Painting Walls: Graffiti, Street Art & Urban Art

Berlin-based street artist Mein Lieber Prost (or just Prost for short) opened his first solo-show last Thursday at Westberlin Gallery. Like me, a lot of people who know his well-known character tags and minimalistic street art sketches from Berlin’s streets, went to see whether it’s possible to bring this spontaneous works into a gallery space… The 24 hour king of street amusement, whose bold visual statements on society are a crime to miss, is happy to temporarily work within the walls of a gallery filling the space with his message by ironising and criticizing established conventions, and making a positive change. (Westberlin Gallery) ...

It seems the international anamorphic art scene has some new superheroes! Italian art collective Truly Design just created one of the best and most impressing anamorphic paintings I’ve ever seen… In an old factory in Turin, the crew composed of Rems182, Mach505, Ninja1 and Mauro149 showed how to use spray-paint, perspective and space to generate mind-blowing effects. This masterpiece is definitely an eye-catcher and I hope to see some more of those artworks in future! ...

Recreation or reinterpretation are as well as letters in graffiti integral components of street art, but it’s not usual to create an entire installation by just being inspired by a single painting… French street artists Žilda and Rö recently reinterpreted L’assassinat de Marat (The Assassination of Marat), a painting by Jean-Joseph Weerts, by creating a astonishing mixed-media installation somewhere in Rennes! Combining wooden objects, paste-ups and fog, the successful collaboration created a somehow scary atmosphere… ...

Berlin-based street artist El Bocho has been working on the streets since 1997. His Little Lucy series (a little girl killing cats), the two CCTVs Kalle and Bernd as well as the new large-scale painted paste-up series are well known not only in Berlin! Recently Paula Kohlmann talked with him about his characters, street-art, life and communication… When I was three or four years old I watched my cousin drawing with crayons. I simply wasn’t able to understand how she was doing it. She gave me the crayons and since then I have never wanted to do anything else but drawing and illustrating. (El Bocho) ...

Yesterday, right after the doors of my exhibition opening closed, one of the currently most famous urban artists arrived in Berlin! Yep, Roa is back in town for his upcoming exhibition at Skalitzers Gallery… Simply entitled Transit, the show by the Belgian graffiti artist (his first solo-show in Berlin by the way!) includes new paintings presenting his internationally well-known graffiti animals! Roa brings the creatures which inhabit the fringes of human society back to the metropolis to expose the natural beauty in the cycle of life and death. (Skalitzers Gallery) ...

After Chazme, Lump, Sainer and Sepe, Sam3 and Blu it’s now famous Spanish mural artist El Tono who painted two new mural artworks in Poland! El Tono, whose trademarks are wall paintings of abstract tuning forks, approves in that way my theory about Polish cities like Warsaw, Krakow or Szczecin becoming new hot-spots for street art in Europe. Also his comments show the wide support by the local citizens… The project was […] organized by the Vlepvnet foundation. Every year they invite local and international artists to work in the city. The building is located on Zlota street in the Wola neighborhood, close to the central station. Thanks to the help from the guys from vlepvnet, the volunteers and the support of the neighbors, we managed to finished the two murals in only seven days. (El Tono) ...

Graffiti legend and famous character-painter Mode2 did (as I mentioned before) a nice live mural art painting event at Schau Fenster Gallery in Berlin-Kreuzberg! Of course I joined this live painting event and took a few photos. Again it was impressing - not just for me but also for all the other visitors enjoying the characters becoming alive - to watch Mode adding his well-known dancing characters to such a big wall. ...

I just stumbled upon new artworks by Italian street artist Teo Pirisi aka Moneyless from Strasbourg and have to say that I like his experimental street installations. Moneyless creates the next level of what the Spanish La Pluma Eléctri*k street art crew calls Spider Tags: Two and three dimensional abstract installations made of cotton threads combined with geometrically paintings. The results are often impressing, especially when the installations look like wafting through the air… ...

Mode2 is one of the most famous graffiti artists in Europe - his skills in bringing painted characters to live are well-known around the world. This is why I’m always happy to find one or another new mural he created in the last months in Berlin! Tomorrow, we all have the chance to watch him in action… As a part of the Radical Riddims exhibition opening at the Schau Fenster Gallery, a live art performance by Mode2 is planned. He will create a new mural painting! In my eyes this is a must to see for every urban art enthusiast. I will definitely try to catch up with him… ...

I personally met Spanish street artist Rallito X first when I visited Madrid earlier this year. Yesterday I hook up with him again, this time in an abandoned area in the eastern part of Berlin, to explore the rooms of this old sausage factory and to extend my photo-collection of urban artists in action… In the end, Rallito, whose dirty monster paintings are often garnished with comic-like dicks and provoking slogans, found a nice spot on the very top of the building, for what reason I had some special butterflies in my stomach during the whole action. Nevertheless the results are great again: Berlin has a new crazy monster character and my collection has some nice, new photos! ...