A sculpture by  Mehmet Ali Uysal. It was the Turkish artist's contribution for the Festival of the Five Seasons  in Liege, Belgium. 

Gacked from Pierre Mâché, Blogger at The Imaginary Foundation

My latest obsession: Vibram's FiveFingers

... when you find this upon returning to your breakfast table. 

Authority gone >poof<.

Was you-tubing for La Habanera and came across this Callas Clip from 1962. Well, damn, her voice raises my neck-hair - good singers do that to me (and probably everybody else). But, come on, all voice-induced awe aside, aren't t her facial gymnastics funny as hell?

Got my first real taste for street art in Berlin, more than a decade ago. Had to spend two weeks out in the streets of Berlin researching a book project. I was all alone (insert wide-eyed pout) and some parts of Berlin had a decidedly neglected, sometimes even hostile vibe to them. Walking for miles and miles, checking locations, I stumbled across stencils, walls and art in unsuspected places.  I started to recognize styles or rather handwritings and Berlin's street art became my silent companion in a playful game of hide and seek in a rough cityscape. It never ceased to surprise and amaze. 

Looking for street art, for me,  has become another way of becoming acquainted with an unfamiliar city  - like tracing the markings on the underbelly of an unknown beast. I guess, others enjoy these explorations just as much as I do. That's why, for a while now, I've been wanting to share this blog link about contemporary street art in Germany -   BLOG für zeitgenössische Straßenkunst. Their Facebook page is here.

It's a lively - and totally sanitary - peepshow if you get your kicks out of street art AND don't mind getting them in German streets. For me, another good way to keep tabs has been STROKE.

STROKE  is an Urban Art fair. It usually is divided into two events a year, a Munich show in April and one in Berlin in October. The exhibits are - even if in some cases technique struggles to keep up with the idea of a work - generally funny and interesting, occasionally inspiring and captivating. Performances outdoors have been known to be so absorbing, you keep looking on  and on and on ... in the rain ... with a beer that grows warmer ... and more watery ... till the artists yield to the downpour.  

Below, the 2010 key visual of the STROKE 02 ...   by Sainer.

The original is now the key visual of ... my kitchen. I call it "The magician", my guests call it "creepy".

There's a rough imbalance in Sainer's bodies I like - an obsession with eyes, hands, and faces combined with a loony-cartoony disregard for the rest of anatomy. Bodies reduced to hints of poses, postures, stances, nothing more than is needed to connect the vital stuff ... eyes, ... yeah, not repeating this. Sainer has pics of a number of walls, illustrations, and canvas works up. Such as this one ...

Go check' em out. I, for my part, like the illustration Alice, and methinks one of his Untitled walls (hands/red thread) would make a great companion piece for the canvas work called Ariadne. Except the only ones who could position them in a ... companionable way would be people living in the building facing the Untitled wall. So ... scratch that. 

Sainer is represented by INTOXICATED DEMONS.
They represent a group of artists and organize art events. They are also the driving force behind the STROKE urban art fairs in Munich and Berlin, where they have their branch offices. Clever bridge - Berlin is a gritty city with hungry and driven minds that produce fresh art, Munich is a fat bored lady with a big purse who buys art just to get her hands on some fresh flesh that makes her forget she's way past picking.

Sepe is another one of their artists.

Sample works of other artists represented ...

This is by Daria Kudla, photography credited to Luis Wenceslao Marina Navarro via Facebook
(seen at STROKE.03 at the INTOXICATED DEMONS stall).

 Picture of INTOXICATED DEMONS Allstar wall in Szczecin, Poland called Jazz in the free-time
(To be found among the Wall Photos of  STROKE - Urban Art Fair on Facebook)  

The second edition of the Munich Contempo – International Contemporary Art Fair from 20. to 23. October, 2011 coincides with the first three days of the 56. Art Fair Munich that runs till 30. October. This year, Contempo is into horizon tweaking by cooperating with Marco Schwalbe of   INTOXICATED DEMONS. You could also squint and see, they're trying to infuse their thinnish gallery breed blood by jumping the lively street runts. Any way you look at it, be my guest, I'm looking forward ... to the show.