Today the official website of the PAINT CLUB went online. We met one of the founders and organisers at their headquarters in Dresden to talk about this project and the tournament. The PAINT CLUB is planning to hit Europe already this year.
Hi Andreas some of our readers might have heard of CROMATICS already still would you mind giving us a brief history lesson?
I don’t mind at all mate. All founders of CROMATICS started writing their name in the mid nineties and that’s how we got to know each other. After the A-level we started publishing a local graffiti magazine called CROMATICS. In 1999 we released the first issue already including some pages that were exclusively designed for us. We liked the idea of giving artists a space to show of their style, skills and personal view of the graffiti culture. Step by step the CROMATICS magazine was growing into a printed gallery that offered a platform for local artists and later on also for outstanding international artists who we invited to present their work and their point of view of urban art. Besides the publication we started to shape actively other urban areas of life too. This included setting up events, exhibitions and an online-shop for urban lifestyle that pushed the European sticker culture fast forward. On 01.01.2008 we founded our agency CROMATICS which enables us to constantly unlock cultural virgin soil.
In 2007 you brought the black and white battle Secret Wars to Germany. How did this happen? Is the PAINT CLUB an advancement of your project Secret Wars Germany?
All started with a project from Birmingham called Nonpermanent. The organisers Lunartik and Cutterskink contacted us regarding sponsoring their event. As we loved their idea we got involved and flew over to attend the event in February 2007. Once in Birmingham we helped them out to get the whole thing running. On the evening we witnessed for the first time a Secret Wars Allstar Battle between Pete Fowler and Jon Burgerman and fall in love immediately. The concept reminded us of Brooklyn in the seventies and the Zulu-Nation further the good old Backjumps sessions and the Jazz Style Corner Berlin initiated by ZAST and AKIM came to our mind. We realized that in the UK urban art had already reached out for the mainstream in contrast to Germany where it still was a niche culture. This was the reason why we decided to bring Secret Wars to Germany as soon as possible as we thought this is a prefect platform to give urban artists awareness in the public. In October 2007 Monorex teamed up with DayDream Netowkr for the European „Don’t Sleep Tour“. We supported their stop in Berlin and organized our first Secret Wars event in Dresden that was a massive success. This was the hour of birth of Secret Wars Germany by handshake with Terry Guy. During the last two years we build up Secret Wars Germany and invested our own money and a lot of time. But the most attention we got with our project the Secret Wars Battle Tour that brought us in 18 days to 18 cities in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In each city our Battle Tour team (Mike Okay and Caparso) challenged two local artists to defend their home territory. A book about the tour and a 90-minute lasting documentary will be published this your by Colortrip. During these two years we pushed permanently boundaries and tried to make the concept perfect and boost the entertainment factor. This included asking everyone involved about his or her feedback. After plenty of meetings and brain-stormings we came to the conclusion that there is a lot of potential that just waits to be unleashed. At this point we also realized that we have to go our own way and start a complete new project. This decision was encouraged through the structural and organizational changes of Secret Wars that have been terminated in London at the end of 2009. We couldn’t and didn’t want to fulfil those new terms and conditions.
You just mentioned it by yourself. What did Terry Guy say to your decision as the intellectual father of Secret Wars?
To be honest I would like to pass on this question to London. I think in the moment we are mainly seen as a competitor even though we would like to distance from this point of view and take up another position. The PAINT CLUB has a different approach then Secret Wars. We are establishing a global platform for all urban artists and will use attention-grabbing events to present the national and international tournaments rather than secret and hidden locations. Besides in the future our platform will offer also much more than just a tournament. We could imagine that in a couple of years the PAINT CLUB world champions will compete against the Secret Wars winner. What do you think about a lap in black and white and a lap in full colour? If you look at Wrestling, Football or Boxing you will realize that they also have various clubs and master classes.
For us the major change so far is that you are not going to reduce the artists just to black markers. As far as we know you guys have build up a close relationship to edding. Besides Secret Wars edding is supporting four similar events in the UK. Why did you still land up with another partner? You are working now with MOLOTOW – right?
As I can see you are well informed. In fact this is easy to explain. Unfortunately the commitment of edding stayed always behind our expectations. We realized that our energy, innovative spirit and swiftness didn’t find much favour on the other side. We had the feeling that the clocks at edding did tick time-delayed. But the main reason is that edding is the market leader for stationary and not for art supplies but this is exactly what we need. The edding products are not really suitable for artists the only marker all artists liked was the Secret Wars special marker. To my knowledge this marker is still produced by hand and cannot be bought anywhere. So in fact edding is generating a demand for a product that cannot be bought by the artists or anyone else. Further edding failed to meet the artists desire for paint markers containing thick and opaque pigments. Our new partner MOLOTOW is an absolute antipode. In comparison to edding MOLOTOW is a small company. But this family business based in Lahr is extremely innovative, flexible and state-of-the-art. Right now they are about to revolutionize the worldwide market of art supplies. All MOLOTOW products are the benchmark for producers in the art suppliers sector. Not for nothing they enjoy an extreme high standing with urban artists. The new One4All marker and inks that we use for PAINT CLUB are outstanding products at least this is what the artists said after a first PAINT CLUB test run. Similar things we have heard from our partners in eight countries. In the UK the new MOLOTOW markers are even displacing the much-loved UNI Posca pens. We are proud to have found a partner who provides the leading professional products in the markers industry and continues developing innovative products at cyberspeed together with the feedback they get out of the urban art scene. MOLOTOW meets therefore our idea of an ideal partner being: innovative, state-of-the-art, authentic, focused on trends and outstanding quality products.
You are comparing the PAINT CLUB with Write4Gold, Battle of the Year, and the DMC DJ Championchip. Those institutions are holding regional preselections in the competing countries are you planning something similar?
Originally we did not plan to organize regional preselections this year. Mainly we came to this decision as our time and budget is limited and there is a lot of pioneering work to do in the first year. But the feedback so far is already big enough that we will test at least some regional preselections in Germany. All dates can be found on our website
Andreas even though you mentioned already some bits and pieces are you able to give us some more insights into PAINT CLUB?
For now we don’t really want to talk too much about details but we are happy to tell you guys a bit more about our plans. A lot of things will be pushed to a complete new level using cutting edge technologies and our own programming skills. One ambitious project is the development of a digital PAINT CLUB wall and an interactive Flash projection using Adobe-Air that allows us to visualize the tournament during the competition. Another huge deficit of all battles in the urban area is the voting process. We are convinced that this “problem” can only be fixed through providing absolute transparency. To provide this transparency we are working close together with our software engineering partner Tyclipso.net to develop a perfect solution. As always CROMATICS sets themselves a high standard and ambitious mile stones. We will give everything to realize as much as possible already in 2010 but at the end of the day it is also our partners who will decide how much can be done already this year. We are already looking forward to witness the first national tournament on 27th May at the opening of STROKE.02 in Munich.
Can you tell us also something about the future plans?
Our current scheduling says that we will have 128 urban artists competing in 64 teams in eight countries. Next year we want to double that amount and have involved at least one nation on each continent. In the moment we have already enough requests from countries like the US, Canada, Brasil, China, Australia and South Africa. The most important task will be to find the right partners that will help us to grow to a global institution and support us on a financial side as well.
Andreas at the end we would like to ask you to describe the PAINT CLUB in two sentences!
PAINT CLUB – the urban art association is a global institution offering an official platform for all urban artists. Talented illustrators, designers, comic and street artists get a chance to compete against each other in a international tournament.
Thank you for this interesting interview and we are looking forward to the first reviews and photos from the PAINT CLUB headquarters.
