Featuring: Morcky Troubles, Smash, The Boghe, Wayne Horse, Ruedione and Stefan Strumbel
www.modarteurope.com
Yes Mom, Graffiti is violent! But this ain’t Graffiti. Histories most compelling arts have always been violent, they never asked for consent or consensual acceptance: aesthetic propositions that directly touch our emotional sensibilities and concerns, have continually come from communities rejected by the traditional art world. Parallel to the Art.Fair21 in Cologne, Germany, Second Hand Smoke unites the fog and traces of some of the most compelling street arts of the last decade, following them into a space where they are no longer subject to labels like ‘skate’ or ‘street’ but appear simply as brave, competent and socially (emotionally) relevant artistic offerings. There is no authority, neither science, nor philosophy (not even common sense) that lingers as an accurate or ethical guide. Anything and everything touched by taste or instrumental reason appears tainted by bias or veiled interest, and headline news has landed in a family of fiction. In an age of uncertainty, are only weapons are questions, courage and playful critical thought.
For more than 30 years now, rotating generations of artists have embraced these tools and unleashed creative energy into their environments presenting a voice for the silent majority on the architecture of our decaying metropolises. Viewed as dangerous and covered in cliché labels of juvenile angst, this unnamed movement is no longer in its teens and while rejected by authorities, this circle reiterates evidence that thought cannot be stopped. Police sirens are ringing and meanwhile activist artists attached to this coming community are influencing all spheres of the cultural sector, from character design to calligraphy, from fashion to propaganda or marketing strategies, from painting to politics to the undermining of accepted social perversions. This is movement. It is rebellion. It is the language of images and the cry for an authentic aesthetic discussion, enabled as opposed to unarmed, by an opposition of dogmatic hierarchical mediatization. Is it art? Does it matter?
Modart was born in 1997, the birth of a collaboration between Transworld Media Photo Associate Mona Mukherjea-Gherig and progressive fashion designer Shaney Jo Darden. Having themselves drawn a great deal of inspiration from the deeply rooted artistic culture surrounding action sports, they wanted to establish a platform to support this culture and share it with others. In 2003, Modart came to Europe hosting an impressive exhibition in Munich, which featured raw talents like Ed Templeton, Natas Kaupas, Jim Avignon, Lance Mountain and Shepard Fairey. A year later, Modart continued
to introduce exciting young artists to a broader public bringing together 30 artists including The London Police, Jeremy Fish, Andrew Pommier, Sam Flores and many others.
At this point, it was already clear that action sports shared certain outlooks with other creative communities and the vibe that spread from the sweat of many of these artists was essential in inspiring a coming community of artists that would reinvent their environments, cherish positive destruction as aesthetic reconstruction and search for new a new way to communicate emotional impossibilities posed by the so called modern world. Bravery, empathy and imagination, shared weapons in a sea of varied individual interests and experiences. Since 2004, Modart Magazine has documented and discussed with this coming community and evolved with it, acting as a reference and platform to place more art in public and while challenging most beliefs, holding on to one:
www.modarteurope.com
Stefan Strumbel Germany
www.deineheimat.de
It’s urban in rural, grey gone green and ruined back to blooming as this artist employs a language evidently influenced by traces of raw urban arts and a fascination for landscapes. ‘The Walls Belong to Us’, ‘What the fuck is Heimut?’, and the fact that in addition to exhibiting his work at a number of reputable museums, galleries and cultural organizations around Germany, he has also done work in Vail, Colorado, may say as much of his work as any description of his street or academic past might.
Smash Germany
www.smashtrash.net www.smash137.net www.invisibleheroes.com
There is an amazing Graffiti Hall of Fame in Basel, Switzerland. You’ll see its colors and cuts, its blatantly fine yet crude explosions and eventually you’ll think only one thing: Smash. Smash Smash Smash Smash Smash, but never the same. Forget the limitations of the keyboard and the context. The work is brave. It risks and pushes and leads to new techniques and desires. Smash began writing Graffiti in 1990, graduated from the Free School of Design in Olten, Switzerland in 2000, launched the Graffiti magazine Profile and joined reknowned crews in the US and Europe. In 2004, Smash earned his degree as a graphic designer, continued to update Basel’s Hall of Fame and began exhibiting his work in Graffiti battles. Since this time his influential and bold style has led to a career as an independent artist and an ambassador’s role in the Montana Graffiti Team. When one day you hear art historians discussing the Crack technique, well remember, it was Smash who invented it.
Ruedione Germany
www.ruedione.com www.ruedigerglatz.com
Started actively writing graffiti in 1992. Start to supply local writers with paint before finishing his studies. In a short time, his garage based business became an official spray paint distributor and could now be connected to discussions about the evolution of the industry around, and materials available to, this culture. In 2000, he began to concentrate on the temporal nature of Graffiti and the media reincarnation of images focusing on photography as his preferred medium of self expression. A mere 6 years later, and Ruedione had founded the Montanta Writer Team, launched his own photography studio and published his first book. Later he would rethink this publication, considering that he shot images of Graffiti from a photographer’s perspective when he was interested in the view of the writer (hiding under the train, standing in the shadows) and began to retrace his steps around Europe to re-shoot the work. This proves to be not only an obsessive exercise, but a stunning portrayal of frames and perspectives. Since 2003, Ruedione has exhibited his work at more than 15 galleries in Europe and the United States.
