Cover Art by: Lucy Mclauchlan
Mark Making – the basics of beauty
Flip 2
10 Open 12 Spy 1: Joska
New cities, new friends, new fairytales
48 A Celebration of Street Art
54 Pictoplasma
14 Spy 2: Adolf Gil
16 Inside
58 Oh Shit
18 Cheaper Sneakers
60 In Your Ear
Lights on leaves reveal the city Basementizid (Heilbron) Marbury and the art of endorsement
20 Skating the Great Wall
A photo journal by Kevin Metallier
26 Squatting the White Cube
Bombing the Brandwagen
24 Rider Ink
Steven Gorrow
34 Illustrative Works
- Kukula - Lucy Mclauchlan - Brooke Reidt
47 Sawn Off Tales
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Tristan Manco sees if the characters are still at war Venezuelan artist Alejandro Lecuna takes action
Music
62 In Your Eye
Books
64 Show & tell
Banksy in LA
66 Show & tell
FriendsWithYou Bootleg Show
70 Show & tell
Iguapop 3rd Birthday Exhibition
70 Want It
Products
73 Got a name for it?
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Sara and Marc Schiller of the Wooster Collective on why they love street art
The art of Vincent Gootzen
Cover:
Lucy Mclauchlan
Creative action = active creation
Issue #11 Creative Director Garry Maidment
garry@methodmedia.net
Editor in Chief Harlan Levey
harlan@disinfo.net
Associate Editor Jason Horton
jason@methodmedia.net
Art Director Tobias Allanson
tobias@methodmedia.net
Music Editor Florent de Maria
florent.demaria@gmail.com
Production Manager Richard Hegarty
richard.hegarty@methodmedia.net
Distribution Susan Hauser
susan@methodmedia.net
Contributors
Timothy Leary once said that women who want to be equal with men lack imagination.
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Open
This issue of Modart is a strong indicator that while the discussion over the place for women in arts, as in other areas of our lives, continues, quietly women are squatting the stage.
open
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We don’t have quotas and don’t care what color, gender, nationality or musical tastes our contributors have. Whether we found them or they found us or somebody we both hold close laid his coat out to bridge the puddles, it is the work that brings itself to the page, even if to be honest, it is often the person that makes us all the more enthusiastic about sharing it. Enthusiasm is a sign of stupidity so don’t listen to us. Have a look for yourself. Meet Joska and Kukula, one is in Berlin, the other in LA, both young women who will draw you into their intricate fantasy with their technique and imagination. Meet Lucy Mclauchlan who is half of Beat13, a Brummie battling the world with a brush and painting as if she might improve the state of things by doing so (we reckon …). Meet Brooke Reidt who is turned on by projects which are not for profit and provides a body of work as intimate as
it is open. She sent in enough for a beautiful book and made us again regret our limited pages. See works from Catalina Estrada, Miss Van, Nina Braun, Ephameron and a few other artists, all in this issue, all women. So what? It wasn’t a theme or a conscious choice. It might have been a question of sensibility, but it was never one of sex. There is no lack of imagination here. On the contrary, we got a story on shit, a guy whose work works best in the toilet and a photo spread that suggests China is the future and not only because human reproductive capacities are diminishing at an alarming rate. We also got a feature story from a couple whose passion has butterflied into a platform, which artists and activists all around the world are leaping onto and off of- Sara and Marc Schiller of the Wooster Collective describe one of their loves. Then there’s a Pictoplasma feature from Tristan Manco. Are the characters still at war? Let’s see … war is there anyway, but we is skating through the streets straight out to the sea where his story descends to meet the mermaids and without words, emotions begin to make sense. Enjoy, —Harlan
Brooke Reidt, Logan Hicks, Christine Strawberry, Tristan Manco, Kukula, Joska, Sara and Marc Schiller, Kev M, Lucy Mclauchlan, Adolf Gil, the big ‘I’ in Iguagpop, David Gaffney, Steven Gorrow, Jorgy Bear, Street Player, Cyrus Shahrad, Guifari, Sergei Vutuc, Vincent Gootzen, Lecu, Sam Borkson, Cameron Bird, Nounouhau Collective, Nelson and Conny Neuner.
Advertising: Garry Maidment: garry@methodmedia.net +43 676 441 5462 Rasmus Ostergaard rasmus@methodmedia.net +33 672 54 64 56
Publisher Methodmedia AB
Editorial Office Methodmedia AB Kapuzinergasse 47 6020 Innsbruck Austria
Printing Grafica Editoriale Srl Bologna, Italy www.monrifgroup.net
Publication: Modart Magazine ISSN 1653-6088
Distribution: If you are interested in stocking Modart, contact Susan on +43 (0)512 56 00 64-10 or email: susan@methodmedia.net modart magazine is published 6 times a year by Methodmedia. Reproduction of editorial is strictly prohibited without prior permission. Views expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in any retrieval system of any nature without prior written consent, except for permitted fair dealing under the Copyright Designs and Patent Act 1988. Application for permission for use of copyright material including permission to reproduce extracts in other public works shall be made to the publishers. Reproduction of editorial is strictly prohibited without prior permission. All rights reserved copyright 2006.
www.modarteurope.com
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SPY: Joska SPY 1
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Joska was born in the crust of a beautiful shell on an island far away from any known country. Joska enjoyed living between lovely animals, and spent days with them exploring the enormous rain forest and spending afternoons nibbling freshly picked fruits. Together with her animal friends, Joska started painting every tree, every stone, every hair on every creature on the entire island. This made them hungrier. When the island was painted, they swam and swam, painting the sea. Joska was so emerged in the world beneath her she failed to notice as one by one the current carried away her animal friends. Suddenly Joska found herself alone, in a country called Germany where Joska works, studies and still wants to
paint everything. When asked to provide a statement about her work, Joska said: The truth is that I don’t have any actual statement for my own work! I don´t think too much about it in this way. I try to draw what I want. I like to draw my surroundings/ my environment. I like to draw animals and fantasy creatures like monsters or weird looking humans, so I draw them/it ‌ I like to see how people react to my work and I try to make people happy, smiling, laughing, thinking, remembering, crying, asking, thinking some more, leaving their world/feelings/thoughts, forgetting, drawing themselves, talking, reading, listening, watching, speaking, escaping from their worries, getting ideas, scaring, relaxing, making things possible... My favorite thing to do is to paint and draw.
SPY: Adolf Gil Adolf Gil was born in 1970 and studied to be an engineer, which worked out for him because he ended up as a concert promoter and eventually went to live in Australia for a spell. In 1998, he made the decision to ‘dedicate his life to painting.’ What you see here is the same painting cast under a different light. It may be difficult or impossible to grasp on the printed page, but it’s too good not to try. Here’s some hints from Adolf as you enter his frame.
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I am interested in light, which is actually the main object of my investigations. In my paintings, I use all kind of techniques and materials (like natural pigments, cristal powder, latex, luminescent paints, etc.), overstrike them in layers on canvas; and like this, manage to make the observer see changes in the colours and shapes. Depending on the incidence of light (like the rotation of the sun as the hours progress) and the position of the observer, the paintings acquire a different presence. In my recent work, I have also been investigating with luminescent paints, with which I make them recover life in the absence of light, making the paintings have a third image which is only shown at night. My paintings usually tell stories and show the contradictions and juxtapositions of the society in which we live, showing on one side natural organic forms, like trees, animals or humans, and on the other, pure geometrical shapes and cities which depict extreme opposition to nature. In my work these influences coexist in a singular frame and a difference between night and day.
SPY 2
} Wake up in the woods, go to sleep in the city … check out Adolf Gil!
INSIDE
Coming from Nowhere:
Working Class Hero Fall, fall better, fail, fail better, sometimes the moment you can’t run anymore is the same one where you find your step … sometimes things come together only once we think they’ve disappeared.
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The Basementizid.Kunst.Cellar in Heilbronn, Germany is a gallery for contemporary arts, which explores text, images and sounds, considering itself consciously addicted to a wide range of forms and voices. Every month they launch a different platform to stimulate discussion between regional, national and foreign artists. Basementiszid Kunst Cellar knows that we are all foreign anyway, they live the motto: Think global, act local.
} IN S I D E
An involuntary nomad, creator and curator Sergej Vutuc was used to seeing trashed remnants of a city growing as the number of inhabitants diminished. He’d watched waves of people leaving in search of something else and he himself has also done the leaving. After the “Blickwinckel” project in 2004, he found himself in a small city inhabited by products and saw the locals mimicking the lifestyle on their shelves and screens. “I started watching people like part of those products, walking from one point to another, feeling free for this reason, feeling fear for that one … cultural life appeared to have been killed and reborn as consumer good. I started to speak with people about what we could bring to town to give it some glow again. Blickwinckel began, held two exhibitions, completed a project and closed. Two reasons for this were obvious: People were put off by my bad German and the kids started to split town. This idea of young people heading to the big city in search of a better life inspired me to stay put and at the end of 2005, I was able to open the Basementizid Kunst Cellar.” Still thinking Global and acting Local, Sergej brought artists from all over the world to this small German town to exhibit their work and communicate with the people … and give to the people; to share lives, dreams, ideas and “to offer people the feeling that where you’ve been isn’t as important as what you are and break the mentality that states real life only happens in the Metropolis.” At the same time, Sergej worked with locals to create an artzine, hold parties that brought together local bands, dj’s and visual artists in an attempt to break the walls. Since opening the Cellar, Sergej has welcomed Ricky Adam, Klub 7, Alberto Polo, Gerd Rieger, Bongout, Vectoriots, Mymonsters and others … Filjio, Dave the Chimp, Viagrafik and Yummy Industry are some of those slated to hit Heilbronn in 2007. www.basementizid.com
“A working class hero is something to be … (they) keep you doped on religion and sex and tv … a working class hero is something to be.” – John Lennon
An Economic Fairytale For Feet Text: Christine Strawberry
Illustration: Guilhaume Desmaerts
There is a Berber proverb that says when you die and it’s judgement time, every limb, organ and other identifiable piece of your body gets one vote to your fate based on how you treated it. The feet get two votes a piece. One vote for themselves, and one vote for carrying the weight of all the other pieces.
