Frrresh eighth issue by Frrresh magazine

frrresh visual arts magazine eighth issue

Welcome to yet another fantastic edition of your

favourite online magazine. This month we’ve been busy! along with the eighth issue we were also working on a special surpriseour new website www.frrresh.org, be sure to check it out! in this number you can find some seriously amazing artists. so, don’t linger here anymore - start flippin’ through those pages!

Artists featured in this issue Sergey Kritskiy escif THTF Jan von Holleben Kashink Elena Mir Miso FFwG Patrick Dougherty Júlio Dolbeth

Sergey Kritskiy

hundredsofsparrows.com

escif

It doesn’t matter if escif have blonde or dark hair; If it’s an artist, or a group of artists, or if it’s your mother’s hairdresser. The focus is on the direction to work on the street. We feel that a street intervention have sense not because there’s an artist behind, but because there is a viewer before. Street isn’t an art gallery, nor a museum, nor a gift shop. Fortunately! Art tag is a frontier between a street intervention and the viewer. The market and the politicians monopolise street for its own benefit, against people. We have the oportunity to face this with a different language. We don’t feel on art just to promote ourself. We feel on art to propose a different use of public space.

The meaning behind a street piece is the meaning that the viewer build around it. The artist’s explanation doesn´t matter at all. A big dick in a bridge in front of the KGB building is a big dick in a bridge in front of the KGB building. If the authors had explained that the real meaning of this piece was just the spring arrival, it doesn’t matter. For people who faced this piece it will continue being a big dick in front of the KGB building. Bravo! We don’t want to promote any manifest, nor to convince nobody about our feelings. These are just words, full of contradictions. And words, mostly, are blown with the wind. So, let’s try with images! Start again...

streetagainst.com

flickr.com/escif

These two young street artists (collage and graffiti) met in 2008 behind school desks and started drawing together. After a few four-hand drawings and paintings, they decided to form THTF in November 2009. That was the beginning of illustration works in large black & white formats meant to be sticked up in the streets in France and abroad. Big smileys and curious characters eager to discover and interact with the world in which theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re introduced, geometric shapes, surreal elements and the most entwined works began populating street walls which became their playground. These collages allowed THTF to be noticed by the public and to access places of contemporary art where they presented more accomplished works such as colorful paintings and sculptures (wood and paper solids). thtfcollective@gmail.com http://www.thtfcollective.com/

Jan von

Holleben

Born in 1977 in Cologne and brought up in the southern German countryside, Jan von Holleben lived most of his youth in an alternative commune and identifies a strong connection between the development of his photographic work and the influence of his parents, a cinematographer and child therapist. At the age of 13, he followed his father’s photographic career by picking up a camera and experimenting with all sorts of„magical tricks“, developing his photographic imagination and skills with friends and family and later honing his technique in commercial settings. After pursuing studies in teaching children with disabilities at the Pädagogische Hochschule in Freiburg, he moved to London, earned a degree in the Theory and History of Photography at Surrey Institute of Art and Design, and became submerged within the London photographic scene, where he worked as picture editor, art director and photographic director. He quickly set up two photographic collectives, Young Photographers United and photodebut, followed more recently by the Photographer’s Office. His body of photographic work focusing on the ‘homo ludens’– the man who learns through play, is itself built from a playful integration of pedagogical theory with his own personal experiences of play and memories of childhood. Jan von Holleben’s work has been exhibited internationally and published widely throughout the world. His favourite collaborators are: his friends and any pirates, fairies, dragons, monsters and punks that are about. Also the sun behind some tiny clouds, Zeit Magazin, Neon Magazine Dazed&Confused, Geo and Steidl Publishers. Otherwise he greatly fancies loads of cups of green tea, Bircher Müsli, colourful socks & sneakers, his bike and walking in the mountains, Yo yo yo!

HOMO LUDENS 5000 How to disappear and other existential tricks I once ruled the worlds. Not just one, but many. I ruled them with mirrors and lenses. I ruled them with light and shadow and time. Sometimes I ruled with a trick of the eye. Through my camera, an entire cosmos took shape, and each world within it seemed to operate by a certain unfamiliar logic, like a sort of magical clockwork. Today I am a photographer and I am still playing my games with anything that comes my way. Games are my routine. For the last few years I have not only been playing for myself or with my friends anymore, but also for people from all over the world. They want me to play for them. Usually I don’ t know these people at all; however they seem to be very happy with my results. I have learned that playing is an essential way of seeing things differently, seeing things better, and making great friends! Hermann Hesse writes in his Steppenwolf, “ let’ s play with each other and then we’ ll learn from one another!” In essence, that’ s what I do. I conceptualize the rules for any given challenge that I want to play at any given time and when needed the most. The best time for my creativity is the morning though, when I am still in bed and half asleep! That’ s when the best games surface. And after a good cup of herbal tea and a bowl of a Swiss style müsli with fresh fruit, I am ready for what may come and what there is to be done.The homo ludens is the playing man. Besides the homo faber, the homo socialis, the homo politicus and many other species of human beings, the homo ludens defines a strong and advanced personal and social developing through techniques of play. Johan Huizinga suggests in his 1938...

