Modart » Fine-Art

Johannes Baptista Ludwig

Janina Hübner — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:25:09 +0000

We met Johannes some time ago with his beautiful, rotten comic zombie-sculptures and were amazed.
He is closely connected to the neonchocolate gallery in Berlin and eager to see things, people or comic-idols from his unique different point of view.

The majority of cartoon idols like mickey mouse, bugs bunny or garfield, have been abused
and exploited by their very own creators due to growing markes and profit gains since we can remember. So ask yourself if the appearance of them is still the right one in anatomic terms
or also the right appearance for a character that has become a product and sold his soul.
Logically, for those idols it is time to decay and Johannes Baptista Ludwig frazzles away the cosy sheepskin to reveal a honest and coherent visitation of those cartoon zombies.

Johannes, who lives and works in Cologne, argues that a mouse lives about two to three years,.. somtimes even longer, the appearance has to change. Mickey mouse, invented by walt as a temporary solution in the year 1928, can`t appear the way it does since 90 years. Also garfield, a bit younger, is not looking so fresh anymore after having british lasagna the last 40 years. So using bones, dental technician odds and ends and other Material has felt as logical to Johannes as the fact that soj sauce brings a wonderful effect of dry, old rancid blood on his boney toons.

Successful exhibitions in the past year and his first apperance with the neon chocolate gallery at last years stroke artfair 2011 in Berlin, he left a promising impression in Berlins urbanart scene. The artist works and lives in Cologne since three years and his creativity reaches a wide range and can`t be reduced down to comic, graffitti or streetart alone. “That wouldn´t cope with my intentions.” Johannes Baptista Ludwig told us.

3 Rooosen

Janina Hübner — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 10:00:37 +0000

…was born on june 11, 1969, in a groenland restaurant in Meldorf. Since 20 years he is living as an exil-dithmarsian in Hamburg.
In the expertise of the rejection of the civilian service the doctor diagnoses:
the self-evaluation regarding an art education is too high.
Drawing-tests won’t meet demands of a drawing-talent.,…he also hasn’t got a view what from colours consist…”
3 R. studied illustration- and kommunicationdesign at the HAW Hamburg
and made a diploma with a Campaign Against Human Being for the Friends Against People with a following Demonstration Against Humans.
3 Rooosen never liked drawing, but became a drawer.
And for never get boring, also this:
Live-drawer, painter, performer, director for arts, art-writer, the only picture-singer in the world, photographer and director with combinations of picture, action, object, installation in public and private spaces since 20 years with the leading theme: humor.

Modart Book #02 – Out now!

Janina Hübner — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 10:00:27 +0000

Modart Book #02 is a showcase of what we love about Street Art: a shared human condition (mousse) and a movement in art that sees art work quickly dismissed as ‘shit’, and almost as quickly digested until it’s perceived as ‘THE shit.’

The first half of the book focuses on what follows Street Art and traces a subversive movement known as Moussism back to Caravaggio.

Artists include:
Zoe Strauss (USA), Jeroen Jongeleen (NL), David Shrigley (UK), Abner Preis (USA), Willehad Eijers (DE), East Eric (FR), Nomad (DE), Mark Jenkins (USA) and Will Barras (UK).

The second half of the book gives some insight into the projects Modart participated in during 2009/10, while talking about various artworks via antidotes about our escapades in Brussels, Berlin, Tirana, Miami and other cities around the world.

Artists include:
Dadara (NL), Logan Hicks (USA), The Math Rat (BZ), Morcky Troubles (IT), Alex Diamond (DE), Admir Jahic / The Invisible Heroes (CH), Faith47 (SA), Swanski (PL), Byram (BE), Boris Hoppek (DE), H. Beagle (USA), ROA (BE), Ripo (USA) and Smash137 (CH).

Heiko Zahlmann

Janina Hübner — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 10:25:17 +0000

Back in the days he sprayed graffiti on dismissive concrete, now his own pieces are made of tonnes of the same material. He has learnt to observe inside the city desert and he has worked fast in urban no-go areas to practice his depictive script. He has also taken obsolete residues of graffiti into the open desert of the Emirates.
Does Heiko Zahlmann celebrate a radical renunciation of everything that once was important to him? Even though he is exhibiting more and more in galleries and museums, will he be able to persist when he stops being a sprayer? No, Heiko Zahlmann does not deny his past. His bordercrossing works, seen either in his street and gallery art or in public spaces would not have been possible without his history as a sprayer. When he douses paint over cubes of concrete, it is obvious that the offhanded moves of the sprayer leads to free, gestural lines on canvas. But what has led him to monochrome, black, grey and white works?

If we look more precisely at his boards, reliefs and steles, we recognize that the structure of the surface is written rather than painted. They are more monuments, which enable the theoretical possibility to let the strange scripts talk; also they allow th

e script as a great cultural innovation to be physical. Heiko Zahlmann himself describes it as Ñgraffiti without graffitiì or simply as Ñgraffiti 3.0ì He examines the progression of his art in the past and the future of his genre. The carvings into black groundings reflect the old traditions of individual Sgraffiti and this technique provides the possibility of co-operating with architects to inscribe his shapes into the cityscape. Graffiti is gaining acceptance after being combated for a long time, however Heiko Zahlmann’s art is causing displeasure especially among the ritualized sprayer community.
But why should someone, who deals with script for 20 years commit his service for example to advertising? The only paradox that he has to tolerate is that youngsters will tag his works in public space in return because the urban textures are continuously rewritten. In his desert action, which had been inspired by the sci-fite classic ÑPlanet of the Apesì Heiko Zahlmann defines the seeming archaeological retrospective as a fundamental leading medium. Maybe the tags will be really hieroglyphics in the distant future, which will be needed to reconstruct our past lifestyle.

Hajo Schiff, Hamburg 2008