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Forget the proverb, feet are important and for many of us, our shoes carry us more often than trains, plains or automobiles. But, and maybe this is just me, I’m over the sneaker craze (not that I was every in it, to be fair). I’m of the sort that buys a pair of shoes and wears them to death. We have an intense relationship (me shoes and me) and I have to thank shoes for more than sparing my soles hot sand or glass covered cement. Shoes, for example, introduced me to the melancholy of fashion victims; women wobbling in heels on ancient cobbles, teen boys trading loafers for Vans because they were born in the 80’s not growing up in them.
Fa i r y ta l e F o r F e e t
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As every company on the planet appears to want in on the art/merchandising tip, sneakers continue to be celebrated even with the sweatshop stories, the ridiculous margins and the knowledge that when we make something unimportant out to be essential … young and/or dumb people start to drool. Lust for life replaced by lust for object, but the death drive never exits. How many kids have been killed over sneakers? Even after Naomi Klein’s No Logo put the sneaker/ sweatshop relationship into a light where it had no choice but to change, fashion, comfortable feet and good endorsements have seen the sneaker craze growing and growing and growing and these objects which cost (usually) less than 10 euro to manufacture are sold at outrageous prices, endorsed by celebrities and companies who continue to make a killing … as do
desperate parents and kids. One bleeds green, the other red. The way to end the sneaker madness was to ignore it, but that hasn’t happened. Now, perhaps something else has. One of those rare moments when something occurs that seems so obvious, so natural even, it is hard to imagine that it hasn’t happened before (at least, not like this). Until now, a wealthy basketball player (like Michael Jordan) or musician (think My Adidas and Run DMC), would take the bait, putting their names as the glitter on overpriced corporate products, contributing to social myths that make for harsh material realities. Instead of challenging a predominantly white and plutocratic establishment, they took the money to the bank turning their back on street level implications as ‘we the people’, adored these cherished marks, expressing admiration in the form of cash. Then along came Stephan Marbury and perhaps the end of the 100-200 dollar hyped shoe. Nobody, but Marbury and his business manager will know the drive behind this seemingly philanthropic move, but let’s not worry about that right now. The bottom line is that a professional athlete, an NBA all star, and a kid who dragged himself out of forgotten quicksand streets, has put out a shoe line where the highest price is under 15$. But a 15$ shoe can’t be good enough to really play in, can it? Well, Marbury does. Good enough for a pro, good enough for the playground. When seen as commodity, shoes, like art are only worth what people are willing to pay for them. Marbury, for the moment, has broken the paradigm and will at least let us see if the people actually want the paradigm broken. That said, don’t expect supply or demand to shrink as far as other sneaker companies are concerned. I can’t tell you why, but the craze appears ready to continue.
Riding the Great Wall: And Everything Else in China A Travel Journal written in Snaps
Almost every issue, somebody wants to testify to the relevance of skaters transforming design into possibility. Here’s a testimony in silence, from a land that appears less and less far away with each morning’s headline.
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By KEVIN METALLIER
G RE A T W A LL
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} G RE A T W A LL
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Riding the Great Wall: And Everything Else in China
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G RE A T W A LL
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Riding the Great Wall: And Everything Else in China
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G RE A T W A LL
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Riding the Great Wall: And Everything Else in China
Squatting the White Cube
hits a military hangar There are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention.” – E. Hemingway Sometimes such events are moments in the build up to something else altogether … and sometimes I’m over enthusiastic about enthusiasm, about people who do … I was invited to Vienna to participate in an event and tell a story. On Friday afternoon, I landed and Lilo met me at the airport. We drove across the city to a semi abandoned hangar that had been used by the Austrian military to house and manufacture tanks. It had been almost two years since the one and only time I’d met him and they show up worse on me. The weather, he told me, had gone from yellow to grey in the time it took him to pick me up. The air was wet and smelled of wood. I inhaled and tasted a mixture of saw dust and spray. Inside the hangar, bodies were moving. Wrists rigid and supple, fingers pressing down on the bomb, knees firm as the jigsaw appeared to be everybody’s favorite toy, and people passed back and forth with purpose. Lilo introduced me, but nobody seemed all that interested in small chat. The place was huge and though it was evident that loads of work had been done, it was clear that there was much more to do. The event was in less than 24 hours.
When art enters into a sponsored affair, we hope that the artists receive conditions that reflect their value in view of the proposed budget. We’d like to see them sleeping in comfortable beds, able to get their rest or privacy if they want it, and generally treated in a way that they (at a minimum) lose nothing for their time, not even sleep. Sometimes this happens, sometimes we find floors. Putting up 15 people for a week is never going to be cheap, but a sic solution was found. It wasn’t four star, but it did mean that this group of yesterday’s strangers were going to live and work together in the most intense way for a solid week. Every crew had their own sleeping compartment on this train.
The event itself, was a celebratory party to mark the birthday of Red Bull’s Brandwagen initiative, where they offer up a pimped out fire truck to various bands, support spontaneous concerts at festival camping grounds and other venues, acting, in a way, as patrons of the arts. Lilo, his studio dvsn.at, and friends worked with Red Bull to add visual aesthetics to the sound and invited 15 artists, all with street roots, all with different styles, to gather and collaborate on decorating the Brandwagen itself and the massive venue where this private party would take place. From what I saw, I imagine that Red Bull was proud of the event. 40 different bands that they had supported turned up to say thanks, and the work done by the artists gave soul to the space. People ate, drank and were merry. This however, isn’t the story that interested me and those that did, I wasn’t there to see. What interested me was the process of these different artists meeting each other and beginning to work together.
In my apartment it’s police sirens, on the farm it is still the rooster’s cockledoodledoo and at an abandoned military hangar in Vienna revelry was like a bomb going off. The train rattled and clinked, there was a loud noise and smatterings of rough voices. Good Morning geezers, just when you thought the green had gone, here come the tanks to welcome you rudely into a brand new day, another opportunity to kill the gringo in you.
To approach the stranger is to invite the unexpected, release a new force, let the genie out of the bottle. It is to start a new train of events that is beyond your control...” ts eliot
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In an old military hangar in Vienna, the genie got evicted. What took place, the week I did not witness, is where the stories that interest me are. Let’s take a look at the week and I’ll tell you some of what I can confirm.
W H ITE C UBE
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Organizing an event can be high stress, from the first phone call or conversation right through the moment the whole spectacle has been broken down and is being digested. In co-operations like this one, the likelihood is that any compensation, the organizer, like the artists, get for their time comes in shapes that banks don’t accept. Meeting new people, sharing ideas, working hard because it’s who you are, seeing the birth of new creative works, this is the type of payment that drives some people. It’s a rare and beautiful thing. Here you can see a picture of Lilo in the eye of the hurricane. It’s pretty confusing, I admit, that smile … normally he should be at least a little stressed right about now. But that image doesn’t lie. Young man is enjoying himself. Mostly thanks to the support of Kathi, Felix, Paul and Stefan who made sure that nobody said New Orleans when the storm hit and stayed beside him as the core of the crew who pulled this all off.
With the army behind them, the band of disobedient troops slowly woke up and got back to work. By the time Friday rolled around, everybody had inhaled a bit too much spray or simply spent all the serious energy they had. C100 is not working on a book called The Advertising of Rebellion, though he made a pretty good model as he offered himself up to be bombed and tried to find his wings with a Red Bull when the paint took him down.
Red Bull worked with Montana (Spain) for the event and some special cans were produced and provided, giving the artists a creative condition, color. Every story has its color, this time it would be selected from a spectrum before the story ever started.
A bouquet of pink that ran through red towards violet, black, white, grey and chrome … this was the palette the artists had to play with, and that is one massive shadow … as the work begins. On a side note, did you know that Mattel actually sells a Barbie Bling Bling line? The colors made me quiver when I heard them, but didn’t remind me a bit of Miami Vice when I saw how they were laid out.
Guillaume Desmarets was the one non German speaker in the group. When he couldn’t understand, he put his head down and doodled. When he did understand, he brought other artists to a line where their imaginations met. This is the start of a piece he worked up together with Made and the Atzgerei crew.
A jigsaw had been brought along, just in case … but the carving began quickly. Letters got sliced out of slabs of wood, totem poles were constructed, the jigsaw became a key player in the production of all this work. This is where all that sawdust had come from. No fingers were lost in the build up to this event.
Historically, Totem Poles were used to represent clans. What was represented by this one? I remember a large cock and a blue drip of sperm that might have been a tear had it not fallen from that giant grinning face. Most of the crew participated in the totems, and eventually this led to large cut outs with close carvings.
Made = Maggot One of two … well, here’s the other. Busk. Saw stencils and paste ups and stickers from him all across Wiener Town. Normally busk means, to play music or perform in a public place, usually while soliciting money. Don’t know how a guy you never see manages to solicit cash, but maybe that’s the play in his name. He’s performing, producing, but not soliciting, at least not in public … just putting up and and out and again, often … and if he is soliciting in public, I couldn’t tell you what it is he’s after.