...writing of “The homo ludens” that play is primary to and a necessary (though not sufficient) condition of the generation of culture. He continues that, ‘ Play is older than culture, for culture, however inadequately defined, always presupposes human society, and animals have not waited for man to tteach them their playing’ . He describes ‘ play’ as following: 1. Play is free, is in fact freedom 2. Play is not “ ordinary” or “ real” life 3. Play is distinct from “ ordinary” life both as to locality and duration. 4. Play creates order, is order. Play demands order absolute and supreme 5. Play is connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained from it. The culture of developed nations has never advanced so rapidly as over the past 100 years. Never before did technology, politics, social systems and economics advance and influence our personal lives to the extent that it does as I am writing this. Our western civilization accelerated again since the 1980s and keeps on speeding like hundreds of rockets that occasionally explode like mad fireworks! I am truly a child of this hurried and magical time for which I take responsibility. Now the games change by the season, and therefore, the rules must constantly change. Communication itself used to be letters and phones and TV when I grew up. People talked to each other in person. Faxmachines were just invented and emails, twitter, facebook and blogs were terms that nobody had ever heard of. The human being of today needs super powers to cope with all those changes and I am on a mission to invent tricks and skills to help. Those tricks will not only help us humans in ordinary situations, but they will also make the world a better place – and perhaps even...

...eventually save the universe from all evil! For a long time I have been working on finding the secret super technique to become invisible. It is not easy at all, but I am working very hard on it – day and night – and honestly, it’ s looking promising. Playing invisible is just one of the many skills that we need to acquire in order to complete our mission. Gaining superpowers, climbing steep walls, finding alternative energy supplies, painting the cities with color, protecting our fragile minds, shooting nasty dragons and other ghosts, avoiding all gibberish, adjusting to all circumstances and developing magic hyper-machines is just a starting point. My team and I are out to make this all happen. We are equipped with the best and most advanced technology, theories, love, excitement and a bunch of great cameras. We are documenting every single step of our developments and experiments and hope that we will make it through to the end, so everybody can enjoy our outcome when its needed most or even just for inspiration. We already have results for more than four handfuls of crucial issues and will aim to find at least six more hands full of sense! The images enclosed are a highly reduced essence. If you are interested in seeing more, let us know and we’ ll supply! One thing is for sure: We will win! The second thing is: Everything we see belongs to us! And the third thing is: “ What work I have done I have done because it has been play. If it had been work I shouldn’ t have done it” (Mark Twain) © Jan von Holleben

www.janvonh

holleben.com

tangier, morocco

KASHINK “THE JOHNS”

I’m a woman, I’m from Paris, and I’ve been spraypainting walls for almost 8 years now, and posting stuff on the streets is a perfect way to do something quickly but with a hand made and unique quality touch. “The Johns” is an ongoing project I’ve been working on for the past 3 years. I started painting those faces with some spare paint I was using for workshops. I immediately thought about adding some words to those faces, as if they were saying something. This gives a context to the image, as if they were part of a story. I like the idea of stimulating people’s imagination so they can come up with their own story, think about what could have happened or could happen in such a situation. Why is this guy here, why is he saying that, who is he talking to? I’ve been travelling to many countries and I always try to adapt and write in the local language so everybody can understand. The Johns are random guys, they could be anyone, it’s up to you to guess what’s going on.

www.flickr.com/kashink/

paris, france

warsaw, poland

athens, greece

irun, spain

montpellier, france

mulhouse, france

paris, france

wiena, austria

Elena Mir

Valencia, 1981 Bachelor of Fine Arts (Valencia-Spain & Winchester-UK) Diploma in Advanced Studies (DEA Visual Arts & Intermedia) Elena Mir is a Spain based paper artist. After completing her studies in Fine Arts she has been working full-time as an illustrator, graphic and multimedia designer. She actually works in her own studio and spends her time doing papercuts, installations, photography, sculpture, graphic and illustration. She also teaches workshops on papercut techniques and illustration. Elena is tiny, she is hardly one meter sixty and is hopelessly curious. During her childhood, she used to write songs and paint under her desk to create worlds hidden by herself. It took her a long time to show her first drawing because every time she felt like being undressed in front of a stranger. She feels happy when she smiles and tireless while she is working. The air she breathes in feeds her by listening music and many nights, when creativity flies ,she hunts ideas into the dark like owls. She loves the smell of wet soil and starry nights with a full moon. Her eyes are the color of honey and eucalyptus, and she has a lot of brown hair sprouting from her small head. Sometimes when she sleeps, she dreams that she is drawing, because she usually dreams the things she does when sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s awakeâ&#x20AC;Ś because she has always thought that by having a pencil in hand and creativity, everything can become possible.

