street soccer vs. parkour

remember parkour? the FIFA STREET3 Game features a viral video of street soccer player from mexico. for sure not everything is real but FX.. anyway: a challenge for all those soccer or parkour fans to do it real!

Mustafa Maluka - the message

our good friend Fusi has sent us this invitation for a very interesting exhibition by Mustafa Maluka, a very talented and multiskilled artist who beside painting is also involved in several other cultural projects, as for instance with music. he was in fact the very first to organise a grime-time event in south africa and the connection to this subculture movement turned out to be one of the very reasons for why he actually decided to move to berlin.
however i don’t want to indulge on his other projects…

here is the invitation to the exhibition and an introduction to Mustafa´s work:
















the exhibition presents a series of new works by Mustafa Maluka, each of them unfolds a reflection on identity and culturally defined differences.

Mustafa Maluka´s portraits combine reference to graffiti, hip-hop and pop culture. the majority of maluka´s paintings take their point of departure in editorials and advertisements from magazines to which he has a special affinity.
he develops his portraits through several layers of colour, enabling the depicted persons to appear as characters with their own personality- ostentatious, cool or spirited.
Maluka´s “invented heroes” hint at personal stories, including those dealing with formation of identity. discussions concerning cultural identity and migration are of central importance to Maluka´s oeuvre. his works examine how his own personal experiences tend to differ to those born and raised in a different social, cultural or political context. the experience of being an outsider from the so called “cape flats” in cape town and later being an outsider in a foreign country has had an important impact on Maluka´s work. thus, it has resulted in the critical and subversive strategy, which is characteristic of his artistic practice.








Maluka was born in cape town in 1978. in 200 he moved to amsterdam where he studied at the de ateliers post-graduate art institute. in 2004, Maluka returned to south africa and won the tollman award for visual arts. since 2006 he has lived and worked in berlin. He has exhibited in asia, Europe, the united states and south america (the 7th sao paolo biennial). furthermore, his works were included in the 2006 group show, “what lies beneath: new art from south africa” at the galerie mikael Andersen in Copenhagen.

*text by Galerie Mikael Andersen




the exhibition begins saturday 2 of february at
6-9pm and ends the 8th of march 2008.
at Galerie Mikael Andersen
Auguststrasse 50 b - Berlin mitte












and here a link to Mustafa´s pictures of the legendary boombx party and one of his personal blog.

jahcoozi at the CTM 08 opening night

at the opening of club transmediale at maria am ostbahnhof last weekend, Jahcoozi performed their first gig of the year.

Sasha Perera, front singer, appeared on stage wearing a huge white tunic with a red thunderbolt drawn on it, symbol of their latest album „blitz´n´ass“.






at one point during the performance, she took off her lightning robe and with my great surprise she was wearing a very special shirt i gave her last year: our ARM TROTZ ARBEIT shirt representing the minimum wage campaign!















the reaction of the audience was hilarious, when they read „working poor“ on Sasha´s shirt, some couldnt help but laughing...it completely hit the spot and although this caustic remark was filled with irony, the problem really affects many of us... and they know it.










nevertheless the contrast of being in a club having a great time and being reminded of some serious problems bearing upon our society, can´t but be funny.

however thank you Sasha for your support to the cause...im sure that many people didnt have the chance to see it yet and i think it was a great opportunity to reach also those who usually leave home only after dark. besides, now we also have it mentioned in the „berliner zeitung“.





