Maggots. Remember the film ‘The Lost Boys?’ No? Ok, imagine opening up a Chinese Take Away carton and where you’d hope for noodles finding hundreds of dark little maggots sliming around. This was the image the film planted in me, all those ugly maggots and worms going nowhere. A truly nasty image for a box I knew well and liked the smell of. In Vienna, there are maggots everywhere and they’re speaking. What they’re saying is that Made is one of two local artists who works the hardest to get up, often.
Collaboration continues and maggots get personalities as artists overlap. Guilhaume from Farm Prod put his own spin on a maggot face as did Tika and Elak from the TGS crew (Zurich)
When I saw this pile of trash, I thought, wow, the Red Bull clean up crew has their work cut out for them if they’re going to match that. Of course I didn’t think that. I don’t remember what I thought. I just remember that it was one of the first finished pieces that caused me to stop before it.
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This is going to get boring. Collaboration continues … but what is collaboration? When does it start? With the noise in the background and the faces around you? With a conversation? A look? A discussion? Any study of collaboration suggests that collaboration is a concept that provides the location to think of love. Love and Collaboration: This was a marriage that wrote itself all over the enormous hangar. What reason, besides love, would make a person work like hell for a week, sleep in a train full of strangers (with the shower across the street at the tennis courts) and hang out in the outskirts of Vienna while the city keeps moving in the near distance?
Bon Voyage … as Guillaume heads towards the airport, he gets a glimpse at a result of the week they hadn’t imagined; a living, breathing maggot pasted up where everybody riding shotgun is sure to see it – a collaboration between new friends that made for the sweetest of souvenirs and the most poetic of endings.
Participating Artists Were: C100, Busk/CMOD, Nero, Alva, Kryot, Mosta, Sep, Guifari, M8, Tika, Elak, 56k, Made, Atzergerei, Rich:Art,
Lens, Koast, Kers/Tony and HELL.
Here’s a good example of non intentional, very serious and timeless Austrian street art, I mean advertising. It says: From Punk to Grandma, the Wiener Wurstelmann is good for everybody!
W H ITE C UBE
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Busking up high – one of the downsides of the event was that the space was closed off for the actual party and some great pieces like this one were tough to see. See it now.
RI D ER S IN K
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“What I’m proud of? Did you know I’m about to have a kid with the woman I absolutely love and adore and in terms of being proud, nothing else in my entire life even comes close.”
RI D ER S IN K
Steve’s love of art was fueled by the surf and the street. You can nearly hear him laughing from Australia as he explains that he tried his hand at graffiti (Stevie G), but still can’t use a spray can to save his life and was part of the local crew that began to draw street art out of graffiti, until, well, the cane came down and that was enough for him. I asked him if there was a street piece that was proud of, but he shrugged it off.
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The news is that he’s deep in the waters of his true loves: surfing, traveling and creating. Insight pays him to set up their installations around the planet and according to a colleague, the only thing longer than Steve’s travel itineraries are his expense reports. Lucky Boy. Or is he? Steve refutes that. Not the travel, but says his funds are on the shoe string and part of why he succeeds is that he can make something of nothing even when he’d like it to be the other way around. Lucky, yes perhaps, lucky and talented … he created the legendary ad agency The Revolution and won an Aria for his cover design of Powderfinger’s Vulture Street. Having done several group shows, he’s now prepping for his first solo show in Sydney and designing board shorts with his brother.
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RIDERS INK WITH:
Touring the world with Insight, have you seen any stuff that inspires you lately? “I love most street art and Barcelona and New York stand out in my mind. Half the time I don’t know who has done what, I just know I love what I see and that’s inspirational. I really like Eric Parker and Keiji Ito’s stuff at the moment.” You also mention Peter Webb as one of your strongest influences. Could you describe what it is about Peter that enchants you?
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“Peter is legend. Him and his mates were responsible for that massive art movement in the surf industry that hit in the late 80’s and early 90’s. They called it War Paint and I’d say it was this that hooked me onto a job in the surf industry. Later, I was lucky enough to work with the man himself. He was like the Iggy of the commercial surf art world and his own art remains amazing. He also happened to be the guy that latched me onto the Modern Lovers, who are to the day, my favorite band.” RI D ER S IN K
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Now with Insight, Steve works often with the title Commercial Artist. But what exactly is a commercial artist (if its commercial, is it still art) and what’s the difference between that and a ‘simple’ artist? “A commercial artist is what they used to call graphic designers and I think it sounds way better. Graphic designer sounds shit, sounds like you should hang out at IKEA a lot and wear lots of Paul Frank clothing. The difference between the two can be tricky, but art is more of a true release and commercial art is a bit more contrived as time is money and money is milk.” Money is milk, what an image if you transplant it to a bank. Safes just wouldn’t have the same structure. Steven describes his work as a mix of surrealism and pop, which we could see as father to son. So what’ll the art scene look like by the time his baby is riding a board? Who fucking knows. Between waves, keep your eyes on Steven to see what he churns out next.
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Illustrated Works With:
Illustrated WORKS
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K
KuKula drew a picture, Mom hung it on the fridge Kindergarten teacher told mom, KuKula draws pretty curses a lot and fix mouth with band aid and soap Age four KuKula finds out don’t throw stuff away Now there’s lots of stuff, KuKula have lots of stuff Mom sent KuKula to design and art academy in Tel Aviv to make career Teachers say KuKula and drawings like poison candy KuKula likes lychee flavored toffee from the central bus station KuKula like to complain a lot and always think the glass half empty KuKula always smile and nice nice even though nobody believe her KuKula illustrates for newspapers, newspapers make KuKula sick Kukula gonna die, Kukula quits KuKula believes in the Evil Eye KuKula born in Israel, Israel there’s beach and buddies to play in the sand KuKula run far far away to America America big no friends no greencard no bread, To eat KuKula draws pictures to hang on the fridge, KuKula hungry no more Momoca and KuKula makes clothes together, clothes are important so you won’t get cold and for covering the tuches McDonalds hamburgers make stomachache for KuKula KuKula like-a the salads, When KuKula get sick KuKula like to eat chicken soup in bed. KuKula always five years old
Illustrated WORKS
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Illustrated WORKS
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LUCY MCLAUCHLAN
Illustrated WORKS
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Illustrated Works With:
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All Lucy “ever wanted to do was draw” and after turning down a lucrative deal with a major brand who’d have happily paid her to draw, but would have sucked out her soul, she proved she wasn’t going to become yet another branded commercial artist. Since then Lucy Mclauchlan’s artwork has gone from strength to strength in it’s own right, with exhibitions across the globe; it’s now not only her screen prints but also her original artwork that has become increasingly desirable and sought after. But for Lucy it’s still about the drawing, the simple need to create the perfect line, mark making in it’s most basic form. Her intuitive approach allows her subconscious mind to take control and this is what makes her art unique: the character driven, organic undertones and densely populated images emerge from within her tranquil exterior and manifest on surfaces that range from breasts to cars, covering millimeters to meters. To taste a slice of her subconscious head to the soon to be updated Beat13 website: www.beat13.co.uk.
Illustrated WORKS
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Illustrated WORKS
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LM
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Illustrated WORKS
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Iw Brooke Illustrated Works With:
Reidt
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“Home can’t be mapped. I keep my suitcase packed and I’m nearly a quarter of a century old. I’ve moved more times than I have fingers and toes to count on, so I’ve quit counting and I now embrace all my sojourns, adopting a somewhat habitual transient way in the process. If home is where the heart is, my anchor is rusting in my art. My paintings are visceral maps and short breathes between suffocation. My intention is to defy flightless fables, continue the contagion of adoration and timeless preservation of my indefatigable inamorata integrity.”
Illustrated WORKS
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Brooke doesn’t realize (or does she) that either she is a poet or her life is a poem. She wrote me that she’s turned on by not for profit and has a new project going with Element Skateboards along those lines. Apparently she works as much as she worries: clothes, paintings, wood carvings, a little bit of whatever leaping out of her in hope of something more sane. The work she sent it could be bundled into the following batches: Journal, Birds, Portraits and … I donno … everything delicate, intricate, images of that suitcase life laced onto nature … her work powerful and unpredictable, somehow sweet and full of the scars that the road and time will tell on us all.
BR
Illustrated WORKS
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Illustrated WORKS
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BR
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Illustrated WORKS
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Pretty, ain’t it? By David Gaffney/Illustration by Nelson
David Gaffney’s book, Sawn Off Tales is available in bookshops and at www.saltpublishing.com
S A W N O F T A LE S
I didn’t see Mrs Kalinsky again for weeks and I never got my cut. Then from the window of the police van, I saw her with the vet in a restaurant, drinking wine. And laughing.
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But I couldn’t go through with it. Then two weeks later a ginger tom got flattened on the A556 out of Eccles. I scraped him into a bin bag, dyed him Alfred’s colour, and took him to Mrs Kalinsky’s vet.
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Mrs Kalinsky spoke through wreaths of smoke from the cigarette she had permanently cocked at the side of her head. ‘This is Alfred.’ The fat pampered cat looked up at her. ‘He’s insured for two grand.’ Her long nylon-clad legs made a hissing sound as she crossed and uncrossed them. ‘Double if he gets run over.’ She stroked the flabby ball of fur. Bars of shadow from the Venetian blinds made her expression unreadable.
akay
anonymous group of knitters
armspop
the london police
dan witz blu
wayne horse
crate art morcky
Tanc
armspop
gib fresh
tono
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nano
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nomad joska
zevs
Jerome G Demuth
by Sara and Marc Schiller
What exactly is it about street art that makes it so incredibly intriguing and alluring for people of all walks of life in cities and countries across the world? by Sara and Marc Schiller / www.woostercollective.com
Our favorite street artists have a vision of that perfect wall or rooftop for their piece to coexist. To be true to this vision, legal access to that ideal space for the piece is impossible to obtain and because of this, it needs to be stolen. It’s for this reason that we’ve come to believe that street art can only be effective if it’s done illegally. The illegality of street art is part of its DNA.
