Modart » Heliumcowboy

The Coming Out of Alex Diamond

Maxi — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 16:18:35 +0000

When the fictional personae of Alex Diamond first appeared on the art scene back in 2004, it was part of a performance piece: A detail of a conceptual exhibition Joerg Heikhaus, artist and owner of heliumcowboy art space, was showing at his gallery in Hamburg. Little did he know that he could create such a hype around an anonymous artist.

“I came up with the character of Alex Diamond, when I was creating the work for the show in 2004. It was different compared to most of the stuff I had done as an artist before, so I felt I needed to introduce a fictional character. Someone, who would become a part of the story I‘ve been telling in my work. I understood that it was the story of someone else, so I came up with the Name: Alex Diamond.

“At the opening, I was dressed as some kind of pimp. A person that may be the artist behind these works and at first I played the role of Alex Diamond myself. It was pretty obvious for everyone there to see who was behind it all, and at this point I didn’t have the intention to keep it a secret.

“But the name stuck. Alex Diamond. And after that it became a project.

“After several exhibitions, when I started taking the project abroad, Alex Diamond and me started to separate. I wasn’t dressing up anymore when presenting the work and Diamond became a true fictional character: Genderless and faceless.”

Read the full article on NoNewEnemies.

Diamond Waves

Maxi — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 09:00:17 +0000

Last week HeliumCowboy in Hamburg released the first woodblock print by the mysterious Alex Diamond and his Alex Diamond Mining Company. Hand-rubbed and printed in a very old-fashioned technique, the prints refer to the traditions of Japanese wood prints, the works of the Paris artists of the early 1900″s that were strongly slots influenced by this Japanese movement and more “recent” German print masters such as Horst Janssen and combine this with the contemporary art of today (and maybe even the influences from the street/urban art movement therein).

The print has been released in a very small edition (12) and is the first in a series that will be published over the course of the THE ALEX DIAMOND COMPANY/Into The Night-project. Due to the very manual, hands-on technique each print is unique.

the alex diamond mining company | woodblock printing from alex diamond on Vimeo.

Diamond in the Night

Maxi — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 09:00:07 +0000

I remember a couple of years ago a mysterious Alex Diamond seemed to pop up out of nowhere and made himself a well respected name in what seemed record time. It might be his sheer talent to mix media and reinvent his fictive personae time and time again. It might also be his grand talent to market his appealing art…I think it is a lot of both.

Not too long ago Diamond set up The Alex Diamond Mining Company“ (ADMC) and developed it into the backbone behind the conceptual art project that Alex Diamond is since its inception in 2004. Recently the ADMC has developed a more ‘factory-oriented’ approach.

The ADMC moved it‘s headquarter and studio to Hamburg. Supported by heliumcowboy in management as well as with studio facilities, the ADMC works independently with other galleries, curators and organizations as well. The first large scale venture by The Alex Diamond Mining Company is Into the Light, an iterating, snowballing exhibition-tour or ‘Road Trip’.

Starting in Nice/Nice exhibition space, Hanover, on January 29 2011, the tour presents a journey into the night, visually based upon the strong contrasts in the wood cuts that were only recently added to the list of styles and techniques applied by Alex Diamond over the years.

On Diamond’s website we can read that “The exhibited artwork shows a strong influence of Japanese wood cuts from the 18th and 19th century, like (Katsushika) Hokusai and (Ando) Hiroshige. Both being big travelers themselves, they wandered across the land many times to learn, experience and later teach. Through their art, they documented Japan, it‘s culture and way of living at a time when their country was pretty much cut off from the rest of the world.

“In the wood cuts (or carvings), Alex Diamond transfers several aspects of the famous popular Japanese art of those times into a modern, urban context: repetition of the same themes and subjects; simplification of perspective, nature and architecture; use of patterns and reduced color schemes – which we find a lot in young contemporary art and very strongly in the urban direction.”

Theoretically, Into The Night explores various aspects of ‘the night’ in the continuously advancing installations on site and the newly created artworks, and while the tour advances, getting ‘deeper into the night’.
Diamond also explores ‘the journey’ in the context of the nomadic lives of urban artists, who are traveling all over the globe in order to tag the world and at the same time develop not only their skills and network, but also their brand.

Aloah. from alex diamond on Vimeo.

“Things to explore. Find out. Experience. The exhibition tour „Into The Night“ is far from being completed before it even begins. It is not cooked up in the studio and then served in the same dish in a different town every time. It is supposed to grow, develop and react while it is going.”

The exhibition will be at the Nice/Nice gallery in Hanover until March 12 and will then travel on.

You can find more pictures of the show on No New Enemies.

Boris Hoppek

Janina Hübner — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 09:00:58 +0000

The variety of Boris Hoppek’s work is unlimited; he draws quickly with a reduced line, using selected colors only, thus creating his own character universe using a very specific, and often drastic visual language. The cuddliness of his bimbo-character, carried to the extreme in his very loveable puppets, stands in huge contrast to his radical themes: violence, sexuality, racism, oppression. Hoppek doesn’t care about political correctness, neither does he intend to provoke; he shows what he sees and what he wants us to see in undisguised, unmasked but very fresh and agile paintings, photos, sculptures and installations. Most of his works seem accessible on first view – but the initial impression is often completely reversed again on the second look. Hoppek, who by principle never explains his works beyond the visible, challenges the individual interpretation or analysis by the observer.
Being an acclaimed name in the Graffiti-world since the late eighties, he has taken his street approach in his very unique, professional, calm and unagitated way onto an astonishingly high level to bring it into galleries and our homes. He has successfully exhibited in galleries, museum shows and on festivals worldwide over the past years.
Boris Hoppek is an outstanding talent within the contemporary art scene. Since 2004, the heliumcowboy artspace has exhibited his works in four solo shows and on diverse art fairs. In Basel and Miami 2007, Hoppek set up huge interactive cardboard installations at SCOPE, and today he is one of the most prominent European artists coming from a background in Street Art/Graffiti. Boris Hoppek is one of the few trailblazers of this art scene who successfully managed to develop his own creative path away from purely expressing his thoughts in the streets, and consequently became one of the most sought after voices in a new era of today’s art. For SCOPE Basel 2008, Hoppek was invited to convert the water taxis commuting across the Rhine into floating artworks, bringing his narrative potential away from the constrictions of a traditional booth scenario onto the water. In 2009 he participatet at VOLTA Basel showing one of his well known punch bag installations.