Peggy Roalf: Do you remember the first illustrated book you acquired as a young adult? What attracted your attention to that particular volume?

Viktor Koen: Other than growing up on a healthy diet of Tintin, Asterix & Obelix and Lucky Luke, the first illustrated book I remember intentionally buying was Art Spiegelman’s Maus.

PR: Do books still have the same allure that they did when you were a student?

VK: The allure has only increased. There is nothing like a printed object to surprise you from page to page until the back cover.

PR: Where is your library located and how do you organize your art and design books?

VK: My studio contains the largest concentration of industry books and objects (one can’t truly be an artist/designer without becoming a collector/archaeologist/hoarder of old printed matter, ephemera and tchotchkes). They are dis-organized according to how much I like them and when they were acquired. Quite a few of them are copies of magazines, exhibition catalogs, books and licensing projects of my work that I cannot part with. When looking for something specific I can only retrieve it by sheer luck, intuition and divine intervention (or I just go to our super organized library at SVA).

PR: As Chair of SVAs BFA in Illustration and BFA in Comics, do you find that the notion of play is an important aspect of your students’ focus and direction?

VK: If play takes the form of experimentation with out-of-the box assignments that allow for concept and technique to organically develop and combine with unexpected results, absolutely. There is a fine line between the early exploratory years a developing artist needs to enjoy before the gradual introduction of industry demands where the rules of the game fluctuate according to clients. I am also passionate about play as an industry and very proud of our toy design, character development and visual development tracks we designed for our departments at SVA.

On a personal level I believe that after years in practice and [concern for] industry focus, a commercial artist needs to relearn the importance of play through personal and passion projects. Series like Dark Peculiar Toys (2006) and Toyphabet (2007) are directly linked to the notion of play.

PR: The theme of the dark side of play is also evident in your work, so it was fun to see all of the toys that have made a home in your book cases. What was your favorite toy as a kid—the one you always had in hand?

VK: Growing up in Greece where the importance of anything and everything heroic loomed large in culture, plus my history studies from early childhood, I was drawn to toy soldiers from antiquity to WW2 (my grandfather fought and was injured in 1940). I collected, drew, assembled and painted them with passion. As I grew up, the glamour of this fascination turned into sobering criticism, like in the series Damsels in Armor (2003) and Warphabet (2011) 

PR: So, it’s fitting that your bookshelves are black! Did you design them? What went into your choice of materials and detailing?

VK: The “grand” bookcase is assembled by stacking (and drilling into) many smaller units. I was lucky that the standard sizes these units came in exactly fit the high ceilings in the studio. They are black because what other color is there? (if I have to trace my partiality to black, it must be related to my first meeting and collaboration with HR Giger in 1998).

PR: How do you maintain your library? For example, do you periodically take it apart and reorganize, or something like that? What do you do when you run out of shelf space?

VK: There is very little maintenance per se; when more space is needed, I have to make hard choices to clear obsolete folders and part with books that I have multiples of. Being surrounded by a designed chaos keeps me constantly stimulated, creative, productive and hopeful to always be too busy to organize. 

PR: I noticed that you did a lot of archival research for your Bestiary project, which just opened at Soho Photo Gallery. How does archival research stimulate your curiosity and creativity? Is it another form of pre-visualization of design subject matter in the way that photography can be?

VK: As a history buff (archeology would be my only other study of choice) research is a prerequisite to diving into a new illustration assignment or long personal series. It also indicates that there is depth to what I am about to do, an invaluable guide and source of inspiration. For Bestiary in particular The Greek Myths (1955) by Robert Graves, provided the character descriptions and it illuminated the fascinating tales that I had only known in their overly sanitized versions from my school years in Greece. Reading The Greek Myths repeatedly with pen in hand, just kilometers from the ancient fortress of Argos, gave substance to the legends and completed my bewitchment with the series

PR: What are some of the best libraries you have visited in the process of doing research?

VK: My research mostly takes place in obscure museum back rooms, out of print books, flea markets, on-line library archives and early morning cups of coffee with experts. I still cherish my experiences at the NYPL picture collection as a graduate student, but nothing beats a flea market treasure that provides that missing puzzle piece just when you need it while sketching for a new series 

Viktor Koen is an award-winning artist, designer and Chair of BFA Illustration and BFA Comics departments at the School of Visual Arts in NY. He holds a BFA from the Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design in Jerusalem and an MFA in Illustration with honors from SVA. Clients include the NYTimes, Wall Street Journal, Nature, Economist, TIME, Bloomberg, Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, the BBC and NASA. Regularly featured in books and publications, his work is exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. He is a TED speaker and lectures for academic and professional institutions and conferences. Directors. Distinctions include: Communication Arts, Graphis, American Illustration, 3x3, Folio and the Digital Hall of Fame.

Web: viktorkoen.com / atticchildpress.com / greetingsfrompandemicisland.com

Instagram: @viktor_koen

TED: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhruAkiBO5E

SVA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz1E81h9pSk

TDC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3jrBj8RnZY