And the number one reason we continue to keep the website going each day is for the very same reason… because the art and the artists inspire us. One evening this summer we sat down with the goal of attempting to de-construct the “DNA” of street art. Over a nice bottle of Spanish Rioja, for the first time since launching the Collective over five years ago, we put down onto paper what we felt it is about street art that makes it so damn powerful for us and for others. The first thing we wrote down were the words - “LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!” For street art to be truly effective and powerful, the location it’s placed in is absolutely critical. For the best street artists, the location the work is placed in is just as important as the piece
While we love interesting art on legal walls, we don’t consider it “street art”. We consider it public art. Once the art is placed on a predetermined and approved space, the act of collaboration between the city and the artist ceases to exist and the piece loses it’s most important quality - that perfect spot that exists only to mind’s eye of the artist. Which artists understand the concept of location the best? For us, two artists who stand out are Blu in Italy and Armsrock in Germany. One only has to look at their pieces to know that these artists take location extremely seriously.
Why “surprise and delight”? Because there’s something about discovering street art when you least expect it that makes it so damn cool – and just plain fun - to experience. Street art isn’t meant to find you; you’re meant to find it. You walk around the corner and you see something that is so interesting and utterly unique that you have one of those “What the fuck???” moments. You say to yourself – Who the hell did this? Why the hell did they do it? And most importantly, why is it here of all places? Each year we take a group of people who have lived in New York for some time - but who say that they have never noticed street art before - on a walking tour of Lower Manhattan. The group usually consists of people of all types and walks of life - Wall Street bankers, housewives, grandmothers… you name it.
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The one thing we know from writing about ephemeral art each day on the Wooster Collective website is that the number one reason people visit the website is because it inspires them.
So after writing down the words “LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!” we wrote down the second set of words “SURPRISE AND DELIGHT”
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itself. The city becomes a collaborator with the artist.
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For years we’ve been trying to answer this very question.
blu
For the first part of the tour, it’s usually us pointing out pieces to people as we walk along our route from Soho to the Lower East Side. But inevitably, by the time we’re midway through the walk, its not us only pointing out pieces, but others as well. Each year people start discovering pieces on their own: A stencil of Ghandi on the pavement below them; an old Akay sticker on the lamppost above; a Shepard Fairey wheatpaste on the wall across the street. It’s these moments of pure “surprise and delight” that are the most enjoyable for us. By the end of the walking tour many people tell us ‘ I will never see the city in the same way again.” There are lots of examples of artists, as well as individual pieces, that best capture the elements of surprise and delight. Two of our favorites: The first, a massive figure made out of shipping crates that appeared one afternoon on a factory in Melbourne that gave morning train commuters something fun to look at as they rode into town. The second, a series of incredibly creative alterations to street cross walks done in Montreal by the artist Roadsworth. After writing down the words “surprise and delight” we then wrote down the phrase - “must have something to say.”
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For some reason most people want street art to be political. We don’t know exactly why this is the case, but we guess that by knowing that each and every time the artist hits the streets they risk being arrested, its easiest for people to comprehend why someone would be compelled to use street art to protest a cause or action.
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But for us, street art doesn’t need to be political for it to have something to say. What the piece does need though, is to clearly project and articulate how the artist sees the world he or she lives in. It’s peering into the artist’s minds eye through their art that makes it interesting. The piece on the street can be humorous or serious. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that through the piece we begin to understand how the artist uniquely views the world in which we live. We love that they use their art to deliver a message. Two artists who come to mind that do this quite effectively are Zevs for his protests against McDonalds, and the anonymous group of knitters in Copenhagen who covered a Danish World War II combat tank in a giant pink knitted cozy to protest Denmark’s involvement in the war in Iraq. For the final element of street art’s DNA we wrote down the word “Personal” I guess this is, for us, the most important element of what makes street art so powerful. Every piece of amazing street art is a little piece of the artist’s life that has been put out in public for enjoyment, criticism, and destruction. Many of these pieces take hours or even days to create. There are dangers to “get up” and most pieces
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dan witz
to build up around the base of the lampposts where his stickers were placed. What was so compelling was that the stickers were his personal response to the terrorist attacks and embodied his profound sadness and emotion
Some great examples of the personal nature of street art is the work of Dan Witz and “The Fats.”
“The Fats” were a series of anonymous stickers that went up in 2001 and 2002. They were simple, hand drawn stickers that had images of ‘fat people’ drawn on them. Each sticker had a specific saying; things like “the fats are people to” or “the fats have friends”. The simple line drawings and phrases made you think – Why did this person feel compelled to make these stickers? Is the artist actually
We first saw Dan Witz’s work after September 11 when he placed a series of shrine stickers on lampposts fanning out from where the World Trade Center once stood. Dan’s handmade stickers were so compelling that real life three-dimensional shrines began
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will not last long. Knowing that the artist put so much energy into a piece of art that may last on the street for only an hour is incredibly inspiring. We believe that you can peek into an artists personality, desires and dreams by looking at their public - anonymous - art.
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In closing, while we we’re well aware of how important the Wooster Collective website is for people all over the world, we’re also aware that street art isn’t meant to be seen on the internet.
around the world you become inspired yourself.
Whether you see a piece as it evolves every day on the way to work, or travel to cities around the globe to experience street art in other cultures, it is the experience of discovery that stays with you and shapes you . It allows you to view the city environment through new eyes from seeing the environment that the art is in. By being surprised at the humor and ingenuity of artists
By tapping into the intimacy of the art, you begin to believe that you have experienced something that was put there, just for you….. Our advise….. ….. never stop looking!
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These stickers embodied so many personal feelings that they have stuck with us for years.
Street art is supposed to be experienced on the street. Period.
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fat? Is their best friend or lover fat? How does anyone balance our society which is so focused on fast food and appearances?
herbert circulos
Pictoplasma 2006: It’s the morning after the night before… I awake from a feverish dream of spinning cup cakes, one-eyed blue ponies and furry red creatures rocking out to air guitar. Even as this dream fades I begin to see characters everywhere I look; my breakfast toast develops an artistic personality and runs away with a spoon to work on a concept album - nothing is as it first appears. After four days at the Pictoplasma Conference I was sleeping, eating and dreaming a world of the strangest creatures.
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Hosted in Berlin, this was Pictoplasma’s second conference of contemporary character design and art. Its publicity posters featured costumed characters from artists such as Boris Hoppek, Doma and Akinori Oishi seated around a conference table as though plotting world domination. If you imagined that this conference might feature Snoopy and Donald Duck discussing the plight of underprivileged cartoon characters then you would be wrong, but not too way off. The campaign images were a perfect match for this offbeat event that celebrates the diversity of character culture through the eyes of independent artists rather than mega corporations such as Disney. The Pictoplasmic world began as a book showcasing new directions in character design and the pictorial logos that were becoming increasingly common in graphic design. The first volume was packed with examples of figurative pixel and vector art. A second soon followed with additional chapters on freehand drawing, action figures, puppets and street art. Pictoplasma then plunged into new territory with “Characters in Motion” a DVD & book that explored character-driven animations from ‘cutting edge’ studios, animators and designers. The books have become essential reference, complemented by an encyclopaedic website database of over 1,500 international artists. Pictoplasma is now a hub for art fandom, networking and talent spotting– which in turn drives its publications and projects forward.
PI C T O PL A S M A
} Enthused by these projects and connected to a global network of talented artists Pictoplasma’s founders Peter Thaler and Lars Denicke decided to create a conference for people who love characters and people who create them. “This is not about Klingons or a trade fair” they were quick to point out in their opening speech. The intention was to look at characters as a “cultural movement rather just a commercial one”. Initially the idea was to be able to meet and talk with other artists and designers in the flesh since a lot of working relationships were usually conducted on the Internet. The programmed series of lectures aimed to explore the artistic process by inviting artists and studio heads to speak openly about their motivations and art practice. The lectures were complemented by workshops, screenings and of course character karaoke – which brings me back to those red furry creatures, but not just yet...
Are the Characters still at War?
After a late night of nodding to intelligent techno, drinking beer with Jägermeister and wandering the streets with a kebab in my hand I felt refreshed to take in the next day. The following events took place at Haus der Berliner Festspiele with its thousand-seater auditorium, café and spaces to chill out. As the day’s events rolled by it became clear that Pictoplasma had hit upon a winning formula; the animation screenings were faultless, while the combination of studio presentations, artist lectures and academic discussions gave you an insight into the processes of pure and applied creativity. Screening nearly 60 films over three days, the animation programme was a unique mix of music videos, commercials and student shorts from all corners of the globe ranging from the
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Everyone will have his or her favourites from the shows but I enjoyed the anarchic flavour of an artist called Moki. To discover her world you had to climb several flights of stairs to enter a spooky environment. It felt like the contents of a hundred children’s storybooks had been thrown around the room. This mixed media installation featured humans with animal heads, stuffed toys mounted like hunting trophies and costumed creatures wandering around oblivious and camera shy. http://www.misshecker.org/. A warm-up party rounded off the day with
visuals provided by Friends With You, the highlight of which was an adult romper room with giant inflatable balls and kids party music.
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The four days began with a Character Walk. Scattered across the Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg districts of Berlin the conference had commandeered 30 galleries and project spaces for a range of free to the public shows and installations. Artists included Gary Baseman, Tim Biskup, David Shrigley, Doma, Nathan Jurevicius and Derrick Hodgson to name a few. Following the maps provided of the gallery circuit felt like a treasure hunt. For Berlin visitors there was the added bonus of discovering upcoming and offbeat show spaces.
