Loose
This is the result of endless layering and careless force. Posters are often pasted over one another until someone from the city services comes by and pries them off with a crowbar. I sometimes try to stop the worker. When I see a beautiful composition, I quickly take a photo. After that, the composition is […]
Totem
This is a totem figure—a powerful being carved from wood and revered. Its hands are raised in blessing, yet its gaze is stern. It can change if necessary. The third eye suggests supernatural wisdom, a vision beyond the visible into other worlds. As the ivy grows over the figure, it gives the whole scene the […]
Queer
Berlin has long been a liberal city. Hitler was a horrific interruption in a long era of freedom, though even during that dark time, wild parties were thrown as the Russians closed in. Dancing on the volcano. The Weimar era, in particular, was a pinnacle of freedom and artistic expression, where transsexuality and drag queens […]
Dance!
I had to take this photo—it worked, but also didn’t quite work. I really could have used a small ladder to stand more directly in front of the composition, and there’s a small arch in the top left that I couldn’t quite crop out. The window could have been given a bit more space. A […]
Foxy
She hangs on the outer wall of the RAW-Gelände. A sexy fox—so, Foxy. She’s dancing in the fire against a crumbling backdrop, with the plaster peeling off: dancing on the volcano. All around her, small images have been pasted, the power lines sagging above her, and there’s an intriguing orange light. The RAW-Gelände is deep […]
Sticky network
It’s a door that must lead somewhere, but I don’t know where. Maybe it takes you inside, where it’s damp and cold, or perhaps it’s a cozy coffee bar? In Berlin, you never quite know. The massive collection of stickers plastered on the door is perfect for some deep-dive Google sessions. For example, I googled […]
American gothic
American Gothic is a painting created by American artist Grant Wood in 1930, and here, the two people in black and white with a pitchfork are recreating that painting. However, the man and woman are reversed, and their faces are different. Above, on the left, there’s an image of a woman whose hair transforms into […]
Eat, sleep, rave, repeat
Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat is a song by the band Fatboy Slim, known for their quirky dance music. Raving means partying to house music. On the sticker with the horse, they’ve turned it into “Ride, Eat, Sleep, Repeat.” This could innocently refer to horse riding, but it might also hint at “riding a white horse,” […]
Indian
I found it an intriguing image when I came across it in Ruzafa, one of the trendiest neighborhoods in Valencia. The boy is dressed in a late 19th-century outfit with a large Native American headdress. It evokes the time when Karl May, a German writer who had never been to America, made “cowboys and Indians” […]
Cartoon
What an incredibly clever idea to tear out pages from Donald Duck and paste them up. A cheap way to wallpaper, and you can look at it for a long time. Cartoonish images have been pasted over it by others. In the top left, the white section—I photographed it deliberately. It creates a nice contrast […]