Street art + art fair = an oxymoron

The Stroke 02 urban art fair was disappointing.  Aside from its overly commercial focus, it lacked the vibrancy we’ve seen and experienced on the streets and elsewhere.  Right from the beginning, we all asked, “Why Munich?” and later learned “that’s where the money is.”

The fair itself was situated in a four storey building next to the well groomed Englischer Garten in Munich, which alone seemed an odd and unfortunate decision.  The most interesting project was a live painting by 11 artists from Switzerland.  They had pieced together a large grid of 80 or so 16 x 20 boards, which they painted, re-painted, and painted over in a very dynamic and fluid manner.  The squares could be purchased as individual works of art, again indicative of the focus on sales.  However, the quality of this group’s work was very high, and the artists’ drawings, paintings, and stencils all worked very well together.

Aside from the Hatch Kingdom booth/room, most of the rest of displays were flat and stiff.  Objects on walls.  Way too much airbrush and cliche’d imagery.

I’ll write more later, b/c I need to go meet the students soon.

“The Man stickin’ it Back” as one of this post’s tags refers to The Money Man.