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words/images: Tristan Manco
charmingly simple to the mind-blowingly complex. It’s a little unfair to pick favourites but ‘Middle Dog Gets Angry’ by George Gendi proved something magic could be produced with simple line drawings whereas ‘Tyger’ by Guilherme Marcondes (www.guilherme.tv) and ‘Codehunters by Ben Hibbon (www.statelessfilms.com) illustrated that high polished works could also look original and beautiful. Taking in almost10 lectures a day was like going out in a rainstorm of ideas, thoughts and images – getting swamped but feeling refreshed afterwards. If there was one general theme going through many of the talks it was the importance of bringing your own personality into your work and subsequently bringing life and attitude into the characters you create. Pictoplasma is often associated with designer toy characters and although many were in evidence, the talks and presentations had a much broader scope. Artists and designers showed character design used for diverse projects such as websites, commercials, paintings, installations, illustrations and museum design. The speakers also showed us more than we bargained for, delving into their inspirations, life stories and other works beyond characters. Jon Burgerman showed us for instance, how to make a salad and Derek Hodgson showed us slides of his greenhouse. Some of the talks were seriously ‘out there’ but the quirky approaches generally won you over. It was the combination of very professional studio discussions and the slightly chaotic artists’ presentations that really made this conference original.
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From the studios present, highlights included UK based designers Airside who gave us an honest and inspirational talk on their personal work across a range of platforms including impressive animations for Lemon Jelly and equally successful commercial work “for the evil world”. Two members of Australian based design group Rinzen explained how after the last Pictoplasma conference two years ago, they were inspired to stay in Berlin and work with their other three colleagues remotely. Their first job in Europe was to produce beautifully detailed environments for Copenhagen’s Hotel Fox. The Rinzen portfolio includes a widerange of styles, as each member of the collective is encouraged to keep experimenting and create his or her own artistic language. On the last day Studio aka from the UK wowed the audience with a diverse show reel of animated shorts and insider anecdotes on the process of pitching and developing an animation.
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On the more maverick side, from individual artists there were many great moments. Wayne Horse, an animator, film maker and graffiti artist from Bremen and now based in Amsterdam treated us to his evolving story. From his graffiti background he started painting “Cutie” characters on the street but despite their cute appearances these characters were very annoying. They kept getting into trouble with hard drugs and gangs and so he has been trying to distance himself from their bad behaviour. He also revealed one of his alter egos – a Mexican mask wearing wrestler with a trunk called Elephantos. A series of bizarre live action films explored him coming to terms with his sensitive side. Possibly the most fun came from Shoboshobo, a.k.a Mehdi Hercberg from France who is a musician, artist and teacher of multimedia graphic design. At one point in the presentation he exclaimed, “Now let’s listen to the little girl scream” as he played back a high-pitched squeal what sounded like of a three year old girl to the audience to demonstrate his Motor Karaoke project. This involved people wearing motorbike helmets with microphones rigged up to a computer racing game which they control through the volume of their voices – the
On stage 16 trained dancers were assembled in furry, soft and sometimes hairy costumes translated from designs by artists including Doma, Akinori Oishi, Friends With You and Geneviève Gaukler. Had they taken this character costume idea a bit far? Well if they had the audience
Inspiration was available by the bucket load at Pictoplasma and this article could have included any number of other great artists who would have be equally hard to describe in words. The success of the conference lies in the character concept, which has been used to bring together people from many different walks of life. This variety of artistic endeavours, creative industries, professions and approaches that would not normally share the same platform has become a hotbed for further collaborations and worldwide connections. Now if you’re reading this and you weren’t there you are probably wishing you had been so all I can say is type the word Pictoplasma into a search engine on a web browser - start exploring and get into character!
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At a business conference some of these speakers might conceivably have been dragged away and restrained, but this is an event that is open to ideas which brings me to the grand finale. Pictoplasma have been moving into three dimensions. Through a pioneering orphanage programme (www.pictoorphanage.com) the general public can sponsor a 2 dimensional, graphical character to be brought to life by internationally acclaimed costume designers Florence von Gerkan, Bernd Skodzig and Hans Thiemann. Once these new stars are born a glittering career lies ahead of them, with catwalk shows and music videos promised but for this final night these characters were starring in a pop-opera and Live Character Karaoke.
didn’t seem to mind and having grown up with TV shows like Sesame Street and The Banana Splits seeing people dancing in furry costumes felt warmly nostalgic. The performance consisted of a strange modern dance sequence and then much my relief a musical medley of hip-hop and heavy metal with the characters roller skating, break dancing and throwing some air guitar moves which ended the conference with a bang.
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best screamer wins! He also showed us some dodgy Italian porn/horror comics he had found in a flea market, which in turn had inspired his drawings described by the catalogue as “scribbles of beautiful creepiness”.
Ohne Scheiss = Without Shit Dog shit on the streets:
don’t like it, don’t get it and yeah, it makes me angry. Some mornings I open my front door to find a giant steaming dog pile there to welcome me into my day. I don’t want to seem radical or anything, but since there is a little tree surrounded by a small patch of grass only a meter away, uhm, would it be that difficult to pull the dog to the patch? Or put a diaper on the dog maybe. That’s ridiculous, I know, but so is letting your pet, your responsibility, dispense its droppings for suckers like me to step on, slip across and later stink of, only because somebody else has no respect. For years I’ve been vowing that if I see somebody doing this I will pick up that nasty pile and using my best fastball, deliver a pitch that knocks the owner into shock. ‘Why would anybody throw shit at me?’ Well you dumb fuck, why would anybody leave it on the street? Or on my door step? I propose that the Anti Graffiti department the city police force has set up is reassigned to Anti-Poop patrol and hustles up lazy dog walkers as opposed to dynamic young kids. Instead of buffers, they could invest in curbside shoe washers during the process. I might stink for a bit, but at least I won’t spend 15 minutes scraping my shoes through a puddle, banging them against the curb or in the worst cases needing a knife to scrape the soles clean. Maybe I’ll even be able to look more people in the eyes as the need to navigate these brown urban landmines slowly decreases.
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It’s not hard. You have a dog? You live in a city? I hope you walk your dog a lot and that there’s a park nearby. Wherever you take it, take something with you to clean up after it, just like you’d do your kid.
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Dog shit on the streets is nasty, ugly, potentially dangerous (especially in a place like Brussels where it rains more often than not) and shows a complete lack of respect, suggesting that a person, able to ‘own’ a dog, is not able of respecting or thinking of his or her neighbors. So what about the dog? These evil people are almost as awful as the monkeys in the call centers today who are trained to lie to you and, actually accept it. Don’t know if it’s the same where you live, but that’s how it goes in many Belgian companies. ‘Here’s a shitty salary. Lie to the people. Don’t give your real name. Never give my name. You can leave at 17:00 and 16:30 on Friday. Have fun.’ ‘Ah, wow, this is easy. OK.’ This lying to customers is often like beating them. ‘Now here’s a little more money. Please hit the customer.’ ‘Ah, OK.’ You see how close we’re getting to Nazi’s and cavemen? That’s extreme, but come on, don’t forget that I am You and the other way around. I apologize in advance to anybody offended that I can compare dog shit and call centers and the second world war, but get over
your sensibilities to see what is being compared: essentially all three are about people not taking the time to simply fucking think OR having thought, taking the easy and egoistic route to ignoring their responsibilities to each other. I could go on to tell you why I throw irresponsible dog owners into a category with Pro Life activists who kill people, the Animal Front Liberation that seems to deny that humans are animals, elevating themselves to gods by militantly insisting how each animal should treat each other and well, yeah, the entire Vatican, as well as this growing group of American business men making out with the Book of Tao, but if I did you’d soon forget about how much you hate dog shit on your street and start thinking I’ve lost the plot. That is why I’m very pleased to introduce the more sensible approach of Venezuelan artist Alejandro Lecuna. His Ohne Scheiss Project is a grass-roots effort focused on arousing solidarity between pedestrians to help them overcome the dog shit left behind by Berliner dog owners. A strong simple aesthetic, flaming red and followed by concise phrases, Lecuna draws attention and offers keys to awareness. Will dog owners read them or simply look the other way? If they look the other way, I hope they step in some shit themselves and slip and … The interesting thing is that Lecuna has provided a community tool calling attention to a community issue that affects most residents of European cities and not even the Green parties have picked up on it as a possible political issue. It isn’t a political issue, but is an area that reflects the root of much larger piles of shit. People don’t care. They accept what they ‘have’ to do. The shit continues to stain the streets and the bombs continue to fall. Meanwhile the police are more concerned with Graffiti and Street Art, because oops, they have a message and don’t just stink. (Un)Fortunately (???) most people are too busy thinking about where they might step to consider what common message is behind all art projects on the streets, what the essence of this need to communicate and challenge consensus actually represents. Lecuna’s project allows him to investigate these enflamed claims, to watch and document actions and reactions, exploring respect. What is acknowledged in this documentation? Will his tool be used? Will his idea be practiced? Will people one day start cleaning up after their dogs? Well, if you can quit smoking with your beer because it’s the law, I guess you could also pick up after your dog. So if everybody cleaned up after their dog would things be better? Not so easy … it’s one thing to do something because you think and choose to, and another because you have to. If we only start respecting each other when it’s the law … it’ll be too late to understand what respect is. The shit will still be there even when the doggie bombs are scooped up.
