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| Feature by Roller :: Thursday, January 08, 2004 |
| This is the unedited full fat version of the feature in Blowback magazine. |
| Introduce yourself. HELLO my name is Gould. I live in Berlin and study art history and literature. The most important thing to me is art, and the last year was very eventful. I went to placard the streets, met many people and joined some exhibitions. How long have you been hitting up the streets? How did you start? Only one and half years ago I went public. I don't have an active graffiti background, so it was a real new experience for me, to put my works on the street. But this step was natural to me. In Friedrichshain (the district I live in) many shops and flats are empty. The windows of those places are covered with a thick skin of commercial placards. I chose a closed corner shop like this for my first action. During the day, with the help of CORTO, I stuck some large pictures and defended them against the commercial stuff for about ten days. It looked like a gallery turned inside out. We got positive feedback from the people walking by and even the policeman, which came there, but didn't stop us. "If it was a political or commercial thing, you would have been arrested immediately", he said. From that moment I knew that this is the way I wanted to do art. There is so much good work coming from Germany right now! Tell me about the street art scene in Berlin, and in Germany in general? Who’s representing out there? Berlin is burning! There are a lot of street artists and a big variety of styles. Many works are very raw. Because the city is so big, the districts distinguish from each other in their appearance a lot. In one district you find a mass of stickers by one artist; in the next district this artist isn't present at all. Look at CBS. This crew represents Berlin at its best. They are writers, they are street artists, they use every technique, visit every district and set standards. There are so many uncommon things to be found in Berlin, that it isn't easy to impress people living there. You have to create special things, if you want them to be noticed. The Berlin artist I like the most is "BILD" (English: "image"). He is part of the ANTI-INFORMATION CONSPIRACY and questions the images in our society. On StickerNation you have a lot of his huge empty faces, which attract much attention in the streets. Many artists from other cities and countries come to Berlin to visit. SWOON, ZEVS, FAILE and others brought new impulses. SWOON is one of the artists, which was invited by "urban-art.info". This gallery and website is very important for the street art scene in Berlin. Many artists first met there visiting the cool exhibitions. About Germany in general I can't say much. There are other hot cities: Hamburg, Koeln... I really like the works of STIRB, GOMES and THE FOENS. Why do you think so many German artists are getting their work out on the streets? Does the artwork get buffed often or is Berlin pretty laid back on graffiti removal? I can't really tell you why so many artists go outside. The ones I met and talked with had very different opinions and reasons. I like the street art situation, although there is a big hype… Berlin is in many parts dirtier and more broken than other German cities. In some districts the streets are full of stickers, posters and such stuff. I love to walk through the streets reading all the walls. The stick duration of placards usually is not so long. My figures and large works often disappear within a week. If a placard is gone I always hope it wasn't removed, but collected. Some of your work is very graphical, photography based, and some of your work is just loose drawings. What style do you use more often? What do you prefer? If I had to choose between the techniques, I'd keep on drawing. But I like to experiment with styles and subjects. I love the pixels and dots of enlarged prints as well as the substance of copied drawings. Maybe my drawings are more spontaneous and emotional than the photographic based works. When I'm unhappy I draw a lot. I felt really bad at the time I created my figures with the slogan "Ich geh kaputt" (english: "I break down"). Where can people see your work besides the streets of Berlin? The most of my large works are in Berlin. I'm working very slowly and my posters are often made of many pieces. One colored figure takes me about two hours. I would like to travel more in Germany (Hamburg, Koeln, Dresden...) and abroad (London, Amsterdam, Paris, Moscow). I'm only at the beginning. But the development of new placards and the increase of quality are more important to me than the quantity of my works. |
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