featuring yellowdino, wormo, tutu, koma, and darbotz

go grab em fast

after 4 days

4 days after, when I passed by the exact same wall, the wall was still there but the historical graffiti is wiped out clean. I found out later that it was used for a brand’s promotional purpose. Next time you want to bomb a wall, better check the story behind the original wall first. You wouldn’t crush a diamond and coat it with gold; why would you destroy a work of art? Street artist’s artworks are displayed on the streets and for the streets. Respect the art, the culture and the people.

Photos courtesy of Kosmopolite.
Words by NR.

post taken from sub cult

“learn the game before entering the jungle”

Kosmopolite Art, started at Bagnolet in 2002, Kosmopolite is the first international graffiti festival in France and it has grown bigger to other countries. Jakarta is one of kosmopolite connection in Asia. Kosmopolite goals are to introduce graffiti to the general audience and explore the concept of intercultural links.

Kosmopolite Artist Line Up :
FR : Lazoo / Kongo.
HLD : Besok.
IDN : Darbotz / Wormo / Nsane5 / Kims / Tutu / Shake / Netic / Older+ / Koma / Hest1.

The Workshop
Workshop Kosmopolis @D’Gallery Barito No 3,
Start at 1-2 December 2011, kosmopolite association will creating project to show the graffiti culture in interactive way which share their knowledge and technique to showing their love and passion to the next generations.

Graffology @BINUS UNIVERSITY
In modern days graffiti become a culture. The event covers the beginning and history of modern graffiti in variety of their countries around the world.

The Exhibition
Exhibition Kosmopolis @D’gallery Barito No 3,
3 December the Parisian and Indonesian Graffiti artist will set up an exhibition of canvas artwork showing their emotions to the world. Aesthetic and conceptual analogies develop by artists with various backgrounds.

Kosmo Jamming @Kemang Futsal
Each Graffiti artist performs and expresses their visions in to the walls on their graffiti, it is not only about street-art it can be interested more like contemporary art which esthetic and good value on it.

Timetable

Day 1 (1-12-2011) : Workshop Kosmopolis for Beginers
Location: D’gallery Jalan Barito I no 3, Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta
Participants: 20 – 40 people
Speakers: 3 artist – Lazoo, Nsane5, Tutu
Duration: 5 hours
Start: 4.00 pm – 9.00 pm
Content:
• artist talk : 4 artist presentation
• live demo

Day 2 (2-12-2011): Workshop Kosmopolis for Advanced
Location: D’gallery Jalan Barito I no 3, Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta
Participants: 20 – 40 people
Speakers: 4 artist – Besok, Kongo, Darbotz, Kims
Duration: 5 hours
Start: 4.00 pm – 9.00 pm
Content:
• artist talk : 4 artist presentation
• live demo

Day3 (3-12-2011): Exposition Paris-jakarta
Location: D’gallery Jalan Barito I no 3, Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta
Artists: Lazoo, Kongo, Besok, Darbotz, Kims, Nsane5, Tutu, Wormo
Duration: 8 days
Opening Start: 7.00 pm – 10.00 pm
Open for public

Day 4 (4-12-2011): Mural production Kosmo Jamming
Location: Kemang Futsal jalan kemang utara, jakarta
Artists: 3 International & 9 Local
Duration: 9hours
Start: 9.00 am – 6.00 pm
Open for public

Day 5 (6-12-2011): Graffology
Location: Bina Nusantara Jl. Kebon Jeruk Raya No. 27 Kebon Jeruk Jakarta Barat
Participants: 40 – 70 people
Artists: Lazoo, Kongo, Besok, Koma
Duration: 6 hours
Start: 12.00 pm – 6.00 pm
Content: Workshop & Demo (live painting)

Day6 (7-12-2011): Kosmopolite Recap.
Location: Goods Dept. Plaza Indonesia
Start: 6 – 11pm
Artists: International & Local
Content: Event documentary, workshop & mural results, closing party
Duration: 7days
Open for public

THE SPACE THAT ART CREATES:
The Evolution of Darbotz’s Storytelling

Mitha Budhyarto

Darbotz’s solo exhibition, The Boy Who Became a Monster, Vivi Yip Art Room, Jakarta, 4 December 2011 – 4 January 2012

What difference does it make, where a work of art is located? This question becomes important when the work of a street artist is exhibited in an art gallery. On a global level, for over four decades we have witnessed the birth of a new kind of art that are now colonizing cities worldwide. Beyond the hype attached to it, the steady progression of street art indicates its powerful role in testifying to a culture that defies mainstream understanding of what art is supposed to be. Street art is subversive – this is why it is a bold critique of the art world, as well as of the world of everyday urban life.