Alejandro Lecuna studied Graphic Design in Caracas and later in New York, earning a degree in Video Art in Berlin. Though he is a leading corporate designer with UEFA, David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label, the NBA and Coca-Cola among his clients, he is making a name for himself in the fine art world as a video artist and activist exploring social issues and questioning the use of public space. He lectures regularly at art and design institutions in Venezuela and lives in Berlin where he recently completed a piece on recycling where he left his ‘unwanteds’ on the curb and voyeuristically filmed his neighbors sniffing around and claiming whatever aroused them. Corporate Art, Fine Art, whatever, Alejandro Lecuna is working on the streets.
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To learn more about the works and projects of Alejandro or to participate in the Ohne Scheiss project, please visit: www.lecu.de
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In Your Ear Les Seddon-Brown and
Maria de
With Florent
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Top 5 Bands or artists… Not to wake up with if you want to smile …
We all know how it can be to wake up roughly to the sound of a horrible alarm, the white snow of the radio or when it’s the worst, the news where you might hear the voice of George Bush, Tony Blair or some other asshole. Next to these artists, those might seem like sweet sounds pre-coffee. So when your eyes don’t quite want to open yet, here are five artists you’d do better to avoid. — FDM
Autechre
The intelligent techno precursors, masters in the art of melodies, reversing and freezing with a childish ease. A great mathematical sound, but so repetitive that it would give you the same desire to throw your television as one of those politicians or the construction crew who starts at 7 and finished at noon outside your window.
My Chemical Romance
It would be way too annoying to wake up being over 25 years old and spend the rest of the day being 12 and hating society…
Mayhem
Those Norwegians are at the head of that diabolic Black Metal movement. Except for cutting the throat of your dog or going to profane the closest church, even in night-clothes, it’s not the best way to have a cushy breakfast...
50 cent
It could happen- your girlfriend will find you 20 minutes after you wake up in the bathroom, with all her gold necklaces, wearing your open bathrobe, convinced she’s going to be filmed next to your pool, another one of many too fine for reality type figures all oiled up… Wake up, it’s only the water running out of the faucet! Anyway, starting your day with 50 Cent when 50 should be plural is all too confusing.
Julio Iglesias
Surely the most risky of the five for the cliché crowd. Since your wife like so many women, goes ape for his gape and you obviously can’t handle hearing his voice for a solid ten seconds without feeling sick, it might be better just to burn this one a little bit before you go to bed to kill all possibilities of (a) hearing it in the morning and (b) having a guy called Julio as the reason to thank for your divorce. Reason number 111 on the good reasons to shoot yourself list.
Metal in the Middle East
Heavy metal music has always been shunned from society. You hear of countless cases from the past whereby local judges have been condemning the music and its culture in favour of so called goodnatured mainstream music. Bubble gum pop and college rock are the order of the day, and anything that strays from this straight and narrow gets the black sheep treatment. It’s under these conditions that heavy metal has thrived. It has enjoyed becoming the biggest black sheep you have ever met. Not only has metal become a multi million dollar industry but also it has now become accepted by the mainstream as a credible form of art and expression in most countries. One place in which it is still treading water and fighting for a place at the table is in fanatical religious Middle Eastern and North African Muslim and Christian communities. In Egypt for example a giant crackdown occurred in January 1997 by the interior ministry, amid allegations of satanic worship, drug use and group sex. Over 100 fans and band members alike were arrested in Cairo and tried for their anti-social and anti-Muslim and Christian behaviour. The state owned media portrayed these people as freaks. Tales of clandestine parties whereby the participants drained cats blood, had group sex and worshiped at the altar of Satan whilst listening to this outrageous form of music, were rife and fed to an unknowing public. ``We are Arab Muslims. We respect our religion. But we only love this music,” said Noor, a 23-year-old part-time German language teacher and guitarist for Dark Philosophy, an Egyptian heavy-metal band. However the government was having none of it and has banned heavy-metal concerts to this day. Similar incidents were also reported in Syria and Morocco. Reda Zine of ‘Boulevard des Musiciens’, a young group from Casablanca told how they were accused of being advocates of the devil. In March 2004, 14 supposed “devil worshippers” received jail sentences ranging from three months to one year for “undermining the Muslim faith” and “possessing objects contrary to good morals”. An obvious wave of post 9/11 phobia against the West didn’t help their case. Moe Hamzeh, a Lebanese music producer and musician commented on the censorship of heavy-metal that occurred in Lebanon. Hamzeh and his band the Kordz were called into the office responsible for fighting terrorism and crime. “It was like in a movie”, claims Hamzeh. They asked, ‘Do you adore Satan? Do you play ‘Hotel California’, “The people coming to your club are they devilworshippers? What do you mean by the strange way you dress, your loose t-shirts and earrings?” “They asked us about our posters of Dali’s paintings. They did not beat us but there were six hours of investigation.” It is only recently that they have loosened the reigns and are letting secret gigs and party’s slip under the radar presumably due to the huge and rising popularity of the genre all over the world. Electronic music had its day, now guitar music is everywhere and this only an extreme form of it. ``We have such a shallow society, because we wear black and listen to loud music, that doesn’t mean we are Satanists.” Says Mohammed Azzam, a graphic designer and pioneer of Egypt’s heavy-metal scene. This attitude seems all too familiar. However the tireless horns will never stop being thrown and it is only a matter of time before the views towards this kind of music will change, as it has in so many lands thanks to the music and the familiar, knowing gleam in each and every fans eye. — LSB
Dad, who is Jim O’Rourke? After the release of the last Sonic Youth album, it would be welcome to draw up a brief panegyric of the genius who is... Jim O’ Rourke. The from now on ex-fifth member of the group, simply decided to be detached in order to relaunch himself on more personal projects, without having to end the adventure with Thurston Moore and co.
O’Rourke is more than hyperactive. His inauspicious tendency to never stay put, allowed the stuffed rabbit of the Wire cover to realize only legitimately unique projects. Eureka and Insignifiance, both mainstream and accessible though, seem to be distant of twenty years, so much the chap knows how to deal with the colourings of his song textures. Whatsoever, old or new, Jim O’ Rourke is in any case an incredibly modern artist.
Some projects, Jim had some. None were tiny. We could look at Leader with David Grubbs in Gastr Del Sol, a huge group in the elaboration of the Chicago music scene, this exceptionally gifted multiplied the projects without knowing when to stop.
Recent albums of Wilco (A Ghost Is Born) or Loose Fur, where Jim brought his irrational and languorous ideas, are only two more lines onto a discography which will be soon as long as a tapestry roller. Quite bad allegory, I know.
Besides his trilogy of merely rock albums, Bad Timing, Eureka and Insignifiance (all names of Nicholas Roeg movies), O’Rourke always could innovate, surprise, go where we would never imagine to see him: a plethora of experimental or electroacoustic recordings, pieces in which he excels thanks to a refinement that would make flowering the acacias in your garden in December seem sane, and this, without being elitist.
It’s often a pain in the ass to say, but let’s not hesitate to say it again: Jim O’Rourke is one of those geniuses who will have unceasingly contributed to give new dimension to everything he dares to touch. And the worst is, now, he’s starting to realize movies... — FDM
Oath to Vanquish
Charlotte Gainsbourg, 5:55, Because Records.
Who is this young and barefaced 24 year old person? Isn’t he too young to give a lesson to all those bands that vainly tried to plunge back into the classic period of the retro and celestial pop? From I Me You I’m Yours, the brio of those crystal-clear arrangements, concocted with this Beach Boys touch, is outstanding. Happy-go-lucky and falsely naïve (a sound that we feel superbly fiddled with his imagination), Jim Noir is an artist born 40 years too late. How not to succumb to his Eanie Meany? It’s a song that Donovan could have written and a testimonial of a sweet sixties sentiment devoted to love. Simply luminous!
Sparklehorse, Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain, Capitol. Mark Lincous. This name might not mean anything for you, but he’s the guardian of the house of Sparklehorse, reference of alternative rock for more than a decade. Spaklehorse has a particular sound and will never change it. Indeed, what for? If Dangermouse is on the production, Dreamt For Light Years… is the coherent continuation of It’s A Wonderful Life, even if a light unaccomplished taste leaves us disillusioned. Nevertheless, the songs keep on being beautiful in melody, with a blazing tenderness behind it. To rock you and have you feeling like an animal and a baby in the cradle all during the same beat, Lincous’ voice is unsurpassed.
DJ Shadow, The Outsider, AZ.
OM, Conference Of The Birds, Holy Mountain. Rock music never had any limit. Nor will it ever have a limit. The dreams that draw us into it can have strange shapes. In this case … Two titles. Long and Gripping. Two witching pieces that you have to explore with your headphones, alone in your attic. It sounds maleficent, but it ain’t. It would just be the best way to feel those odysseys, different but basically identical with regard to the perception and feeling of each one. 30 psychedelic minutes, poignant, almost shattering. Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd can be really proud of the influence they gave to these two musicians and these musicians should be proud of what they transformed it into.
