The Klograffiti Review

Herrentoilette, Buddha Bar, Vesterbrogade 47, København (im Mai 2017)

Kenner deutscher HipHop-Klassiker könnten erwarten, dass auf das kulinarische Angebot der Kopenhagener Buddha Bar dasselbe zutrifft, was Fünf Sterne Deluxe einst über jenes des Nirvanas rappten: “Es gab Buddha-Brote, Buddha-Milch und Buddha-Kuchen.”

Tatsächlich gibt es in der Buddha Bar nicht mal das. Auf der Karte (Moment, Karte? Es gibt keine Karte!) stehen eigentlich nur Schnapps und Bier, letzteres in der Happy Hour immerhin für komode 28 Kronen (etwa 3,80 Euro). Das ist für dänische Verhältnisse so günstig, da bestellt man gerne auch mal zwei. Oder zehn. Immerhin währt die Happy Hour trotz ihres trügerischen Singulars von 12 Uhr mittags bis 21 Uhr abends.

Die Buddha Bar richtet sich also an ergebnisorientierte Trinker ohne allzu hohe Ansprüche. Ein freier Stuhl an der Bar, ein Aschenbecher, was zu trinken und ein Wasserklosett, mehr braucht es nicht, um hier einen von allen übrigen irdischen Gelüsten befreiten Zustand des Zen zu erreichen. Und das mitten im ringsum hipsterisierten Ex-Arbeiterviertel Vesterbro.

Apropos Wasserklosett: Dass auch die Arbeiterbar irgendwann die Abbiegung zur Backpacker-Bar genommen hat, zeigt die englischsprachige Ausschilderung in der Herrentoilette. “Keine Produkte im Klo runterspülen” steht da. Stattdessen: Alles in den Müll eimern, bidde. Dessen Deckel hat die höchste Dichte an Tags im ganzen Badezimmer und ist der ästhetische Höhepunkt des ganzen Raumes.

Somewhere in India, someone's been writing something on some bathroom wall

Bathroom graffiti is a global phenomenon – that is our believe here at the editorial offices of The Klograffiti Review. It was in this spirit that we've featured Klograffiti found in countries such as Estonia, Hungary, the United States and elsewhere.

As you may have noticed, though, this blog has become a little Hamburg-centric in recent months. This has been due to practical restraints. We're based in Hamburg and it's winter time, so we don't travel as much anymore. Also, we receive no public founding and no private endorsements, despite our efforts to preserve an art form that may be of pressing interest in future centuries.

This is where you, dear reader, can help our cause. Have you ever spotted fascinating Klograffiti within your vincinity or elsewhere? Have you had your mobile ready to take a snap? Would you like to share?

Well, great! Please do not hesitate to send an e-mail to The Klograffiti Review. We can be reached at [email protected]*

One of our readers reached out to us, a promising young photographer who's currently travelling across India. She's called T. and she sent us this photo.

Unfortunately, that's about all we know. No location, no explanation, and our tiny European brains make it hard for us to decipher. It does appear to be written in Hindi though. Isn't that just amazing?

Location: A Women's Room (presumably), somewhere in India

Time of Documentation: ca. January 2015

The Walrus Bar: Ficken hilft (as does Kümmelschnaps)

Oh me, oh my, there's a new bar in town! That doesn't happen very often in Hamburg, so it's quite exciting. It's called The Walrus and you'll find it down at Wohlwillstraße.

I'd say it caters to a 30+ crowd of well-heeled, high-heeled and heavily tattooed customers, a makeup of people that's reminiscent of Golem. The place is not too shabby, certainly not too chic, and their drinks are worth a try.

Try "Who's Next", a cocktail consisting of Kümmelschnaps and fresh basil leaves. You may cringe, but I say it's delicious.

Needless to say, the Klograffiti situation is very much so-so, as it usually is in bars that come fresh out of the box. Let's give The Walrus' bathrooms a few more years to age and become more refined, shall we?

In the meantime, I'll have a few more of those Kümmel-basil-blends.

Location: Men's room @ The Walrus, Wohlwillstraße 47, Hamburg

Golden Pudel Club: A Cultural Pillar, decked in Klograffiti

Golden Pudel Club down at the harbour is a massive pillar of both the club culture and the music scene in Hamburg.

Need I say more? I doubt it. Chances are, if you follow this blog, you’ve heard more Golden Pudel lore than can be reproduced here.

However, depending on your gender (and on your affinity for bathroom transgressions), you may not yet have seen the women’s room at Golden PudelClub.

Which would be a shame. So here are some photos from one of Hamburg’sfinest Klograffiti interiors in one of Hamburg’s finest nightlife venues.

