Pelle Buys – In The Mood For Love

ITALIC – which emerged in Cologne in 1999 from Stewardess, a music label founded in Düsseldorf in 1995 by Marc Knauer – has positioned itself in partnership with the visual arts from the very beginning.

On the one hand, this can be read as an inscription in a history that is very particular to Düsseldorf, with its Kunstakademie next to the Altstadt, where painting, performance, music and intoxication have always cross-pollinated (Beuys, Conrad Schnitzler, Kraftwerk, NEU!, Ücker, Creamcheese, Paik, Penk, Atatak, Ratinger Hof, Carmen and Imi Knöbel, et cetera).

On the other hand, it also pursues a notion of pop music, especially as manifested by British musicians who attended art school (Bowie, Roxy Music, new wave, post-punk...): Pop as an overwhelming force exaggerating expression and emotion, where music and lyrics are complemented by the means of clothing, hairstyle and makeup, record design, stage design and video.

ITALIC has combined these influences since 1999 as a Cologne techno label, organizing music nights and events in regular clubs, but also in fashion boutiques or artists' studios. Since then it has produced over 125 releases, as well as cinematic works and – as catalog number 101 – a chair: The Italic Chair.

In 2008, the label moved operations to Berlin. In 2017 the complementary exhibition space ITALIC opened on Leipziger Straße in Berlin-Mitte, presenting different forms of artistic expression – music, object, image, movement – and offering the possibility of positioning them in the appropriate medium: sound media, exhibition, film, performance, party.