First of all please introduce yourselves and tell us what you do? Oath to Vanquish are: Cyril Yabroudi: bass/vocals Carlos Abboud: drums Elias Abboud: guitars/vocals You are from Lebanon a country that has been omnipresent in the media of late. How do you think this has affected the band in either a positive or negative respect? Due to Lebanon taking the centre stage in the world media lately, people will more easily associate with where we are from, but for all the wrong reasons. Those who are unaware of Lebanon’s cosmopolitan and cultural assets and who ignore how far our society is from radicalism and fanaticism will have this type of image that the world media is trying ever so hard to promote embedded in their brain. Elias and Carlos you mentioned you lived in the UK. Are any of you still based there or are you all living back in Lebanon? We’ve both been living in Lebanon since 1997, but we visit the UK and Europe frequently on business and to see some close friends from university days. How would you compare trying to succeed playing your form of music out in Lebanon as opposed to the UK? It is considerably harder for a death metal band from Lebanon to make a name for themselves in the world, which at times can be very frustrating. Success is primarily linked to exposure. Local metal bands receive very little help and exposure. It is quite hard to find sponsors for underground events simply as people have very little interest, and therefore extreme metal gigs are very scarce. Venues can also be very reluctant to organize shows of such a nature. Lebanon is not known for exporting quality death metal acts as are certain countries in Europe and America, and consequently record labels, booking agents and promoters are less likely to give nascent bands from Lebanon equal attention if any. Furthermore traveling from Lebanon is much more expensive than from the UK to the rest of Europe and the world, and self-financing of shows and tours will be quite a financial burden on a death metal band based in Lebanon. Your music is quite extreme both musically and lyrically. Does this make it harder for you to get fans in countries like Lebanon that are less exposed to it, or is there a vibrant underground scene? Lebanon is a very small country, and therefore it has a much smaller metal scene than even some cities in Europe. There was a time when we could say that the Lebanese metal scene was thriving, but that was almost a decade ago. The media played a large role in portraying metal, especially in its extreme forms, as a main threat to society. This has led police authorities to exert very tight measures, often arresting, prosecuting and jailing people for their looks and their musical preferences, a sad story in which bands had the biggest share of problems. This led the underground to shrink even further. Electronic music is peaking in popularity while metal is sadly on a decline. Most extreme metal shows take place in small underground pubs, and larger events solely dedicated to extreme metal have been extinct for quite some time. As a result it is much harder to establish a large following here in Lebanon. How important are current politics to the band’s music. It must be hard to write about anything else. Is this the case? In our album, while it is not immediately evident, there is a political or social message in each song hidden in powerful imagery. Current politics or power politics have received a large share of coverage in our music both from a local
and a global perspective, mainly due to their overwhelming effect on how the world is perceived and on our daily lives. The current war in Lebanon is a solid proof of the extinction of morality in the face of political leverage. Moreover living in Lebanon we are faced with a wide array of social issues unique to Lebanon and the Middle East, and we therefore have many social topics to address such as the effects of religion, radicalism and prejudice. You have a few shows coming up in Denmark and Sweden in the end of August. Will it still be possible to get to the shows with the current state of transport in and out of the country? We hope the cease-fire put into action this morning is a lasting one and that any breach will be limited to the immediate conflict areas in the south. Since we are unsure when our airport will be operational, our plan is to travel to Syria by land on the seaside road and through the northern border, and then to fly to Denmark from Damascus airport. Luckily this road has not been completely damaged, and is still open to traffic. It will be a long and difficult journey, but certainly worth it. Your band name, an “oath to vanquish” - signifies “a vow to obliterate any kind of obstructing defiance.” – How can you relate this to the situation in Lebanon and how the band will progress from here on out? As long as we are alive we shall never stop breathing music. We’ve been in metal bands ever since 1992, and we feel that with Oath to Vanquish the best is yet to come. This is not the first war we’ve been through and probably not the last. The blockade has yet to be lifted, resources are depleting and electricity is not abundant, but we’ve channeled all our energy towards making these shows in Europe. We feel slightly better now that a cease-fire was instated, but we remain skeptical. The bottom line is that we will not allow this war to stop us from making our mark in the world. Moreover we are the first death metal act from Lebanon to get a worldwide deal for our album. To emerge from Lebanon took years of enormous hard work and constitutes a tremendous achievement. It is worth mentioning that we organized and managed the recording of our album, and to make it possible we had to invest into setting up a studio and providing all the necessary equipment. It was a hard-fought battle, and we shall continue to fight them one after the other until all boundaries are broken. Are you able to survive off of your music? If not what do you do? While it is our dream to be able to make a living from playing our music, sadly this is not possible especially in a country like Lebanon where the music industry revolves around commercial Arabic music with little interest in rock and extreme metal. Moreover the underground scene is small, and shows are considerably less frequent than in Europe. My brother Carlos and I manage our family business of making plastics disposable packaging. We both studied Mechanical Engineering in Birmingham, UK. Cyril has a degree in economics and works in the banking sector. Where do you see yourselves and the Lebanese rock/metal scene in 10 years? Although there are more bands self-releasing records locally at this stage than in previous years, I fail to see any real progress in the rock/metal scene in the next 10 years, unless there is a real change in mentality. Metallers in Lebanon will always be a scorned minority. I see very little room for extreme bands to develop, and I feel that the metal scene will gradually move more towards new metal (akdgfjlmfajhgfajdlf!!!!!!!!) and the mellower gothic style. Our ultimate aim as Oath to Vanquish is to move to Europe thereby giving ourselves a much better chance for success. If this happens we see ourselves touring the world, playing in festivals, exploring new ideas and releasing at least 5 more albums.
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Josh Davis’ comeback was long awaited. And if I was personally afraid of a production lost in loads of directions, of a final result without any relief, well, it’s all the opposite. This record has an unsettling spontaneity, where Shadow skims the best of the soul with This Time - the 18 titles’ veritable introduction, some essays that could remind us of a subjugated UNKLE (Erase You), all with a killing rhythmic accuracy. But most of all, the prince smashed in everything with a hip-hop (Enuff with the inspiring Q-Tip) track to admirably sew up this album, one of the last months’ jewels. Shadow is definitively not an outsider.
Oath to Vanquish are a three piece death metal band based in Lebanon. They are the first ever Lebanese act of its kind to secure a world wide record and distribution deal and are flying the flag, inspiring many young musicians in the country and the middle east. Guitarist and vocalist Elias has seen both sides of the coin having grown up in Lebanon, been to university in the UK and then moved back to his native land. Here he is to expose you to the trials and tribulations of playing in band in such a niche genre in a country going through harsh and turbulent times. — LSB
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Jim Noir, Tower Of Love, WEA.
IN Y O UR E A R
Although nobody could be able to make us forget that she is the timid and mysterious daughter of Serge, Charlotte Gainsbourg is, and not simply from her films, making us fall for her new universe. It’s a universe where Air and Jarvis Cocker invited her, but Neil Hannon was pulling her in too. Into eleven emotional pieces where the slender voice, the soulful playing and the delectable accent take a staggering place. This album is a welcome surprise that came with an unseen promise that has me playing it every night as I crawl beneath the duvet.
ll: and Te gan Hicks Show Images by Lo meron Bird/ 64
By Ca
S H O W & TELL
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It’s the Canvas,
not the Content
If you conduct interviews, you learn quickly about the relevance of media. It’s much different to do it on film, face to face or by phone. It’s soon obvious, that there are people who master the art of communication, but don’t have much to say. There are others, full of knowledge and beautiful ideas, but if you’re interviewing on film, for example, they might provide you with even less useable footage than the vacant, but charming guy before them. Then, there are people who master subject and medium. People who understand their profession as well as they do how to communicate it. Banksy has proved not only a talented artist and thinker, but a master marketer as well. Imagine the evident perversion. Hollywood stars are instructed by their PR agent to attend his show. The message for the masses might be: it’s fashionable to support criminal art. So how do we define a fashionable criminal? What gives street art credibility in the same circles that shunned it only oh so recently? Here’s Cameron Bird’s take on things.
In a city such as Los Angeles, where industry and celebrity yield to the same bottom line, even the most unwieldy artists can melt in the face of high bidders and the promise of star sightings. But when Banksy dropped by in September to fill a back-alley warehouse full of his musings, he opted out of the flourish and kept his anonymity in tact. But the crowd, a blur of pink dreadlocks, beaming monkey suits and everything in between, posed something worth unpacking: what lends popular credibility to street art? After earning a handful of warrants in the U.K. (which apparently remain outstanding), Banksy is at an on-the-up season of his career, a significant crossroads. In the preceding months, his work has been as widely publicized as it has been prolific - drop-lifting hundreds of debauched Paris Hilton CDs across British music chains, marking up the West Bank wall with images of Palestinians digging through to the Land of Milk and Honey, and depositing an inflatable version of a Guantánamo prisoner in the shrubbery next to a Disneyland ride. It’s the kind of half-poignant guerilla work that rattles against stigmas about property rights. Traditionalists (at least in the Lockeian sense) have an automated response to their clean walls
The only real surprise (which quickly turned into a word-of-mouth non-surprise) was an elephant painted to match the wallpaper of a makeshift living room. The metaphor, if not thinly veiled enough,
Therein lies the rub. Banksy’s art, when viewed at a standstill, trades a good percentage of its gravity for levity. To see messages scrawled in exposed space is one thing - it stimulates discussion because of the nature of its placement. To see it in a conventional, uncontested setting is another - it makes people grin and maybe even inquire about purchasing it. No matter the intentions, it begins to enter the system of buying-and-selling for which its substance sharply calls to task.
At the same time, the show also confirmed that the message-inthe-medium cliché stands as a truism for street art, and Banksy’s in particular. People who raise red flags about painted walls and pachyderms are considering the canvas, not the content. A gallery then may be the best setting to warm a reactive society to the idea of the public sphere as the most appropriate spot for provocation, for idea-sharing. Whether he’s tripping the social alarm or mesmerizing clammy Los Angeles, Banksy’s capital is growing by the minute.
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That trope-turned-centerpiece also introduced the only real controversy into the show, in which the city’s Animal Services Department decided the display was frivolous and abusive (even though the organization approved it weeks earlier). Spectators, who lined up around the block in intervals, didn’t seem fazed by any of it. To even the staunchest animal lover, a competing sentiment took over. Truly, how can one deny the sheer coolness of a patterned elephant?