Morcky Troubles Italy
www.morcky.com www.twothings.net www.mikosa.net
I was born in a small Italian town up the hills, in the mid seventies. I grew up in the eighties with lot of cheesy television. I started painting graffiti in the early nineties. I moved to Amsterdam in the zeros. Everyday I do a lot of things: eat, drink, smoke, smoke, smoke, draw, fry myself in front of a computer and often make my clothes irreversibly dirty. I like painting objects and things without life, I like playing with perspectives, compositions and dynamics. I like to draw smoke. I like to paint big outdoor walls the most. I forget a lot of useful things. I love black and white. I don’t usually talk this much.
Wayne Horse Germany
www.waynehorse.com Wayne Horse once spent an afternoon with monkeys in a cage. His show within the frame of the second Pictoplasma Conference in Berlin sent positive whispers racing through the international character design and urban art scenes, and I’m pretty sure he’s left a line on a wall everywhere I have ever been with him. His work exceeds character design and from calligraphy to video work to what are literally trash installations, he continues to strut in his tighty whities. In this case, Wayne Horse is only the host, the Master of Ceremonies, super MC or perhaps producer, the man behind the making of Legends of Graf. Compiling footage and inspiration from his comrades Sebener and Street Law, this is a project that has swarmed YouTube and received unambiguous feedback from the Graffiti scene. Confident in both his sexuality and street cred, Wayne biggups his friends despite reactions like: *”WTF you are giving graffiti a bad name you suck and stop.” (*what the fuck???)
The Boghe Italy
www.boghe.net www.twothings.net www.mikosa.net Rocco Pezella (aka the Boghe, aka the Neverending) has been writing Graffiti since 1989. He studied at art academies in Bologna and Perugia before deciding to escape what he considered an institutionalized art track, moving on to earn his living and search new stimuli as a designer. He quickly excelled, working in both Milano and New York for a number of prestigious firms, including Trussardi where he served as a young creative director. In 2000, he relocated to Amsterdam and launched his own agency, Twothings, a partnership that has gone onto work for high profile commercial and non profit organizations, directed award winning music videos and launched Mikosa Foundation and magazine. At the same time, Rocco continues to expose his own creative offerings in exhibitions around the world. Last year he collaborated with Nico Stumpo to show at No New Enemies in Brussels and later participated in the Dutch Masters Group show at the Den Haag Gementelijke museum. A true writer, Rocco provides images and structures that cannot always be read, yet leave a lingering sense to their accompany their blatant nonsense. His investigations include calligraphy, robotics and sculpture.
Lichtfaktor
Artists in their own right(s), we’ve invited the Lichtfaktor crew to liven up the party, offering all guests the chance to test their skills and light painting and helping us project aesthetic treats across the night.
Like most trends, light painting is nothing new, Picasso did it, and so have millions of party photographers- usually without meaning to. 6 months ago nobody knew the Lichtfaktor Collective, then came the interview in the Greek Playboy, another in a Turkish magazine for Burger King and a slew of propositions from various clients, events, and potential collaborators. Between the three members of the group there is a passion for critical thought and theory, an
interest in aesthetics, music, creative action and more than a decade of experience on the VJ and broader visual arts scenes. Two of the members are Graffiti Writers and bring this with them. In a way, some of what they do can be compared with Graffiti although pictures don’t leave proof in this case and authorities, though often angered, don’t really know what to say. Light Painting combines too many realms to lock in a paragraph. Lichtfaktor is based in Cologne, Germany
Se more of Lichtfactor´s work at: www.modarteurope.com & www.myspace.com/lichtfaktor
.FAIR 21 in Cologne, This is the 5th year of Art ed those two digits add e and the organizers hav art of the NOW. in t res inte to emphasis their handpicked, which Now, the galleries are been killed off yet and means the curator hasn’t es and 300 artists’ there are at least 57 galleri work on display … ing to see, lots to see. So there must be someth ered a ‘museum of sid An art fair could be con art supermarket or e larg of t the moment,’ a sor any other trade show.
d when we visit a fair The thing we keep in min art in general, is that any or gallery or look at rence. If you need the the work must be the refe emotional reaction, explanation to arrive at an art becomes a sort then text becomes art and text. Kill the blah the tify jus of living diagram to sity overwhelms you. blah blah until your curiou understand it. See it. Feel it. Then try to lf, but enjoy the show, Let the work speak for itse and let the air back open eyes, mouth, inhale feeling … perhaps and out of your belly … form re. in art we find a brighter futu
ODO’S PLACE
What a place, what a space, an old dirt road that leads down the path towards another planet. Even the dust is recycled. There are friendly inanimate inhabitants waiting to welcome you, old cars and mysterious iron creatures. The venue for Second Hand Smoke is the atelier of the artist Odo Rumpf and over the years he has constructed an incredible environment. While we hope the work inside will engage you, the location itself appears as art and serves as the perfect vehicle to start the trip towards our closing party!!!