Saturday, March 6, the annual Inkspotbattle took place at Concordia. The theme was "Elections (in Corona time)". 10 Dutch cartoonists participated. The only female participant, Renée van den Kerkhof, walked away with the prize.
Online visitors could watch as the participating cartoonists translated a topical issue into cartoons. An expert jury chose the winner at the end of the battle. A salient detail was that the submitted drawing still showed Rob Jetten as D'66 list leader. Fortunately, on the eve of International Women's Day, this was quickly rectified by the artist.
The judges praised the level of the creations: "With this drawing, Renée flawlessly combines the corona crisis and the elections".
The first cartoon was handed in after only 32 minutes; another was made in the last seven minutes as inspiration initially failed to materialise.
The participating cartoonists of this edition were: marcjanjanssen (Marc-Jan Janssen), Danibal (Daniel Hentschel), Neetje (Renée van den Kerkhof), KIK (Benjamin Kikkert), Loko (Lodewijk Koster), RGvT / Fokke & Sukke (Jean-Marc van Tol), Lex Dirkse, Maarten Wolterink, Moshe Gilula and Hard Papier (Rob de Jong).
This year, Concordia had once again secured an expert jury. It consisted of Roy de Witte, member of the Overijssel provincial executive, and Henk ten Harkel, editor-in-chief/project leader journalism at 1Twente and applied arts entrepreneur. The third jury member was actor, writer and satirist Owen Schumacher. He was also a jury member for the Inktspot Prize 19/20, whose cartoons are included in the current exhibition.
Several interesting facts emerged in the animated conversations at the table. For instance, Owen managed to report that Frank de Grave, after his legendary persiflage in Kopspijkers ("nobody fucks with Frank de Grave"), received many more preferential votes. For Moshe, pencil, pencil sharpener and hoover appear to be indispensable tools when making cartoons. In his daily practice as a hospital specialist, Marc-Jan Janssen uses his talent for drawing to clearly explain to patients what is going on. Roy de Witte learned that a seemingly simple decision based on excel sheets can cost you dearly as a starting alderman, quickly making you the subject of cartoons.
All these facts and more will be available online again in a few days when registration is published.
Inkspot: the best cartoons of the past year
The Inktspotbattle is part of the exhibition Inktspot, featuring the best political drawings of the year 2019/2020. Unfortunately, due to the measures surrounding the corona situation, this exhibition is currently behind closed doors. More information about the works can be found via the website of Press and Print Foundation.
Concordia
Concordia (Enschede, 1902) is a multidisciplinary cultural institution with programming in film, theatre and visual arts. Its aim is to make art self-evident. Within this framework, its annually presents the 'Inktspot' exhibition featuring the best political cartoons of the past year. Since 2016, she has also organised the Inktspotbattle in the process. For the second time, it was held online.
Practical information:
- More information on the Inkspot battle
- More information on the exhibition Inkspot.
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