* some pics are taken from berlin.nachtagenten
you´ll find more of them on their website.

a homage to ID&A

there was a billboard frame standing empty for a long time outside our PLATOON headquarters. so we thought to fill it with some of christian von steffelin´s recent great pictures and one of ID&A, so to pay an homage to the real estate company sponsoring us with the actual property on which our containers are standing on.






a big thank you to everyone at ID&A, we really appreciate your contribution.

christian von steffelin: views from above

before the end of last year we wanted to have some nice large format pictures of PLATOON, especially some from above.

so we invited our good friend Christian von Steffelin to create some of his breathtaking artworks on our site… as he already did some years ago
on our old PLATOON area.







me and Christian met on a very gray and gloomy day, which by the way is one of his favourite weather condition for creating his very expressive style of photography,















it took us a while to figure out how to get on the roof in front of our headquarters… but thanks to Doreen, one of our neighbours, who kindly allowed us to climb from her balcony, we finally managed to get there.














after setting up the tripod and the camera Christian stayed observing and pondering for a while, trying to find the best perspective from which to shoot....it felt like being a sniper looking after his target...














then suddenly, as if we were in the late nineteenth century, he sneaked under a dark cloth and CLICK...the first image was forever impressed on film...and it was the only one he did. in fact he really doesn’t repeat himself. one shot is enough...he is not like some digital snapshot accumulators...what he does, is a work of art.












the view from above was terrific…in the real sense of the word. definitely not something for the fainthearted. and for Christian, who actually does suffer a bit of vertigo, it wasn´t as easy as you might think.















Christian shoots with his large format wista rf 45 baseboard camera, which is originally used for mobile architecture, very similar to the horseman 45 model. also referred to as view camera following the early photograph type developed by louis Daguerre in 1839. it´s a very fascinating device.











thank you Christian for the fantastic experience, i really enjoyed it...and thanks again for the pictures, we appreciate them very much!















*Christian von Steffelin´s website is under construction, but we will post the link as soon as it is ready!
in the meantime check out the pictures he did for the now vanished palast der republik (palace of the repupbic)...and at the same time you can also read about this historical building, which for many years was a vibrant centre for the arts here in berlin.

exhibition container is back on tour!

the minimum wage tour is back on the road again!













last year has been very successful; we toured the exhibition container through over 70 cities around germany and the feedback has always been incredible....which in this case might not be something to be too happy about...it is in fact a sign of great dissatisfaction affecting the whole of germany, due to the meagre wages people need to cope with... despite the so called "booming economy".










nevertheless it has something rewarding to know that we contributed to bring this issue into the agenda for the next political elections, which makes the minimum wage a decisive topic for whom aspires to become the next german chancellor.

but we are all very optimistic and pretty confident we will achieve a statutory minimum wage in germany before 2009.









here a snapshot of our MiLo crew....what would we do without them? they all are very skilled and committed to the cause, always ready for deployment; not to mention Aleks, (2nd from the left) our PLATOON agent responsible for the coordination of the whole minimum wage tour. he´s really doing a great job!

















so, for those of you who didnt have the chance to see the movie about the minimum-wage tour 2007 yet... sit back and enjoy...











for past blog posts about this topic check:

1 2 3 4

soni-riot at hobnox evolution contest

the hobnox contest 2008 is on!

hobnox is a cutting edge platform for independent creative culture... which really is the kind of area we love to be involved!



for this reason Anna, our resident video artist, decided to take part in it with her creation soni-riot, (im sure that most of you heard about it already, maybe from a past entry on our blog ). So, we would really appreciate if all of you could take part in the voting process...of course take your time to watch all the videos, we don´t want to influence your choice, although it would be great if you could particularly pay attention to her breathtaking work. you will have to register to the site though...it only takes few minutes and it really is worth doing it. you will find soni-riot under the category: urban culture.

the first three winners for each category will be invited to the hobnox evolution festival which will take place here in berlin on the 28th of february.

STREET ART IN SEOUL: circular saw bench

i just walked in seoul/korea from one meeting to another and saw this: a circular saw bench made by some construction workers! and it really reminds me on the art of allan wexler.

they did by accident a truly nice piece of street art out of their construction materials. showing how you can make normal things abnormal and slightly irritating. even they use it just for one job and afterwards it will be disassembled again.

allan wexler is doing it for art purpose. i just can recommend everybody who is interested in architecture and design art to see thru the artwork of this crazy american architect!