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Little did government officials know that assigning artists like Lukova to Blagoevgrad meant the tiny town eventually would become fertile ground for dissident views. For nearly four years, she worked as a poster artist for small theater, forging bonds with like-minded artists. "I completely felt like I was in the right place at the right time. We did work that had double meanings because of censorship. We would say we were doing one thing, but really we'd be doing another."
During a recent visit to her New York studio, Altpick.com spoke to Lukova about her work.
Why do you enjoy working for a newspaper?The Op-Ed pages, this is the only page I like. This is my favorite section, because this is where the strong opinions are ... And the image is a visual statement that is sometimes even stronger than the words. What was your favorite illustration for the New York Times? (Lukova pulls out a page from her portfolio. In bold, somewhat disembodied imagery, a man's head is drawn horizontally on the ground -- with a large, booted leg clad in pinstriped pants holding his head there. Meanwhile, arms that belong to the captive are firing a slingshot at his captor.) The story was about a journalist in Panama who challenged the domestic mafia. I really like it because this could be anyplace in the world. If you try to say something strong, there will always be someone against you. But you have to keep going. Your studio here is full of drawings and not much computer equipment. How do you feel about the computer's prevalence in illustration and design?I use the computer for the final stages of my work ... I love the computer, and it saves time. But an artist should concentrate her creative energy not in these boring, mechanical steps, but on paper, first. I don't feel like I'm some conservative person. I just love drawing so much; it opens you up to explore your ideas, and then you go to the computer.
 The Printed Woman, an installation at La MaMa La Galleria, New York You spent a lot of your career making posters, and now you do books, installations, and large, architectural works. Which do you prefer? I don't know if I think of it that way. The size of the piece is not the important thing, because you can make a big message on a small scale. The message is the first thing, of course. If you have something to say, and you have the skill to say it, that's what's important -- not the expensiveness of the materials, or the scale of the piece. 
Why did you choose the human motif for the 2001 edition of The Alternative Pick book?Nowadays with technology, design has become more about gigabytes and Photoshop than it has about expression and art...When I go and listen to these conferences and read the design magazines, 90 percent of the talk is about promotion, technical issues, business. But first of all it should be about saying something, to have something to say, to move somebody. I think this is what is missing...I thought it was proper to tell a sort of a story. I wanted to tell the story of the human life, to say, 'Hey, wake up. We are not super-heroes. We are born, we die, we are vulnerable. We are just the same as people centuries ago. No matter how advanced we are, we are still vulnerable human beings. (Luba Lukova illustrated and designed the 2001 edition of The Alternative Pick, a creative talent sourcebook. She teaches graphic design at the School for Visual Arts in New York and was recently hired by Adobe Systems Inc. to design a book of her posters with InDesign, the company's new layout program. She also will design a poster for an UNESCO conference on international climate changes and a large, glass wall for a church in Los Angeles.
- Contributed by Kelly McEvers |