Granted, conceding to pragmatism is nothing new in street art. After his partner in crime was arrested in 1994, New York graffiti innovator Revs decided to switch to a format that would appease the authorities and started asking permission to build metal sculptures outside buildings. Shepherd Fairey followed the more beaten path, turning his subversive Obey campaign into accessible graphic designs that could be sold at mid- to upper-level department stores in the shape of a clothing line (50 euro for a wallet). Unlike Shepherd though, Banksy is toying with the idea that he’s both an artist by choice and a merchant by necessity. It’s a clever, candid inside joke that lends him an extra dose of under-the-table credibility.
S H O W & TELL
But transplanted to a different venue - a gallery in a sweltering warehouse - the fiery impulses seemed to simmer themselves. Banksy’s show was met with all flavors of locals, and for the most part, observation was kept civil. This is despite the fact that most of the exhibit’s offerings were peeled from Banksy’s previous rogueries, which received harsh scolds from the powers that be upon conception; namely, a stuffed and sunglassed rat originally spirited into London’s Natural History Museum, a black-and-white stencil of two male cops coupling, and a series of framed pieces, such as one of an emaciated African tribe studying the creature comforts of the West.
was spelled out on a placard: “There’s a problem we never talk about.” It went on to cite stats about the poverty line, clean drinking water and art that promotes introspection, but not immediacy about global giants.
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being blotted out or their products being hampered with when the actions are done in stealth. Though rooting out the deep-seated reasons for this is beyond the scope of a pedestrian analysis, it’s clear where an ownership society decides to draw its lines. An artist’s right to swing his arms ends where the public’s nose begins.
ized r o h t u a t s 1 e Th
and Tell: Show rlan by Ha
FriendsWithYou
-Bootleg Show FriendsWithYou are suffering from the myspace syndrome. They have so many friends that they are being stretched like elastic Malfi’s and pulled through new mysteries all over the planet. Fortunately, they also have the remedy, real friends and fans willing to give them a push when they need it. The pains of a cancelled show, became seeds of a bizarre collaboration. It’s a love story, and like any good adventure of the heart, it began in a romantic place in early spring ... Copenhagen, 2005: At Project FOX, Sam Borkson and Arturo “Tury“ Sandoval III from FriendsWithYou and gallerist Jörg Heikhaus from Hamburg’s heliumcowboy artspace met for the first time. It was love at first sight and for a few weeks, they worked together hand in hand, discovering the beauty of Denmark’s capital and having long candlelight talks about art, love and friendship. But every good time comes to an end, and usually promises are made never to let go of each other and meet again as soon as possible. In the case of a gallerist meeting two exceptional artists, this means pinning down an exhibition date.
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That happened quickly, and soon it was official: the friendliest artist duo in the world come cross the Atlantic for their first solo show in Germany, bringing universal love and happiness to Hamburg.
S H O W & TELL
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Smiles went upside down and turned to frown as FWY acknowledged that they’d over committed and wouldn’t make it. Disappointment traveled from mouth to ear and screen to screen until Jorg decided he didn’t need FWY to bring them to Hamburg. Jorg then turned to a group of artists he knew had one thing in common: their respect for and appreciation of the FriendsWithYou concept. Global nomads like Boris Hoppek, Neasden Control Centre, Via Grafik, Eliza (formerly one half of Freaklüb) and Alex Diamond were brought together to work with local heroes such as Kingdrips, Moki and Nina Braun. The first ever authorized FriendsWithYou bootleg show got the green light and things started happening. Only Sam seemed confused: “This is a really exciting new moment for FriendsWithYou, we’ve just finished designing our first public playground, our new book and are working on a huge parade of blimps to fly over the Art Basel sky, not to mention the European tour and
the genius idea of Jorgy bear doing his FWY bootleg show. It’s the most genius trick ever! Even though it says it is authorized, this is complete bullshit! We never said anything to Jorg to do this, so on our trip to Europe there will be an all out attack on his gallery with all of our magic and spells. Luckily the artists inside are loving friends and genius magicians as well so maybe we will exercise the evil from Jorgy bear together and cure him of his bizarre delusion of the FWY bootleg show!!!” Sam Borkson Delusional or not, the result of Jorg’s idea was fantastic: A full week of hard work and the gallery was converted into an interactive installation with carpets, paint, fake grass and flowers, TV-projections, curtains and much more. Boris Hoppek provided a brand new installation with two punching bags, loveable (and beatable) look-alikes of Sam and Tury. Freshly founded Hamburg Grafitti-Gang Kingdrips worked for 2 weeks on a large wall installation, taking adaptations of FWY-characters into a weird model-train landscape with roots and mud brown bodies where the mountain monsters emerge like gophers from the ground below. Eliza, Alex Diamond and Neasden Control Centre came up with large format drawings, giving a new individual, and slightly mean twist to the worlds of Sam & Tury. There were LEGO-brick King Albinos (by Haina), fairytale paintings by Moki, stencils on IKEA-Tables by Via Grafik and cuddly hanging chairs in the shape of FWYcharacter Barby (by Violetta). And everything set inside a playground installation with murals, flowing carpets and a fake meadow. It was well worth it: 400 people came to the show opening, squeezing into the gallery and out onto the terrace, celebrating a night of magical powers, universal love, friendship and entrancing, childlike happiness. And all that without personal appearances of FriendsWithYou ... who are supposed to join the show towards the end of the exhibition, adding their own artworks, and presenting their new book „FriendsWithYou have powers“. And boy, do these guys have powers – and an imagination inspiring all these great artists, who turned the FriendsWithYou-Bootleg Show into one of the most successful exhibitions at the heliumcowboy artspace to date. www.heliumcowboy.com
S H O W & TELL
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and Tell: Show rlan By Ha
We Make Money It’s hard for many artists to find a space to work in and a space, which then pays its way on the crust of what was created in and around it – this is an accomplishment. Many artists today have strong business acumen. They are not waiting to die and don’t aim to live in struggle. This is a tough one for the rest of us though. Society may very well need art that turns its back on the world in order to become authentic and make things bloody or beautiful. The individuals who make up society however all share a common drive to live better and though this means different things to each of us, we are all artists of our own lives faced with the question of how to live on our own terms and pay rent and accept or navigate “civil” law. The rent part, for example, screws things up. It makes us take day jobs that devour our energy and insist that our lives don’t parallel our passions or desires. It becomes easy to be lazy. Iguapop never was and neither were the growing list of talented artists attached to the space: Boris Hoppek, Miss Van, Adolf Gil, Blami, Tim Biskup, Victor Castillo, Catalina Estrada, Jaime Hayon, Sergio Mora, Paco y Manolo.
Iguapop makes money. Artists make money. Artists make art. Iguapop makes possibility.
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Possibility, which itself is an art that shouldn’t be overlooked.
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The Birthday show consisted of nearly symmetrical works from these artists mounted on a clean wall, a buzzing vernissage and an after party that saw Jon Kennedy exporting his Brighton beats to Barcelona and managing not to get robbed on the Ramblas. My only disappointment with the show is that Adolf Gil’s piece wasn’t mounted in the toilet – I’d seen in there the night before and it’s created in a way that varied light provides varied images – absolutely different, absolutely stunning images, 3 paintings embedded in one canvas. Something we tried to highlight in Illustrated Works, knowing well that his work is one you really need to see for yourself – absolutely sic. Iguapop makes money, not art and here’s the twist, they can say that and feel proud in place of embarrassed cuz they appear to make money in a beautiful way. www.iguapop.net
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Not Art.
This was the slogan chosen to promote an exhibition marking 3 years of the life for the Iguapop Gallery in Barcelona. A slogan, which smirks at the sound of itself and sounds like a sigh ‌
Vincent refers to his manner of practice as ‘Momentaufnahme,’ which we might translate as ‘catching the moment,’ or hey, why not ‘seizing it?’ Carpe Diem. The process, its influences, interruptions and the conditions where it is practiced let Vincent take these feelings and spit them back at the wall. In a swift translation, input becomes output. There is no time for digestion. The food comes right back up, and out, hitting the wall hard. The passion and power with which he creates his works make wood an ideal surface for his paintings, as less stable materials
Wood is placed into a new context, adapted, etched, imprinted and so on, the end will never repeat. Gootzen always works within the same formats. A style that kicked off in the early 90´s when he started to work in din a4 sized sketchbooks. In the following years he started to work in larger dimensions, proportionally enlarged from the original sketchbook size extrapolated into 118,8 x 84cm, for example. Working within the same formats, and therefore not having to think consciously of them, Gootzen creates a space for himself to pause, a symbolic space that gives him room to respond to the chaos he feels circling him. Like many of us, Vincent feels constantly confronted with an overload of information in his daily life, feels vulnerable as another individual lost in the center of the madness that has become normal in contemporary life.
In this state of mind, the base of his imagery is revealed and his battle to articulate the unspeakable and cope with common uncertainty sees him taking ideas, portraying them, piecing them apart and painting layer on layer until a new order exists. The aim is not to offer answers, but too find a new form to formulate questions. Vincent was a pro skater for years and says that his travels and inclusion into various local communities, because of his involvement in a larger looser community, is part of why his inspiration tends to flow from the streets of large cities. As a skateboarder he is fascinated by re-appropriating and interpreting architecture in a different way than its intended purpose. A similar investigation takes place in his art. Fast, furious and informed … wall and world take beating as one boy rides into himself and spits himself out in color.
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like canvas would crumble at the intensity of his expressive way of working.
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The pictures are the art of action and what you see is what you get. Vincent Gootzen, looks for constructed atmospheres to unleash a wider range of techniques. Intuitive, spontaneous, a lot is left to coincidence. There is no reflection or fear of failure. Inhale – projectile vomit … immediate and urgent and anxious, the art begins to appear in a scream.
art from VINCENT GOOTZEN
V IN C ENT G O O T Z EN
Do you have any name for it?