Culture and Fashion

“I’m not a graphic designer, I’m not an illustrator, I’m not a typographer, I’m not a poster artist, I’m not a photographer, I’m not an artist, I’m not a director, I’m not a set designer, I’m not an artistic director, I’m not… I’m just a point of view.” - Stéphan Muntaner

By Sarah Carrière-Chardon - July 19, 2011

Born into an artistic family in Marseille, to parents who met at Fine Art school (his father was an ‘artoholic’: former director of the FRAC, a publisher, a committed artist…), Stéphan got his diploma in Applied Arts then left for Barcelona to live his first professional experience. Between 1991 and 1993, with the desire to explore the recently acquired European status, he discovered the other Mediterranean city, “with no division between art and industry. This experience allowed me to leave behind the French system and the divide between Paris and the provinces. In Barcelona, I slept and worked in the agency, I participated in



Born into an artistic family in Marseille, Stéphan got his diploma in Applied Arts then left for Barcelona to live his first professional experience. Between 1991 and 1993, with the desire to explore the recently acquired European status, he discovered another Mediterranean city “with no division between art and industry. This experience allowed me to leave behind a French system and that other divide between Paris and the provinces. In Barcelona, I slept and worked in the agency, I participated in the creation of a business, speaking neither Spanish nor Catalan, I tried everything, always as a freelancer.”



the creation of a business, speaking neither Spanish nor Catalan. I tried everything,”always as a freelancer. In the middle of the 90s, his return to Marseille first took the form of collaboration, co-founding the collective, Tous des K. He designed the graphics for the Year 2000 celebrations, the CD covers for the group, I AM, the visual identity of Philippe Découflé, and the Odyssée de la Canebière with the World Sailing Game. In 2002, he created his own agency, C-Ktre, an explosive concept if ever there was one. Since then he has continued to bring his fresh perspective to public space, integrating an ephemeral dimension, a


study of the body and of movement. In the south, he collaborates with the Merlan Theatre, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Compagnie de Provence, the Festival de Jazz des 5 Continents, and many other institutions. It’s this desire to do away with trends and to propose endlessly new creative propositions that earns him extraordinary loyalty from his clients. “A logo on a poster, that’s intellectual laziness, to think about a partner’s, a brand’s or a client’s presence goes well beyond the profession’s reflexes. I take each brief as a script.”He’s a “polymaniac” who prefers to follow a religion of the “non finito” rather than a style closed in on itself.A side from his commissioned work, he develops personal projects for which experiments with

new subjects, collaborations which gives Marseille an international resonance. Loose magazine is the latest. For his latest project, Stéphane has brought together a group of writers, graphic designers and artists to create an art book/review as fleeting as it is precious – “the most expensive free magazine in the world.” Aside from his 1,001 projects, other news is that Stéphan Muntaner should open a space in Marseille before the year is out.

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