Streetart is everywhere. Unsolicited, it leaves its traces and signs in urban space. It conquers public space with stickers, posters, extensive murals, and stencil graffiti. It’s galleries are the world’s streets. What began as graffiti in the large cities on America’s east coast forty years ago has since experienced a decisive development. Even if the majority of actions continue to be produced anonymously and illegally, it is no longer exclusively a phenomenon associated with youth culture. Many of the protagonists have emancipated themselves from the pictorial language of graffiti writing and experimented with new forms of expression. With their subtle and humorous, occasionally offensive interventions in the urban landscape they attempt to force open familiar visual habits. As a rule, they are not concerned with damaging the urban infrastructure but with participating in a dialogue with the public.

There is a variety of Streetart. Temporary actions, unusual objects and sculptures, lettering, and characters are woven into the visual flow of the city as stumbling blocks. The possibility that many of the passers-by take no notice of these interventions is consciously taken into account. Thus they comprise a subversive counterweight to the constant presence of advertising, whose blinking images and seductive buying options dominate everyday life. It is not only in this respect that Streetart is the expression of a critical examination of the social, cultural, and economic dimensions of the city, which in the age of globalization is rapidly and sustainably changing.

Streetart has recently experienced a downright hype. Numerous galleries and museums around the world have organized exhibitions, and works by the most well-known representatives of the genre have gained premium prices at auctions. What some accuse of being commercialization, the loss of authenticity, and the betrayal of original interests is viewed by many artists as a new chance. By transferring their themes and methods in the protected space of the museum, they develop very new and surprising approaches. But what kind of art is this that leaves its ancestral terrain? Do the works not require the city as a resonating space, as an immediate opponent? And is one of the essential features of Streetart not its impermanence, its spontaneity? The Kunsthalle Barmen will be devoting itself to these questions in a large-scale exhibition.

Participating artists: Ash, Herbert Baglione, Boxi, Brad Downey, Ben Eine, Faith47, Boris Hoppek, Mark Jenkins, JR, Os Gêmeos, Mirko Reisser (DAIM), Swoon, Zezão

Curated by Rik Reinking

This video, the fruit of his loins, pretty much sums up his time in New York thus far. Enjoy!!!

KID ZOOM – This City Will Eat Me Alive from kidzoom on Vimeo.

Lori Zimmer: You are originally from New York, but have been living in Barcelona for the past few years. What drew you to Spain? How is painting on the streets of Barcelona differ from your hometown?


RIPO: A country full of paranoid nosey neighbors with guns under their pillows just doesn’t make me feel very safe or relaxed. People in Spain aren’t perfect either, and there are plenty of cabrones as well, but the quality of life seems to make people happier, and when people are happy they tend to live and let live.


LZ: Much of your work has a very vintage Americana feel- referencing the birth of advertising and the tradition of billboard painting. How do you make this recognized style your own?


RIPO: I’m not only focusing on style but also on what messages or stories I communicate. Sarcasm and humor are a good way of talking about something more serious. And doing something absurd, like painting the word ‘Historic’ on a dilapidated and forgotten building, might say more than trying to do something too serious.


Style wise though I’m at a point now where I’m moving away from just using simple typography, although on a large scale they do work really well. I’ve been combining vintage, and not-so-vintage, lettering with more flowing calligraphy and decorative elements. Also style comes from the different techniques and materials I use. Whether it’s paintbrushes and rollers on long extension poles, combining that with paint-filled fire extinguishers, or straight spraypaint, or brushes and ink and watercolor on paper, or enamel paint on mirrors.


LZ: Do you think it is important for street artists to translate their work and style when showing in a gallery? How does your work differ from the street to the studio?


RIPO: Yeah of course. You can’t take the same exact thing you do outside in the streets, put it indoors, and expect it to have the same impact. Or vice versa. It’s all about knowing your environment and creating something that works with that.


LZ: Tell us about your recent project at the wine cellar in the south of Spain- the photos look incredible.


RIPO: I spent a weekend in a dank, moldy wine cellar in the Priorat (the wine region of Catalunya, Spain) with my friend from Difusor. We hung museum-style ropes across empty spaces, making an exhibition of nothing except the dark moldy walls themselves. The cellar wasn’t in use anymore but the owners wanted to preserve the look of it and show visitors what was there before, making a sort of museum out of the crumbling, moldy, cracked walls and the rusty metal plates covering the holes in the ground. But the long passageway of empty rooms didn’t look like much before so we hung the red ropes in each room and all of a sudden it was an exhibition.


