One of the major European newspapers, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, weekly shows an illustration series called tragic strip. It deals with social, political and religious issues. Working on it was previously reserved for foreign illustrators like the Czech-slovakian Heinz Edelmann, famous for the production of the Beatles movie Yellow Submarine, and always lasted for 12 weeks. In 2008 El Bocho was the first German to contribute to tragic strip and work on it over a period of 20 weeks.

All of the illustrations are hand-made through stencils and illustrate the word nein (no).

More images on El Bocho’s blog.

El Bocho’s artwork is part of a memory card game, published by Verlagsgesellschaft from Dresden. It is called Street Art – in Memory of.. ! A few writers and photographers show pieces by street artists and graffiti with an interesting twist: never are the same photos shown, but the artwork before and after the influence of time, weather, other artists and more effects.

This playful examination shows the fugacity of urban art very well. El Bocho, who always expects the environment to work with his pieces, after they are installed into the city landscape, fits very well into the other artists, like Boxi, Bronco, Michael Defeo, El Bocho, Evol, Gould, Kripoe, Kain Logos, Solovei, Swoon & Yps.

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www.timostammberger.com has refreshed today. A few photos have been replaced and some were added. Check out he new series Depart.

‘Photographed during a spontaneous European road trip, a trip into the unknown, in times of leaving a loved one.’

Finally it’s here! We have created El Bocho’s new website. Check www.elbocho.net

Just a quick note: Timo Stammberger took part in an interesting project, organized by mus-mus.org

@600 is a collection of photographs taken on November 4, 2008, precisely at internet time @600 by 100 photographers from around the world.

Participating photographers are Amy Stein, Mark Curran, Roger Ballen, Raimond Wouda, Robert Lyons and others.

Check out his entry and all others at mus-mus.org

Timo Stammberger’s website has been updated today. It shows a new series ‘Urban Artists’ and new tunnel works from Dortmund. Stammberger recently visited the Ruhrarea, Europe’s largest metropolitan area, consisting of cities like Dortmund, Bochum, Essen and others. This accumulation inhabits 5,3 million people and for them the public transport system plays an immense role in daily life. This ever growing system has interweaved itself deep into the cityscape. Yet few have seen it before like Stammberger did on his recent visit to the underground of Dortmund.

Check www.timostammberger.com

Stammberger just returned from Lisbon / Portugal. He didn’t leave without exploring the tunnels of the local metro system.

If you haven´t been there yet, you still have the chance to see Stammberger’s City Stories at the Fotogalerie Friedrichshain. It is really easy to get there, located 2min by foot from the Warschauer Strasse S/U Station.

In the past 20 years of their existence the gallery has showed works by photographers like Paul Caponigro, Robert Capa, Helga Paris, Arno Fischer, Tina Modotti, Eva Siao, Cecil Beaton and others.

The exhibition can be seen until 31th october and features a few other photographers from Berlin. More infos here.

Thanks everybody for coming out to yesterday’s opening. More images at El Bocho’s blog.

Why is it that Berlin is saturated with a style so heterogeneous and more importantly, unlike any other to be found?

Check out the answer by Alexandra Ross (curator/writer) and Timo Stammberger (photographer) in the new issue of Chew Magazine from South Africa. More and larger images at Stammberger’s media section.

There is an interesting upcoming exhibition in Berlin on the 7th october at the Raab Galerie (Berlin).

The London based artist David Hepher started to show his work at galleries more than 45 years ago. It was just a few years later that Charles Saatchi made his first art purchase: A painting by David Hepher. In contrast to that, El Bocho, living and working in Berlin, is relatively new to the commercial art scene. Yet both share a common interest: To portrait their urban living environments in form of large scale canvases and posters.

In their works Hepher and El Bocho reflect what they daily see. In Hepher’s case that are multi-story buildings that look depressing and hopeless. Yet Hepher does not intend to make policital statements. He rather investigates what he considers beautiful and fascinating. Hepher’s work rarely shows the human inhabitants and if it does only in miniature form, like looking through windows or leaving their mark on society with graffiti. El Bocho’s main focus though is on the human. His new series ‘Citizen’, shown for the first time, examines fictive and non-fictive characters and refers like Hepher to an urban context. El Bocho’s characters take notice of the urban space and reflect on it, and the combination with typography makes that visible. The thoughts examine daily issues, from desire to politics but also art itself. ‘Citizen’ can be seen as a lightweight critique that perfectly suits the space it is placed in. The thrilling aspect is that ‘Ciziten’ takes part in the gallery space and also on the streets of Berlin, using the same large scale works . El Bocho’s art space and urban space works are strongly connected. To understand his works it is necessary to see the counterpart. So for this reason there will be a photograph of his street work next to the related framed canvases. For his work in the gallery El Bocho uses acryl on canvas, for that on the street acryl on poster. Hepher also uses paint and photography but in a more direct way. On his canvases he creates composition out of sketches, drawings and photographs. In addition Hepher often uses concrete which is applied on the surface of his work.

The connection between their work despite roughly 40 years of age difference is stunning. Both adapted to new ways of expressing and exploring, including unusual techniques and ignoring social conventions.

The exhibit starts at 19h at Raab Galerie – Fasanenstr. 27 – 10719 Berlin.

Location of Raab Galerie

A short interview with El Bocho, Carsten Huettich and art collector Rik Reinking talking about street art theft and commerce was shown on German TV a few days ago . Even if you don’t speak German, it’s still worth watching, because you get the chance to take a short look at the new large scale posters El Bocho is working on right now.