Author: eko

Christian Hundertmark aka C100 author of The Art of Rebellion books shared a few words with us 13 years after the 1st AOR book.

– When you wrote the 1st Art Of Rebellion in 2004, the goal was to
present that new post-hip-hop-graffiti scene also known as street-art.
What is “Art of Rebellion 4” about ?
In general it’s the same topic as the previous ones: introducing street art / graffiti to a wider audience. But this time with a new approach: Instead of just documenting / introducing the most interesting new works I asked each artist to select his most favorite work and write a short text why they had chosen the particular piece. This led to really interesting results which gives the reader a new insight on each artists work concept.

– According to you what are the biggest changes the urban-art scene have experienced last decade ?
In my personal humble opinion I’d say that street art made a very
successful step in terms of attracting recognition from people outside
the scene which had both positive and negative aspects. I mean nowadays everyone knows what street art is…! One one hand that’s a great development as many artists got the chance to step into the contemporary art world, doing big art shows in galleries and can make a good living out of it etc., which I think is nice as it proofs that this young art form got the respect it definitely deserved. On the other hand it got a bit predictable, some artists works got very hyped even though their work weren’t very inventive and more or less unambitious.The use of stereotypes seemed like there was a ultimate street art cook recipe: Some drips here, some sampling of pop art there, some punk attitude and there you have the street artist the audience expect to be the next Banksy…. which I think is a bit lame.Still in general I think the quality of the works made a huge step!

– When I compare the photos of the 1st AOR and the new one, what I notice is that nowadays many artworks are huge and legal. Nowadays the
urban-scene seems to be run mainly by professionals. Is the title “Art
of Rebellion” still accurate ? And has the street-art scene been really rebellious one day ?
Yes, this is a justified question and I think if it wasn’t a series considering another title would make sense :) but if you start form the basis each artist featured has street credibility and authenticity. Most of them still work in the streets illegally which could be contemplated as a rebellious act in a way, too. Still, I’m aware that „real" rebellion is connected to much more radical acting but I think the title is a great wordplay which makes totally sense in this context of art. Also I’d like to add that by asking the artists for their most favorite artwork they ever did anything would have been possible. And this is what happened in the end. This book is more like an opener for the viewer to get into the whole work portfolio of each featured artist. I.e. Honets feature (both photo & text), which is one of my favorites, it’s essential that you know both what his current works AND his background from day one. I’m really happy that this concept worked out so good.

– In the book we can see people work that were in the previous books, but also new artists. Can you tell us a few names of people you discovered recently and enjoy the work ? (they don’t need to be in AOR4)
I discovered the work of Hayden Kays, Hot Tea, Maser and Mobstr during the process. Even though others maybe knew their works before I got into their art more or less by chance and I’m really happy to have them in the book!

– Like many of us I like good punchlines and slogans written on walls or on stickers. Under your C100 alias, you did excellent “Cash rules ruins everything around me” posters. That was an instant-classic to me. But I
discovered in AOR4 that crazy story about the Wu-tang trying to sell
copies of your work claiming it was an original work from Banksy. Could you sum-up this unbelievable story ?
Haha, yes to say it in one sentence: Wutang tried to fool the internet by telling that „The Cash ruins everything around me“ poster was done by Banksy and selling it as a limited screen print for 100$ as a Wutang/Banksy collab – and I found out about it! As
everyone knows, if you have Banksy involved the attention and value of a print will rise exorbitantly and very fast hence it’s much easier to sell…. The problem was that someone send me the link to that post on the Wu Disciples Blog and I found out about this hoax. In the very beginning the screenprint also had a Banksy Logo on it! Unfortunately I didn’t make a screenshot of this. After a few emails back and forth with Wu Disciples manager we agreed to make a screenprints with the original artist (me) and donate the earned money to “Doctors without Borders” but even though I organised everything at one point I didn’t got any more replies and it came to nothing. Luckily the internet doesn’t forget, so did I :) and when working on the book I found almost all links that proof the truth of this unbelievable story.

– Do you expect to do an “Art of Rebellion 5” one day ?
I think it’s the same answer like for the last 4 books: Maybe, …we’ll see what happens. But I can imagine that this can happen, for now I’m happy with the latest result :)
Thanks for the interview!

The Art of Rebellion #4
216 pages – English- ISBN: 978-3-939566-49-6
About 35€ – Available at Stylefile