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LET’S DISAPPEAR! – BUS126

BUS126 is an oldschool writer who belongs to the first generations of the Berlin graffiti scene. Starting in 1986 with primary attempts in the south of Berlin BUS soon became known for his New York and Paris orientated pieces in the early nineties. After a time-out he had a comeback in the 2000s where he dropped into the sphere of avant-garde and trailblazing artists like AKIM and ZASD.

While still painting walls for example along the railway lines BUS126, inspired by new influences, began to break up the borders of traditional stylewriting in his pieces, started working on letter sculptures or let natural forms and structures have affect on his style (as in detail featured in Writing the Memory of the City).

In LET’S DISAPPEAR! he presents a selection of his artistic work since 2007 till 2019. As the title let’s assume the artist did not only made a retraction from public to mainly non-urban, abandoned or at least not easy accessible places and areas, but also dissolves his pieces more and more into abstract forms and spaces. Although in the publication is stated that “style is also extremely different to get rid of”, a personal style still remains even if elements like outlines or concrete letter shapes are hard to make out.

In addition to the 128 paged photo book LET’S DISAPPEAR! also includes a separated 64 paged text book with essays by P. Vector Codierer, ZASD, AKV Stocklosa, Joachim Spurloser and SPAIR as well as a conversation with Markus Mai and Tobias Barenthin Lindblad. While his companions wrote on BUS126 and his work, the talk gets more into depth and focuses on the artists roots, inspirations, style theory, repetition, anti-style and the ability to learn, master and break rules.

Both books come in an individual cardboard slipcase handbuild by BUS126! LET’S DISAPPEAR! is limited to 250 copies only. There will be no reprints so grab a unique copy before someone else does!

SEISMOGRAFFITI

Tags, throw-ups and pieces are part of the visual output graffiti writers produce in public spaces. Compared to the amount of sketches published in books and magazines writers’ drafts seem to belong to another category of lower value. As for example shown in “Writing the Memory of the City” the interest in writers’ sketches did grow in the last years, especially in the subcategory of stylewriting.

Following this approach the author of SEISMOGRAFFITI invited 31 writers to take part in a book project which exclusively focuses on black-and-white drafts. On 44 pages writers like GHOO, HOFF, MIKDO, PLÜK, SHERON or ZAST give insight into a part of their works which usually remains unrecognized in their private archives.

Besides presenting a single sketch or even a series (BROM, SENOR, NOMAD and VERY128) every participant has been asked to reflect and give a statement on their drafts. The outcomes vary from analytic essays to short paragraphs with individual definitions of and thoughts about style as well as quotes, poems and descriptions.

The publication shows once again that sketches can be much more than an ordinary preparation for a planned piece. In SEISMOGRAFFITI sketching is acknowledged as stylewriting practice building and developing an own and individual style, while at the same time the sketch itself is revalued as an equivalent work of graffiti art. Not only the introduction by NOMAD but also the different personal thoughts and theories function as an inspiring and motivating input.