Gareth Dale’s “Popular Protest in East Germany, 1945-1989” (Routledge, 2005) is proving to be an extremely helpful resource as I try to gain a better understanding of political protest in contemporary Germany – protest as represented in the stickers I’ve collected in Berlin and Munich since 2003. In particular, he describes the mass uprising of June 17, 1953, that started in East Berlin and moved rapidly to over 700 cities throughout East Germany. Half a million to a million workers protested; 1,000 workplaces were stopped. Ultimately, by the end of the day (one day!), Soviet tanks, 20,000 Soviet soldiers, and…
By good fortune
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By good fortune or great coincidence, I met someone in the Inuit art world who was actively involved in German street art in the late 1980s and early 1990s – working with others in stencils, stickers, and posters. He contributed to the publication of “hoch die kampf dem: 20 Jahre Plakata autonomer Bewegungen” (“20 years of autonomous movements posters”) and “vorwärts bis zum nieder mit: 30 Jahre Plakate unkontrollierter Bewegungen,” which on Amazon translates awkwardly to “forward to the down with: 30 years of posters of uncontrolled movements.” When I put “with others” above, he told me that individuals rarely…
“WTF. It’s only a sticker.”
My paper proposal, “WTF. It’s only a sticker.” was accepted for a panel at the annual College Art Association conference in 2012. The panel, chaired by artist Wendy DesChene, is called “Disrupt this Session: Rebellion in Art Practices Today.” Here is my proposal below along with my Tedford CAA 2012 Proposal PDF. ______________________________________ Street art stickers, a form of post-graffiti, are now ubiquitous in the urban environment, and sticker culture permeates the Web on listservs, blogs, Flickr, etc. One listserv from PEEL Magazine called SLAPS Stickerhead Forum shows a thread from Tony, who writes, “who the fuck has time to…
New Hatch Kingdom HQ
The Hatch Stickermuseum can now be found in Mitte at Brunnenstrasse 196. On my last day in Berlin, I went over to say g’bye to Oli and Nada. Nice shirt, Oli. 🙂 Two young guys from Israel stopped in just as Hatch was closing, but Oli let them in. “Aren’t we the lucky bastards,” said one. They were part of a crew I can’t name, and they gave some of their artwork to Hatch for Oli to sell. Unfortunately, they asked me to take down their picture for privacy’s sake…. That’s okay, I get it. Here is this one instead.
Berlin bike
Love the pink basket. The guy at the bike shop had a good laugh, as did I. At least it made it easier to spot among all the other bikes in town!
Hmm, nope, sorry, sweetie.
Kitty is pretty darned tired and parched after riding around Berlin on a rented bicycle for the past couple of days. At the end of each day, I say to myself, “This is the last sticker! Keep riding!” And then on my way back to the hotel yesterday, I rode past a sticker that said “Unverschämtheit! Nazizombies auf den Straßen? Tote haben nicht zu laufen.” Screetch! Pull over. My fancy high-end Mac F12 translator (ha, kidding) indicates that it means “Insolence! Nazizombies on the roads? Dead do not have to run.” Hard to pass by that one. This happens all…
6th International Conference on the Arts in Society 2011
I give my paper tomorrow at 3:55 at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, where in the spring of 2003 I sat in the plaza at the entrance of the building and began my sticker journey. I didn’t know then it would become a journey! I only realized it today when I arrived at the conference that I’ve come full circle back to same spot. A similar crystal clear blue sky. So much has happened between then and now.
Look out, little aufklebers
Look out, little aufklebers. Your days are numbered. Stickerkitty is heading to Berlin tomorrow. Best news I had today was that Hatch Kingdom, the world’s only sticker museum, is re-opening in a new HK HQ this Saturday in Mitte. This after being closed since last November. Purrfect timing! The other good news is that today is Pete Seeger’s 92nd birthday. Very nice. I think Pete would like stickers.
A.C.A.B. stickers
A.C.A.B. is an acronym that stands for “all cops are bastards,” a punk phrase that can be heard shouted at public demonstrations and protests throughout Germany and many counties in Europe. The formidable police presence at these events gets little notice in the United States, yet hundreds of videos on YouTube depict violent head-on clashes between armed police and unarmed protesters and passersby. In prisons in the United Kingdom and United States, the letters A.C.A.B. can often be found tattooed on the front of a person’s four fingers in clenched fist. Alternately, in various other contexts, the acronym can mean,…
Surveillance, monitoring, and control stickers in Berlin
In 2006, the European Union adopted “Directive 2006/24/EC,” authorizing member countries the ability to obtain communications data including source, destination, type, date, time, length, device, and location of device. Data could be retained for six months to two years depending on certain variables. The measures were put in place in the name of national and international security and in response to acts of terrorism, including the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, train bombings in Madrid in 2004, and bombings in the public transport system in London in 2005. In Germany, the…