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Zugeklebt und Angeschmiert (pasted and bedaubed)

It was April when a group of tourists, presumably from

West Germany, walked down the Äußere Neustadt in

Dresden. Shortly after they had reached the area of the

“Scheune” our paths crossed accidentally. They were talking

about culture and stock-market prices but also how beauti-

ful everything around here is. When I almost passed the

group, I picked up the conversation of one couple. An elder-

ly lady with a hat indicated to her husband “Look Herbert,

everything is pasted and bedaubed.” What a felicitous

wording of the lady with the hat. And, how right she was.

This magazine shall record the new development in the street art and

graffiti scene. The focus of the magazine mainly lays upon pure local

docu mentation, whereas other cities are also included every time. So

Zugeklebt und Angeschmiert is not to be regarded as another issue of

the former CROMATICS magazine, but will pursue its own concept

regarding content and will mainly be different in graphics.

We hope you enjoy the first issue entitled

“NYCD – New York CityDresden”.

D R E S D E N

Street art in DresdenFor about four years an increasing amount of posters, stickers, and other artistic output has begun to appear in the public area around Dresden. The media has entitled this phenomenon as street art. At least this sounds promising. But where are the roots of this street art – especially here in Dresden?

The roots of illegal art in public areas go back to

the time before the reunification.

Inspired by Beatstreet some teenagers went

off to embellish their miserable environment.

Armed with paint brushes, a few works of art

emerged soon. It was almost impossible to find

spray paint, so they even attempted to build

their own cans – SIMO left a tag with a home-

made can close to the petrol station at Lenné

square. Soon the MfS (ministry for safety of the

state) saw a red light in the mess of letters and

figured out quite quickly who the initiators of

these paintings were – most of the time via

grassers, who hoped for some benefits from

the system. So the first wave of illegal painting

following the American role model was stopped.

During the time of the revolution painting of

public walls appeared once again. New writings

occurred alongside political text graffiti.

It became easier to obtain spray paint and soon

a small writing-scene developed. This scene also

became the main origin of the non-writing

street painters from Dresden, but this took a

while. Some random pochoirs (stencil spray

paint) appeared predominantly in the Äußere

Neustadt. The group nurr could be called the

first crew in Dresden in terms of street art. On

the streets they were just a small phenomenon

though, Alekos Hofstätter painted some charac-

ters in the style of Naegli and separate stencils

emerged. “Jetzt is NURR” is a piece from that

time. Around the year 2000, a second street art

group called olé appeared.

Olé was made up of two activists. Their main

repertoire was stencils and comic like drawings,

which strongly commemorated Jim Avignons

paintings. To this very day you still find the

socket gecko or the flashing lights cow next to

the drawings in the Neustadt of Dresden.

At the same time, shlomo engaged himself

preferably with another medium. Coming

from train writing he developed different in-

terventions on trains of the public transport.

Whether train stickers or abstruse mathe-

matical formulas, shlomo developed train

paintings in an untypical writing form, inde-

pendent from the scene in Dresden. Painting

images appeared very strange to many of the

writers. So many of his legal pieces were

quickly destroyed and he got a reputation of

an art weirdo. Alongside classical techniques

like stencil graffiti or freehand painting, shlomo

used polystyrene, sticky tape, stickers, and

quite frequently a paint roller. To this very day

you’ll find stencil graffiti not only around the

railway station Dresden Mitte but also in the

yards and back yards in and around Dresden. In

2003 the world wide street art hype has finally

reached Dresden.

The Neustadt was pasted by a few wheat paste

artists within a single year. This district, which

was also the most spray painted, offered the

best conditions for the wheat paste artists. The

audience is mostly young and cosmopolitan, the

walls are either tagged or neglected altogether.

Furthermore the Neustadt still offered a few

fallow houses around 2003.

So the young scene could run riot a lot and met

a lot of response – both positive and negative.

Many writers felt ignored because from time to

time posters covered their tags. So it happened

that graffiti artist pulled down the posters or

crossed them out. But the positive feedback was

so strong that the scene did not get intimida-

ted. Press articles were published, exhibitions

were organized and after approximately one

year the first peak seemed obtained. The group

exhibition FarbTonTage combined different

street painters from Dresden, such as mars,

redink, glad, moe, furz, bbsteph, the foo crew

limit itself, but the idea must last as the initial

point of art work. So: Dear street artists, no

matter if the building is new or old, public space

must become more colourful. The pastel shades

lead to depression and a little bright colour

hasn’t killed anyone yet. Don’t let yourselves

be used as advertising mediums. Advertising in

public areas must be fought, otherwise we will

get more ‘Freiberger arenas’. Show respect to

the viewers, they don’t want to see the same

themes all the time – or street art won’t be a

bit better than advertisement.”

So then, use your creative brains!

Rock on: happy, jolly and colorful.