As a general rule, street artists feed off the creative buzz of cities. But each city is unique, and one would find it hard to compare Jakarta with any other cities in the world. When he started out, Darbotz literally used Jakarta as his canvas – its rundown, jam-packed, dilapidated streets and building walls, alleyways and bridges. In the Indonesian street art scene, Darbotz is hardly a new name, and his relentless, consistent attitude to work has earned him the respect of his peers. Working in Jakarta, and driven by the struggle that characterizes its everyday living conditions, Darbotz’s graffiti becomes his personal testament to the city.

In the spaces of Jakarta, Darbotz works provide a way for us to reconnect with our everyday spaces by bursting open their dull banality with his trademark monochromatic imageries. When we are stuck in traffic, for instance, the momentary pleasure of looking at Darbotz’s images – heads with oversized, sharp teeth, octopuses with tentacles that spread out the length of flyovers – revitalize our experience of the city. When his works are taken out of the context of the urban
surrounding to the gallery, the gallery does more than legitimize the status of his art – the status of Darbotz works have already been secured by the streets of Jakarta.
Rather than legitimizing Darbotz works, this exhibition provides an insight into how these artworks create a space different to that which he produces in the streets of Jakarta. In the flyovers and alleyways, his works create a space in which we escape – however temporarily – the dreariness and alienation of urban living. On canvases hung in the gallery, these works create a space for Darbotz’s storytelling, for the production of a narrative that is not possible in Jakarta’s streets. As the artist says, “What I have with gallery works that I didn’t with graffiti is more time for exploration – of ideas, of materials, of execution. This is one of the biggest difference for me”. More time to explore, more time for Darbotz to tell his story. These new works clearly display how Darbotz have taken full advantage of the luxury of having more and thus more opportunity to explore. Here, we can see how the artist has progressed beyond previous tried-and-tested techniques. Instead, we see the emergence of new characters and the introduction of a new colour scheme, in order to create a bold visual narrative that remains unmistakably his.

In Monster Inside of Us #1 and #2, for instance, Darbotz tells us the story of freakish creatures that exist within us. The figurative renditions of a human face show an artist exploring new visual directions without necessarily erasing the old path that led him there. In terms of form, the way the human face is depicted is new for Darbotz, but the characteristic image of the squid (Monster Inside Us # 2) remains apparent. With these paintings, Darbotz is claiming that it is Jakarta that turned him into a ‘monster’, though this is neither good nor bad, as the resin sculpture The Rest depicts. Rather than signifying repulsion to the city that makes him, this work conveys a critical acceptance of the conditions – no matter how rotten and corrupt they may be – that make Jakarta what it is. Conditions whose effect mercilessly twists and frays our nerves, as the entangled spirals of Body Mind Trick #2 – monochromatic save for the unexpected pink undulating curves – shows.
Darbotz’s works do more than simply portray negative sentiments attached to the ugly degradation of cities. For cities are potent concoctions of paradoxes, and this is an element that makes them enticing. Pollluted #1, #2 and #3 – as well as being interesting works in this collection for the vaporous cloud of smog executed in purple and pink acrylic – convey this clearly: the contaminated environment that surrounds us in the city are strangely the very thing that binds us to it. Cities are also alluring for the paradoxical co-existence between the old and the new. Looking at the Mess and Shadow speak of the layer upon layer of histories that mark our everyday spaces, where the most current is often built upon what was already there before it. Darbotz shows us that to create is not necessarily to create from a blank slate, but from pre-existing things and ideas. This is a discovery that the artist made through graffiti, which he is now translating into artworks made specifically for the gallery.

From the street to the gallery: are we simply echoing issues that others have questioned before? In the relatively recent development of street art, this has no doubt become a classic story to tell: the struggle an artist faces in translating truths found in the public space of the street to the private space of the gallery, and how they mold those experiences into new gallery-specific works. But, as is often the case, it is not the story as such but how that story is told, which leaves an impression on the audience and stirs their own imagination. This exhibition brings us Darbotz’s own way of telling the story of cities that ceaselessly inspire him, in their raw and gritty glory.

Jakarta, 12 November 2011.

two days, jakarta,berlin,red wall,2011

bart,older,wormo,sendseva,tutu,darbotz,bond,koma,slazer,yuk

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