Daim has a new website! We sat down with the 3D Style Maestro from Hamburg and did an interview about Graffiti, Getting Up, Taping and many more!

It’s been pretty quiet around you, especially new wall productions from you can only be seen rarely. What has happened in recent years, how are you?

I cannot say that it calmed down but there had to be a kind of consolidation. After turbulent years with many trips, exhibitions and projects in which I was also often involved in the organization, I needed a stage of concentration on my own artistic work. This meant to me quite clear to focus on few but renowned projects and exhibitions. I wanted to get back a feeling for where I stand with my work as an artist and also as an active writer in the graffiti scene.

For example, by the Urban Discipline exhibition series and the published books, there were times when you had to ask yourself if you are leading more an event agency or a publisher than being an artist. But basically it was always clear in my mind that my artistic work has to be the focus and I have shifted my efforts in recent years to that effect again.

I could focus on the stuff that is important to me, develop new forms and methods and take part in first-class exhibitions.

The new generation probably knows less about you. Daim is standing for probably the world’s best 3D styles. Hardly anyone will disagree with that. But how has Daim started and got down to what you are doing now at last? Such skills are not found on the street?

Well, it certainly started at the age of 15 with listening to Hip Hop music, noticing the first graffiti in the city, drawing the first styles and then two years later grabbing a can for the first time. And of course there was the attraction of belonging to a small special group of people who adapted this new “culture” from America. You are feeling to be someone special. It never occurred to me at the beginning that I’m doing arts or even being an artist. But since I’ve drawn and painted a lot in a short time it became clear to me very quickly that this would be a prospect for my future life.

But the development of an own style doesn’t work only by talent. Rather it’s the effort to go out again and again and actually realize ones ideas. Since I could already live from orders after finishing school, having a car available soon and also the necessary time, I managed to work out something influential quickly. But of course I would never have succeeded in this way without the full support of my parents.

Let’s stay with your very interesting style. Where are the roots, the inspiration? Where did it come from? When did you stop drawing and painting classic letters? Can you still remember?

There are certainly two important reasons for the development of my 3D-styles . First, as one from the ‘89 generation I was not affected so much by the American scene but rather by the workings from Hamburg, Munich and Paris. My first graffiti book was “Graffiti Live” , only after that there was “Subway Art”, “Spraycan-Art” and movies like “Wild Style”. The second reason was certainly the early enthusiasm for drawing. If you are drawing figural with the pencil and don’t get inspired by comic books the need for defining the motifs through light and shadow comes automatically. I already realized that in my first big graffiti works, the Tut-Ench-Amun gold mask and the Einstein heads . The move to implement this in my styles suggested itself, especially during the early `90s. With the increasing influence of the computer, images in movies or advertising got more three-dimensional. Writers like Delta experimented in this field just as my former partner Hesh.

So you have gained your experience on the street and in yards. What is the difference to then? Would you hesitate when the opportunity arises today to paint your work on a train? At night, with risk and about 45 minutes time frame?

By working at night you learn things you would otherwise never experience as a (graffiti) artist. This is exactly the reason why Graffiti / Urban Art has a power in it which is now recognized slowly from gallery owners, curators and collectors. Without having the roots in the illegality, my work would not have the expression it has. But this does not mean that I still need the nightly adrenaline push. In search of new ways and forms to realize my ideas I get this by something else now.

Are you still drawing or sketching a lot on paper or is the PC and Photoshop also indispensable for you and your work meanwhile?

The pencil sketching in my black book is always the beginning of my work, no matter if it’s realized on a canvas, an edition graphic or a wall later. But I marginal use my sketches untreated as artwork. They are usually further developed on the computer and worked out to the smallest detail that way. So the computer is getting a part of the work process . The change by the transformation into other media also became part of my work with regard to content.

 

Let’s get back to what currently happens in your life. Did you benefit from the number of exhibitions in the past in some way? Especially you were indeed an important part of the project Urban Discipline aforementioned in the Os Gemeos interview, which should undoubted belong to an important part of your creative career, doesn’t it?