We then took quotes from the locals about the important aspects of the region and what they would want to change about it and wrote them across the walls in chalk. One of our favorite answers was “Res” (nothing), as in they wouldn’t change anything about the area. At the end of the long hallway I painted that word Res, well I painted its shadow actually, to mark the end of the installation and leave the viewers with a word that was powerful but also empty. In a way it’s also exactly what we did: nothing. We put nothing of ourselves into the space but just made what was already there more visible – the wine cellar itself as well as the words and feelings of the people from the region.


LZ: You’ve also created a screen print to benefit Haiti, how did you get involved with that?


RIPO: The day after the earthquake I painted ‘Heart for Haiti’ in an empty lot. It was something I really felt like expressing after hearing the horrible news and thinking back on how much that country has been suffering for years now from a collapsed government, extreme poverty, crime, hurricanes, and now this. After that it just felt natural to do something more with that image. I asked a friend who had a silkscreen studio if he would help me out with producing the prints and he agreed to donate his time, effort, and even his inks. I bought the paper and screens and dealt with all the storing, shipping, selling, and promoting myself. Doctors Without Borders is a great foundation that I really wanted to support with this project. There are still a few prints available and all the profits will still be donated to Doctors Without Borders!


LZ: Aside from painting the streets, what other projects are you involved in?


RIPO: Aside from writing on walls I also write a lot on paper and on the computer. I was an editor at a publishing house for a little while, I’ve written for a few magazines, and have been working as an editor for Modart Magazine for a couple of years now. I’m also writing and helping out with No New Enemies, an artist network started by my good friend Harlan Levey.


LZ: You’ve just closed a solo show in Brussels, do you intend to focus more on studio work for the near future or continue to put emphasis on street work?


RIPO: More of both!


LZ: Top 5 artists of all time……


RIPO: All time is a long time and I really don’t like picking favorites. But just so you don’t accuse me of avoiding the question here’s a whole mess (and it’s a very messy list) of artists that have inspired me or whose work I just enjoy, starting from around when I was seven years old: My brother, Looney Tunes, Jack Kirby, Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Eric Lee, Sam Kieth, Daim, Seen, Ces, Futura, ESPO, Twist, Margaret Kilgallen, Ralph Steadman, R. Crumb, Edward Hopper, Jamie Hewlett, Picasso, Joan Miró, Robert Rauschenberg, Giacometti, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Chuck Close, Faile, Blu, Smash137, Tauba Auerbach, Cai Guo-Qiang, Felice Varini and too many more to list here so I’m just going to stop now.


LZ: If you weren’t making art, you would be….


RIPO: Slowly going insane.


Photos © Jonathan Grassi

Space Invaders looks at artists and their iconic street-based works at the point of their transition from the ephemeral to the collectable and from the street to the gallery. From the initial wave, to the first crews, through Neo-Pop, passing political and commercial counter-attacks and the return to handmade labor intensive modes of art making by artists like Anthony Lister, Ghostpatrol, Miso and Twoone.

Besides the fact that action based art has been continuously analized, categorized, highlighted, blow dried, ritualized and hypnotized for the past years this exhibition gives an interesting insight into the art movement’s development in Australia. Featuring interesting artists, two of which being Ghostpatrol and Miso. Two artists -and furthermore really lovely people- that stood out and fascinated me when I’ve spend a month in Melbourne last year.



Who: NGA HOME / AEON / AZLAN / BYRD / CIVIL / DEVIANT / DLUX! / / DODD James / DOYLE Adrian / GHOSTPATROL / HAHA / HOLLENBACH Misha / JUMBO / KEATING Ash / LISTER / MAKATRON / MARCSTA / MEEK / MEGGS / MINI GRAFF / MISO / MONKEY / NUROK / OKIPA / OPTIC / PHIBS / PRISM / PROOF / PSALM / REKS / RONE / SIBLEY, DAN / SIM Robert / SIXTEN / STARK Al / SYNC / TWOONE / VEXTA / XERO / YOK / ZAP

Where: National Gallery of Australia / Parkes Place / Canberra ACT 2600

When: October 2010 – February 27, 2011