 |
[10. september
2002]
pressemeddelelse
Ask for Trouble:
'street art' af Itso, Freak Gallery og Husk Mit Navn
Itso, Freak Gallery, Husk mit navn
Ask for Trouble
20. september - 15. oktober 2002
Brunnenstrasse 171,
Berlin-Mitte, Tyskland
Åbent ti-fre kl. 17-21, weekend 15-21
www.urban-art.info
Urban-art@info
mere info: Freaksgallery@hotmail.com
ASK FOR TROUBLE - En udstilling af 3 danskere under navnene: ITSO,
FREAKSGALLERY og HUSK MIT NAVN.
3 selvstændige institutioner, alle under samme tag under synonymet
"BEA" Opvokset på dansk skriver / graffiti jord. Gaderne har dannet
arbejdsrum for alle former for produktioner, taget videre til forskellige
udstillingssammenhænge, Officielle indendørs galleri shows, som
uofficielle undergrunds show off. Der er ingen regler, men nogle
få udgangspunkter der er fælles. Det er internationalt, gade relateret
barnligt og smittebærende.
Denne udstilling tager "Urban art" fra Københavns gader til et indendørs
udstillingssted i Berlin.
Modstands børn på rov. I byguerillakrig, Legetøjsvåben i pastel
farver. Kamp imod voksne. De uenige, de uretfærdige, de modstandsdygtige,
dem der gemmer sig, de offentlige, den statslige.
De rådne æbler imod plastik bestik og 10 kr´s discount parykker.
Det er alle mod alle, i børnehøjde, og vi gør aldrig noget de ikke
ville have gjort. Hver eneste dags krig for din egen, og min skyld,
eller for de andres!
Reklamerne har overtaget alle vestlige storbyer. Det er tid til
at slå tilbage, hvorfor vente på Stats autoritetens tilladelse til
at male byens gader, når man på forhånd ved man kommer til at vente
altid. Målet med denne udstilling er at pakke hele verden en i en
kæmpe gade plakat, for at stoppe sult og alle krige.
"Street art" er til for at redde verden!
Vil du reddes?
Grafik af BBSJensen
Foto af Brian Berg
Journalist: Nis Boye Rasmussen
Arrangeret af Adrian Nabi (Backjumps Magazine)
On the tree artists
by Nis Boye Rasmussen
Backjumps Magazine has invited some of Denmark's finest street artists
to Berlin: Itso, Husk Mit Navn (Remember My Name) and Freaks Gallery.
At first glance, they look like they have nothing in common. Their
styles differ greatly from each other, from Husk Mit Navn's funny
cartoons to Freaks Gallery's raw political commentary. But they
all have one common denominator: They are all part of the graffiti
crew BEA. They all started out, and became friends, as graffiti
writers - and it's easy to spot the heritage from graffiti. Even
though their styles are diverse, they all have a vibrant roughness
to they works. The same you could find in a trainpiece or a nicely
put tag. Another thing they all have in common is that they evolved
their graffiti into street art. They don't have the schizophrenic
separation between graffiti and street art that plague some artists.
Whether they do a piece or a poster it's the same style and same
pictorial language.
Husk Mit Navn seems to be the one of the three who made the
clearest break from graffiti. "I was getting a little tired of graffiti,
and I saw what Freaks Gallery, Dais and We Love were doing, and
thought: "I can do this!" And it gave me back the passion I once
had for graffiti."
He was well known for his grotesque multicolored and extremely detailed
graffiti characters - and then he switched to b/w cartoon characters...
but still grotesque. "I realized that if I wanted my stuff to be
noticed, I had to do something different from what everybody else
was doing. So I decided to do all of my street art by hand!"
Unlike most street artists he's never done stencils or prints, since
that would be reproducing the same work of art. Every sticker, poster
and character is handmade. And since late 2000 he has put up over
700 stickers and 500 posters - all handmade with ink markers. "Since
I wanted all my street art to be handmade, I had to teach myself
to work fast. Some of the stuff I did was very simple, like Vinterpik
(Winterdick - a shriveled penis suffering from the coldness of winter)
while others were more complicated."
Just like his frosty penises all of his art have a humorous touch
to it. His bizarre characters always end up looking funny, even
when they're angry or sad. "I tried to give them a more serious
look - but it ended up looking wrong"
But if you look closely, or for a long time, the reality of his
characters hits you. The cartoons might be funny looking, but they
carry important messages. For instance a poster of a solemn bearded
man with a sign saying: "Husk Mit Navn". "Remember my name" - or
"don't forget me". A reminder of solitude in a busy metropolis?
He has chosen to focus mostly on his characters, and let the text
be like a logo or slogan for his teaser campaign, that sells nothing
but the tease. "I think that figures captivates the spectator much
more than text. And I wanted to reach a new crowd with my street
art - so I hope my simple figurative style appeals to a wider audience
than text ever would."
Itso is spray-painting ninja - in and out without anyone
seeing him. Compared to the impact he has had on the Danish graffiti
and street art scene, very few people know much about the person
behind the name. He is inconspicuous and you forget how he looks
a couple of minutes after he leaves. That's probably how he managed
to hit the spots he did. He has done pieces and throw-ups in places
most writers wouldn't dream or dare to hit with a tag. Not only
does he hit spots that are hard to get to, he hits everything and
everywhere. It will be hard to find a place in the greater Copenhagen
area, where you can't find an Itso tag, piece, throw-up, poster
or sticker in a 100-meter radius.
Even though most people don't know who he is, he is very popular.
You can see that by the amount of people biting his style - but
every time you think the biters have ruined his style with sorry
looking duplicates, he breaks free with a new innovative style of
lettering or figures.
Freaks Gallery was one of the first graffiti writers in Denmark
who turned to street art. And even his earliest work showed his
political conscience. "I 1997 there were a municipal election in
my hometown, I was a first time voter - and I didn't feel like giving
any of the candidates my vote. So instead of voting I made my own
election posters with my own slogans. I hung them up, and that was
my vote!"
He had already been painting canvases for 3 years but the election
posters started him on something new. Most people didn't understand
it in the beginning - some still don't. But he tries hard to show
the qualities of street art to the unsuspecting public, and he was
among the first to arrange street art exhibits. In 1999 he was a
part of a show called "Word On the Street", and in late 2001 he
gathered some of the most remarkable street artists in Denmark,
and collectively they put together the largest street art show in
Denmark to this date, "Byen Brænder" (City in Flames). More than
50 people cooperated, among them Husk Mit Navn, who converted his
studio into a documentation center, where the public could get an
introduction to the art they'd find in the streets. Itso collaborated
on a Danish/Swedish installation, with top-to-bottom paintings straight
on the gallery walls.
Freaks Gallery has a very gentle nature - and as a contradiction
to that, his street art has some of the most hard-hitting messages.
This summer he went over Canons ads with a roller, and changed a
happy-go-lucky commercial ad to a sinister big-brother's-watching-you
propaganda campaign with just an ounce of burgundy paint. "I want
people to wake up and start thinking! I point out problems in our
society, also problems I wouldn't know how to solve - I just want
people to think about it, because you can't change the world alone."
He displays his political views through his street art. He put up
posters with the EU flag, but instead of the normal blue and yellow
colors his posters were red and yellow, as a reminder of the propaganda
from the glory days of the Soviet Union.
|
|
|
