Category: Antifa

ctrl + alt + T

Firefox came out recently with a handy free add-on called ImTranslator that allows one to select text from any digital source, hit ctrl + alt + T, and receive an immediate translation.  Easy to install and easy to use.  If you like it, you can make an online donation to help cover costs, I assume. Here is an example from antifastreetart’s About page: Nachdem dies mit dem deutschen Faschismus vernichtet wurde, entstand im konservativ geprägten Nachkriegsdeutschland mit dem Beginn der 68er Bewegung ein neuer Anlauf, die Menschen vor allem durch politische Plakatkunst zu erreichen. Unter dem Motto „Kreativität gegen Kapitalismus!“…

Sticker exhibition – subjects and topics

It’s too hot today to go back to Cambridge to collect stickers.  (Boo hoo….) I am, however, organizing what I have from my last two trips to Berlin, and here below are the subjects and topics I’ve come up with so far to write about as text panels for the upcoming street and sticker art exhibition.  Some subjects are quite broad, while others are specific to socio/political issues during the last 5-6 years, and still others reference German history dating back to the 1940s.  So many subjects overlap that it’s difficult to sort them out sticker by sticker.  (I can…

“a healthy opposition to ideologies” (I miss my Dad today)

A link from Infoshop leads to a Web site called Little Black Cart, which is a combination blog and shopping cart for books, mags, ‘zines, etc.  Reading topics include: anarchism, communism, culture, green anarchy, situationist, insurrection, anarchy, autonomism, and surrealism.  Here is what they write about Situationists. The Situationists (or Sits) were artists from various countries who formed a group in the 1950s called The Situationist Internationale. They critiqued modern society in its various economic, social, and political aspects. They wanted to bring Marxism up to date, to construct a theory of what was going on in society that was…

Patterns

Having recently watched the 2008 film The Baader-Meinhof Complex, I may be starting to get a better understanding of the historical context and meaning of antifa stickers that I’ve found in Berlin during the last five years.  There is so much I don’t know (so much!) that I wouldn’t dream of trying to write anything in depth about it now.  Christopher Hitchens reviews the film here in his August 17, 2009 article in Vanity Fair (Stickerkitty’s birthday #51). I’ve also been reading Hans Fallada’s Every Man Dies Alone, which tells the true story of a couple who distributed postcards advocating…

Kittens

By (another) coincidence, I came across Kittens, an English-speaking journal produced within a network called Junge Linke gegen Kapital und National (which translates to “Young Left against Principle and Nation”). Looks like more summer reading for Stickerkitty…. Here is a Junge Linke sticker I found in Berlin in 2003-04.  I’ll dig around for others more recent.

Summer solstice

I’ve been trying to figure out what the hell I am doing (at least with my sticker project).  Since 2004, I’ve been to Berlin six times and made dozens of trips to NYC, plus individual trips to San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Munich, and Madrid (mostly work-related except for NYC).  Students, alumni, and friends have picked up stickers in Amsterdam, Rome, and several cities in eastern Europe.  A couple of thousand stickers by now.  A growing database.  An exhibition in 2006.  A blog with musings and lots of links.  Two conference papers.  A few sticker contacts.  A…

Thor #2

Another Thor Steiner reference to what has been attributed as neo-Nazi politics (see post from 11.03.09). I also just came across a post by John Collins on The Weave entitled Fascists-For Real, in which he discusses contemporary fascist politics in Spain during his year-long sabbatical.  I wonder if he’s come across anti-fascist street art to the extent I have in Berlin.  John’s analysis on various topics is always spot on.

November 11+16, 2009

The dominoes fell, and so did I.  A rainy night, hundreds of people, and umbrellas everywhere made it difficult to see the ground, and I slipped off a curb.  I now have a Botero foot and knees–puffy!  It was okay.  The crowd was chaotic. Berlin was absolutely fantastic.  I met up with Ollie at the Hatch Kingdom and hope very much that I can show my sticker exhibition there next spring.  It will need to be updated since the exhibition originally showed at SLU in 2006.  It was also really nice to hang out with SLU alum, Spencer Homick.  I…

November 9, 2009

The street art scene in Berlin has been superbe this week.  I’ve collected at least 250 stickers, even re-visiting a few streets to find new stickers after a day or two.  There will be much research to do when I get back home.  Neal at the Hotel Greifswald helped yesterday to provide historical and cultural context to some of the political stickers. This place in Kreuzberg had a bunch of original antifa stickers:

Berlin Day One

Keeping track of where I was, is, and will be.  Yesterday I walked a loop from Greifswalder, right onto Danzinger, right onto Landsberger Allee, which turned into Platz de Vereinten Nationen, whch turned into Mollstrasse, which turned into Greifswalder again.  Lots of political stickers, mostly for antifa demonstrations, one for Warmlaufen fuer den Widerstand – Atomkraft Kaltstellen!  One for a demonstration on November 12 in Berlin that says “Freiheit statt Angst, stoppt den uberwachungswahn,” which translates into “Freedom not Fear, Stop the Surveillance.” I found one sticker referring to a controversy regarding Thor Steiner clothing that you can read about…