribution is much more complicated and a part of the job I don’t put much effort into. It might seem like a very alternative zine in Spain but there are similar things around the world.

You are a publisher but also a comic book author and in the process of creating a comic book there’s the visual and the storytelling aspects. What kind lof stories do you feel the need to tell? Is that’s narrative side of your work present in your other activities?

I’m a mercenary of the comic book. I only do comic books on a commissioned basis. There’re no unpublished pages and I always need someone to suggest a theme so I don’t have to worry too much about coming up with an idea. Every genre has it’s typical-topical script whether it’s a superhero or manga comic book. All the stories tell basically the same. The character changes and maybe the narrative structure but the basic resources are always the same. My typical script is that of a character that walks down the street, bumps into something, falls, stands up again in anger and then falls again and dies. I’m not into happy endings. If it’s for the Mondo Brutto magazine I fill it with Brutesch verbal diarrhoea and if it’s for “¡Qué suerte!” it remains silent. With music is the same. The members of the band are the character in the story and we usually tell the same story with the three basic chords the devil taught to Robert Johnson in the crossroad.

Besides all those activities, do you keep a purely personal line of studio work? Do yo show your work in galleries on a regular basis?

I show my linoleum prints in the collective shows where they ask me to participate. These are easy to ship by mail and the look nice hanged with a nail. I enjoy exhibiting my doorags (music instruments done disassembling electronic toys) but it’s much more difficult to find galleries interested in scheduling a sonic show. The “El Cartel” poster is exhibited in the street where it belongs. I like it very much working with neon signs but I’ve only done a couple so far. It’s a discipline I’m fascinated with because it mixes technology, drawing, sculpture, light and the streets. I’m abducted by the drugstores neon signs. Unfortunately these are expensive to produce so I can only make them when commissioned to. Once I’m famous I’ll blind you all with my neons.

By the way you work with linoleum or do the doorags it seems like you like doing things the complicated way. I have 3 questions related to this.
First one: How much of an artisan and how much of an artist is there in you?

I’m an artisan first and an artist later. My training is technical and I learnt to use industrial machinery before I got into drawing and I started drawing because of technical blueprints. I’m not such a good drawer but I’m quite skillful with my hands anf I try to have that compensate my lesser plastic hability. I think I’m better at doing objects than drawings.

And the second one is about the process: Is it more important than the result? Is it impulsive or rational?

In general I’m more concerned with the intention rather than with the final result. That’s why I’m fascinated with the Art Brut where the artists create by pure need and impulse. Once finished the art is over and the contemplative aspect of it is the viewers business, not the artists.

And at last the third one: Do you try to make a stand of the analog versus the technological or it’s just a question of how you’ve become used to work?

I try not to pay much attention to the latest in technology. There is too much marketing and interests involved in having us use the latest Photoshop filter, for instance. I see why you think I’m into the analog because of my production techniques but I disagree. If you take a look at the doorags I make they are made of recycled parts because it’s easier and cheaperm and it’s more fun to give them a new identity but inside they use the latest in massively produced microchips made in China. And franky, a valves amp and a vinyl record sound so much better than a mp3 player…

And a few short questions:
What have you been doing lately?

I’ve been practicing japanese for the Japanese tour of my band LCCD: Los Caballos De Dusseldorf (www.myspace.com/lcdd), pasting posters around Madrid and preparing the upcoming Molecule issue of “¡Qué suerte!”.

Any plans for the future you want to tell us about?

This year I want to do a new neon sign, publish a new version of the “Coser y Cantar” manual (for making your own doorags) with more tricks, continue touring abroad, find a good record label for the second LCDD album and also record with Las Solex. If all this happens in 2008 it will mean I’ve worked enough this year.

What project you’ve never been asked to do and would love to?

More neon signs, more travelling, another book as nice as that “Equilicuá” that Le Dernier Cri (www.lederniercri.org) published but unfortunately there aren’t many good publishers around here.

Any artists or initiatives you want to recommend?

Visit, clap and dance toFela Borbone (www.myspace.com/felaborbone) if you have him handy. Tomutonttu (www.kemiallisetystavat.com/tomutonttu/) draws covers as beautiful as his records and music. The 3 communardsEltono, Nano4814, 3ttman don’t need any more publicity but maybe if I mention them they’ll invite me to their next party. And please come visit our website: www.olafladousse.com

Entry Filed under: Artists