A summary from Jens Besser

www.ak-47.de/urbanscript

and nologo. At that time the sellout had al-

ready started. Street artists worked as graphic

designers or they printed shirts and graphics to

sell them. The shop NOKOPI opened in 2005. It

was supposed to provide a platform for street

artists, help to organize exhibitions, start discus-

sions, and find a way to make a living of it.

It became obvious quite quickly, that NOKOPI

wouldn’t attain these goals.

The owner could earn a living from it but the

everlasting sellout almost eliminated the street

activities. Shirts and sprayed bum bags instead

of street art! So the manager backed out the

shop within two months and handed it over to

the involved, but he took the name NOKOPI

with him. The replacing store street adler didn’t

last very long, either. At the beginning of 2006,

street art had hit rock bottom in Dresden. There

was hardly anything new to be seen on the

streets. People were searching for a new

definition. Urban script set first marks for that –

a résumé had to be found. They came up with

a series of lectures with a supporting program,

exhibitions, video evenings and parties. Dresden

started to talk about street art for the first

time in public.

Both active participants and art historians took

part in the discussion. The result was so over-

whelming that the series continued – until

today. Lectures and city tours are taking place.

Even though the activities on the streets aren’t

that worldshaking, you can say that street art

has reached another level. Nologo says: “When

I work in public areas these days I do it with

more respect and sense. Of course it can still

happen that I cross over a tag but not every

initial should be overestimated. Furthermore,

I prefer an old grey house to a refurbished one,

which doesn’t exclude giving a new building

an additional colour highlight. Many of them

weren’t renovated with ‘lots of love’ but fin-

ished shoo shoo – so a few new tenants can be

ripped off. In my opinion, street art should never

SECRET WARS GERMANY The Big Bang

People besiege the art nouveau villa at the pic-

turesque Barbarossa square in Dresden. Beer

bottles are handed around, followed by black

sketchbooks. People driving past in cars look

fascinated by the scene. The relaxed crowd are

guests at SECRET WARS Germany – The Big

Bang. Eight artists get an opportunity in a crea-

tive competition to design white walls of an

apartment with black markers.

Each of the three competitions takes place in a

different room. With every battle, the walls get

bigger, the time gets longer and half of the

artists drop out. By now the event is in full

swing. The artists Disko Robot, Andy K, Lese-

witz, Mike Okay, Caparso, Rave, Lowskii and Nico

Müller have half an hour to qualify for the next

round. The audience stands densely packed

behind the performers.

Even the windowsills outside hold a view for

visitors to watch the event. At the end of the

first battle the audience votes for Andy K, Mike

Okay, Caparso and Nico Müller. These four are

going to compete in the next room. In the

second match the artists have one hour to run

riot. The audience, as well as a camera team, is

always present.

The judges’ decision for the final is very close. At

the end, Nico Müller and Andy K. are qualified

for the last round. After a short break, the final

begins in the last room. During 90 minutes two

title aspirants give everything on a huge wall to

win the audience over. The time is out, the

audience is in demand once again to elect the

winner of the evening. In another very tight

decision was Nico Müller determined as the win-

ner of SECRET WARS Germany – The Big Bang.

More information about SECRET WARS

Germany can be found here:

www.myspace.com/secretwarsgermany

www.secretwarsgermany.de

N E W Y O R K

Hinweis: „Zugeklebt und Angeschmiert“ dokumentiert Strassenkunst und Graffiti in Dresden, Sachsen, Deutschland, Europa

und der Welt. Es wird weder zu kriminellen Handlungen noch zur Nachahmung aufgerufen! Die Bilddarstellungen dienen lediglich

dem künstlerischen Aspekt. Selbstverfasste Texte stimmen nicht zwingend mit der Meinung der Redaktion überein.

Für unaufgefordert eingesandtes Material wird keine Haftung übernommen.

Bildnachweis: www.anartchy.com, Jens Besser, Andy K, Moe,

Ines Pérez Navarro, www.pixelpopulation.org, Mr. Rik,

Andreas Schanzenbach, Thomas Schanzenbach, www.snagly.de

Ausgabe: 01/08, Zugeklebt und Angeschmiert erscheint vierteljährlich

und kann online über www.cromatics-shop.de bezogen werden.

IMPRESSUM

Herausgeber: CROMATICS, Torgauer Straße 23, 01127 Dresden

Lektorat: www.verynearlyalmost.com

Redaktion: Jens Besser, Bianca Schanzenbach (Übersetzung), Ronny Ullrich (Ltg.)

Konzeption / Gestaltung: Alexander Hilsky, Sophie Sandig

Redaktionsadresse: CROMATICS, Torgauer Straße 23, 01127 Dresden

Telefon: +49 351 316400-80E-Mail: contact@cromatics.de

Zugeklebt & Angeschmiert · Ausgabe 1 · Juni 2008 · Produziert von CROMATICS.