Location: Womens’ Room @ Golden Pudel Club, St. Pauli Fischmarkt 27, Hamburg

Familieneck: Gruppenpissen normal

They're refurbishing the bathrooms of Familieneck, our favorite dive bar in Hamburg's Ottensen district (home of the abdominal DJ).

This is sad – think of all the great Klograffiti that's being destroyed! But it's also funny, just look at the handwritten sign the management put up to excuse themselves for ripping out the bowls in the mens' room.

Pointing at the wall-hung multiple-user-urinal it says: "Private business at the girls' place – group pissing as always". Will do, Sirs, will do.

Location: Mens' Room @ Familieneck, Friedensallee 2, Hamburg

Möwe Sturzflug: Crying in the Bathroom

A dark, decaying and moldy bar with torn antique couches, golden chandeliers and no tapesty, Möwe Sturzflug oozes with decadence in the original sense of the word.

Unfortunately, this St. Pauli dive bar tends to be overcrowded with feisty, brawling econ brats and their soon-to-be gallery owning trophy wives. Talk about yuppiefication …

Last night, Möwe Sturzflug almost had us crying in the bathroom, though. It's such a sad space! Not just because of all the dark paint and its caveous structure, but because of the well placed sticker commemorating the recent death of local graffiti legend Oz.

Even the ghost (in red paint) seems to be shedding a tear. So sad!

Location: Unisex bathroom @ Möwe Sturzflug, Clemens-Schultz-Straße 96, Hamburg

Slim Jim's: Flashy Colors, Pizza, Rap

Would you care to meet rap superstars? In that case we suggest you try hanging out at Slim Jim's unisex bathroom for a couple of days.

After all, our favorite pizza joint in all of Hamburg bears multiple signatures of the famed German novelty rapper MC Fitti, the artist behind works such as 30 Grad and Whatsapper.

And if you like Fitti's style, you will certainly enjoy Slim Jim's bathroom. It's all bright lights and flashy colors, no filth, no fury, but fun, fun, fun and delicious pizzas.

Location: Unisex Bathroom @ Slim Jim's, Bei der Schilleroper 1-3, Hamburg

Cock-A-Doodle-Do, Splish, Splash!

Welcome to Berliner Betrüger, a coffee house in Hamburg's Schanzenviertel that is primarily known as overflow chamber for beloved Unter den Linden right across the street.

However, after spending a few idle hours among the Betrügers yesterday afternoon, I must say that this place holds up to being more than just Plan B.

I mean, have you even noticed their water taps? As a pun on the German word Wasserhahn (literally: water rooster) it is rather cheap, but as a bathroom appliance it's so, so neat!

Same goes for their Klograffiti: there's not much of it, but the little that can be found is, well, so, so neat.

It doesn't come as a surprise that this coffee house is owned and operated by the same folks as dive bar Kosmos St. Liederlich, where we discovered great Klograffiti again and again.

Location: Men's Room @ Berliner Betrüger, Juliusstraße 15, Hamburg

The Weirdest Parties Have the Prettiest Klograffiti

Last night, while the death throes of summer were nigh, Hamburg's local underground rag Stadtlichh bid it's farewell to the days when "the livin' is easy" by staging a party that was unparalleled in it's lack of good taste and it's promise (if not practice) of general debauchery.

Let's just say we had one beer to many and shouted along to a much overamplified version of the 1994 hit song Hyper Hyper, while sparkling confetti was raining through the room and a slender lady in a zebra patterned onesie was bouncing around on the dance floor.

"Is everybody on the floor? / We put some energy into this place! / I want to ask you something / Are you ready for the sound of Scooter?"

Sheltered from the objurgatory gaze of civilization by the Kolbenhof compound's walls in western Bahrenfeld, we had a jolly good time. What is more, the Klograffiti was great (see above).

Location: Unisex Bathroom @ Kolbenhof, Friedensallee 128, Hamburg

The Klograffiti Review at FC St. Pauli

Searching for new art and/or vandalism to present in The Klograffiti Review, I usually feel like I'm halfway between a lavatory attendant and Indiana Jones. That is because I sneak through dungeon-like structures that are downstairs and dark and damp. Today was different! I entered the realm of beer and bratwurst that is the stadium of Hamburg's legendary soccer club FC St. Pauli. It was sunny, the air was fresh and all of the day was spent above the ground. 

Of course, beers and bratwursts have to go somewhere eventually, which is why the folks at FCSP placed nifty containes behind the bleachers.

These are places where men conduct their business quick and somewhat publicly, so it does not come as a surprise that many slap a quick sticker onto the wall, but most abstain from tagging or other even more elaborate and time-intensive forms of producing uncommissioned art in the bathroom.

The one exception I found is pictured above. It's a tag by Obelisk, a guy whom I have not heard of before and who is impossible to google. Anyways, Obelisk, I salute you.