www.elenamir.com

Miso

m-i-s-o.com

Miso (Stanislava Pinchuk) • born 1988, Kharkov, Ukraine, 24 • lives and works in Melbourne & Tokyo The University of Melbourne • Bachelor of Arts • Art History and Philosophy Double Ma jor, 2011

FFwG “This year, the summer in Berlin was pretty amazing : sunny and incredibly hot. I spent most of my time at Tempelhof (my favorite park) reading, drinking Spezi and watching people. That was great.” French “touche-à-tout”, Guillaume Kashima’s bold and colorful universe evolves in different fields such as illustration, graphic design, installation and animation. In our society overdosed by images and information, his work strikes us with its simplicity and coolness.

https://vimeo.com/71985643 http://www.delasoup.com/

Patrick Dougherty American sculptor Patrick Dougherty was born in Oklahoma, but grew up in North Carolina, where he roamed the woods as a child. As an adult, he combined his carpentry skills with his love of nature and began to learn about primitive techniques of building and to experiment with tree saplings as construction material. Beginning about 1980 with small works, fashioned in his backyard, he quickly moved from single pieces on conventional pedestals to monumental site-specific installations that require sticks by the truckload. To date he has built over two hundred forty such massive sculptures all over the world. He likes to say, “Picking up a stick gives me big ideas.”

Monks’ Cradle, 2012. College of St Benedict & St John’s University, Collegeville, MN. Photo: Thomas O’Laughlin

A small chapel across a lake served as the inspiration for this outdoor sculpture constructed with saplings, mostly willow. “The Monks’Cradle” consists of five small chapels built in a cluster, leaning into each other, with a courtyard in the middle. Visitors can walk through the buildings, and find a surprise. “I wanted the work to look alittle off-kilter and didn’t want it to look pristine, because nature is not quite pristine. The elements are somewhat geometric, but at the same time, they appear to be at the whimsy of the wind.”

Monks’ Cradle, 2012. College of St Benedict & St John’s University, Collegeville, MN. Photo: Thomas O’Laughlin

Little Ballroom, 2012. Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia. Photo: Megan Cullen

â&#x20AC;&#x153;This sculpture in downtown Melbourne, Australia was meant to resonate with the Old World look of the train station nearby and to contrast ancient ways of building with contemporary architecture. I hoped to arrest the eye of the passerby, to spark the imaginations of the millions of people who flood into Federation Square for museum going, concerts, and dining, and to evoke a sense of Nature in the midst of city bustle.â&#x20AC;?

Little Ballroom, 2012. Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia. Photo: Megan Cullen

Patrickâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book, Stickwork, is available at bookstores and signed copies can be purchased through his website: www.stickwork.net Here are links to some videos for the works featured in the photos: Little Ballroom: http://goo.gl/9Z14B2

“Bending Sticks: the Sculpture of Patrick Dougherty” is a new documentary film on the film festival circuits now with a DVD to launch soon. Website for information and to see a trailer of the film: bendingsticksthefilm.com Monks’ Cradle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBcCySGbVZc

Júlio Dolbeth

Júlio Dolbeth was born in Angola in 1973, lives and works in Porto, Portugal. Has a degree in Communication Design from the Fine Arts School of Porto and a Master in Multimedia Art. He is currently pursuing a doctorate in Illustration and is a co-founder of “Dama Aflita”, a cultural association and Art Gallery dedicated to illustration and drawing in Porto. Júlio Dolbeth likes to draw random faces; friends faces, some madeup faces, sometimes a lumberjack, sometimes a snow white (lots of times until she comes out perfect), once and a while imagined plants, most of the times a log, sometimes a skull trying to be proportional. Most of the drawings are in his head, many of them in his sketchbook, some of them are hanging on a wall, a few of them are published and some are a collectible in some friend´s warehouse.

juliodolbeth.com dolbeth.tumblr.com facebook.com/julio.dolbeth

Photos and text: courtesy of each author Editors: Rafael Milcic and pekmezmed Contact: mail@frrresh.org