Oh, and Forza St. Pauli!

Location: Men’s Container @ Millerntor Stadium, Harald-Stender-Platz 1, Hamburg

What is art?

What is art? That’s a question that is rarely being asked these days. And maybe with good reason. Only thinking those words makes me want to sing out loud: Baby don’t hurt me! Don’t hurt me! No more!

So yeah, it’s a tough question. But it’s still an important question, I think.

In our post-Warhol, post-Koons, post-modern (or maybe post-post-modern) times, there seems to be a general consensus that art is whatever gets sold at art fairs. This does not mean anything goes. It means anything goes as long as rich people like that shit.

I must admit that I do feel a certain nostalgia for times when people like Dwight Macdonald, Clement Greenberg, and Susan Sontag were still around, trying to wrap their minds around questions like: What is high culture? What is low culture? Who is the avant-garde? What is kitsch? How do photography, pornography and camp fit into what we call “art”?

I’m not saying it should be up to the critics to define what art is. But I think we’d be better of if the critics had a say in what gets hyped and what doesn’t, as oppossed to leaving it all to a handful of perversely rich collectors and their hand-picked “curators” (i.e. folks who will write whatever they need to in order to get paid).

Anyways, I felt relieved when I came across a sticker by Defined as Art while scouting for Klograffiti at Walter-Gropius-Bau, Berlin. I have no clue who is behind that project, but I like how they put stickers onto regular stuff, claiming it has been “defined as art”.

It makes you think about the question: What is art? Who gets to define it? Putting such a sticker into a Men’s Room’s stall is Klograffiti with a twist. It’s also a nod towards art history and art criticism.

Location: Men’s Room @ Martin-Gropius-Bau, Niederkirchnerstraße 7, Berlin

Klograffiti in the Age of Collage (& Decollage)

I’m too lazy to google (it’s 30°C today), but if the Cultural History of the Age of Collage hasn’t been written yet, listen up publishers, I’m your man.

It’s just amazing how a technique closely associated with the avant-garde in the beginning of the 20th Century (I’m thinking Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, etc.), inspired writers (Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, William Bourroughs) and helped start Pop Art in Mid-Century (Richard Hamilton), became the foundation of enormously successful musical styles in the late Century (HipHop, House) and is common-place today (in the broadest sense, collages can be found on tumblrs, storifys, in remix culture, in punk and hipster attire, and even in doctoral dissertations).

So what is it that makes collage so different, so appealing, to borrow from the title of Richard Hamilton’s epoch-making work?

It might be that collage is about heterogeneity, about assembling differences. In that sense, it relates to paradigms such as urbanism, multi-culturalism, a multipolar world and the internet. Maybe collage is the best aesthetic means to tackle contemporary complexity?

If any of this is true for art in general, it’s certainly true for Klograffiti. Last night, I discovered an amazing piece of collage in Hamburg’s Knust club, where a multitude of tags, stickers, contemporary concert posters and old-school film posters are heaped on top of each other. I documented some parts of that amazing walk-in environment but I suggest you check it out yourself next time you’re in Schanzenviertel.

Location: Men’s Room @ Knust Club, Neuer Kamp 30, Hamburg, Germany

We ♥ Ruin Bars

You don't need to be an avid reader of the Lonely Planet series to know that Budapest's seventh district is legendary for it's nightlife. The local attractions comprise what has come to be known as "ruin bars".

An urban variant of the shabby chic fad of yesteryear, these bars will feature walls plastered with stickers, DJs spinning obscure vinyl treats and a crowd oozed in a casual hip that will make you feel right at home.

At least that's what we had heard. "Budapest is kinda like Berlin," our sources told us, only that the people are prettier, the prices are cheaper, the weather is warmer, and there aren't quite as many neurotic wanna-be next level artists/curators/fashionistas. (Well, maybe there are, but then it certainly helps if you don't speak their wildly exotic language.)

Fine, we thought, let's check this out. We packed our stuff, put down some 400 euros for a used & abused '98 Ford Mondeo and hit the road for some bar hopping, Pálinka tasting and Klograffiti shooting.

And then … nothing. Everything that followed is lost in a daze. To be honest, I don't even recall the name of the bar we spent most of our nights in. However, I do remember that it featured a massively ruined (q.e.d.) two-stall unisex bathroom with Klograffiti that was just oh-so-lovely.

Lucky us, the photos turned out great, so we're delighted to share some of the hidden treasures of Budapest's seventh district above. If any of you knows the name of the place, please hit us up at [email protected].

And now: Book your flights already! These things don't last forever, so you better get going to spend some time in Budapest.

Location: Not sure. A unisex bathroom @ one of the ruin bars in Budapest's seventh district