As briefly mentioned at the beginning, Urban Discipline was not really important for my “creative career”. If you are organizing and arranging such a big exhibition series your own creative work plays a minor role. These years were great, intensive but also very exhausting. My studio community getting-up and I did not only organize Urban Discipline but also the 2000 m² Dock-Art project in the Hamburg harbor. In addition I have participated in various other projects, exhibitions and trips, especially the Graffiti-World-Tour. After that it was important to draw a kind of final stroke to concentrate again entirely on one’s own artistic work. Especially the DAIM & SEAK U.S. Tour in 2003 was important to get new impressions and ideas and to process new images.

Let’s stay again with Urban Discipline. A DVD has been announced for this year. Is it actually going to be released?

After the first two years Urban Discipline (2000 and 2001) it was clear to us that we need to document this for the scene and the art world important development on video. That’s why we had a team with us at the exhibition in 2002 which filmed the entire time and conducted interviews with all artists countless hours. As the interviews were conducted in several languages and we also wanted to produce the film with several subtitle languages, it soon became clear that such a film needs its time to get finished. Many artists who are now very well known in the art world began to intensify their work at that time. Just think of names like Banksy, Os Gemeos, Herbert Baglione and many others. It doesn’t really matter how fast the film will now be released. It will definitely make an important contribution to the understanding of the development of Graffiti / Street Art / Urban-Art.

We don’t need to wait for an Urban Discipline Remake, do we?

Our motivation to organize the Urban Discipline was the awareness that there were no opportunities at that time to present our art in a size and quality as we considered it right. But although the Urban Discipline was getting larger and more professional each year, I always knew that we could never achieve the quality of a big museum show. We wanted to show as we would like exhibitions. Now it’s up to the professional exhibition organizations, curators and museum institutions to take this up. And as we can see at “Backjumps” in Berlin, “still on and non the wiser” in Wuppertal or “Urban Art” in the “Weserburg” in Bremen, to name just a few examples, there are meanwhile big important exhibitions taking care of Graffiti / Urban-Art.

How about your studio community getting-up? Do you still work a lot with Tasek, Stohead and Daddy Cool or did everybody enter a different path?

For me working on canvas ran parallel from the very beginning with my workings on walls in public areas. My experiments with 3D reliefs, sculptures or also the work with the brush smashed the scales of my one-room apartment. That’s why I was searching for larger rooms for my work in Hamburg after my art study in Switzerland. So, Tasek, Daddy Cool and I have founded the studio community getting-up in 1999. Since we were already organizing the Dock-Art project at the time and started with the preliminaries of the first Urban Discipline after a few months, we were pretty busy with our studio very soon.

Stohead strengthened the community but left after a few years because he moved to Berlin. Meanwhile, each of us concentrates on his own personal development, but common projects are still realized.

For example, the mural “Identität” which we implemented in 2008 in the Hamburg district Rothenburgsort, where also our studio is located, or “Stylekickz” which we use to boost teenagers in their creativity and development through graffiti in socially deprived districts in Hamburg. Similarly, we are still involved in “Jamliner” , a mobile recording studio that provides a band practice room for teenagers for free.

Are you still watching what’s going on in Hamburg today? Are you still interested in the local graffiti scene?

The days when you knew all the active writers in Hamburg are gone long ago of course but it’s always exciting to see what happens in your own city. But I also notice the changes within the scene, the development of graffiti to Street Art to Urban Art or whatever you want to call it. Meanwhile, the classic graffiti is just another facet of the many different forms of expression in public areas. This is very exciting for me and it shows that openness defines the development.

Last year you participated in the project ARTotale in Lüneburg, your home town. What is your opinion today, almost a year after that? Conclusion?

Of course I was happy about realizing an artwork in my home town of Lüneburg for the very first time. But I was also skeptical if a modern art form would work in this city with its historic heart. Afterwards, this skepticism turns out to be totally unfounded since exactly this contrast sharpens the eye. Such beautiful medieval buildings fascinate even more when a cut-out of Swoon sticks next to them or the electrical box in front is transformed into a small prefabricated apartment block by Evol. If there won’t be such interventions in the urban area, an ancient city would quickly turn to a historical museum. This is hardly possible in Lüneburg due to the University Leuphana, which is prepared to convince politicians and residents of Lüneburg of something new again and again with a huge effort as proved by the project ARTotale . I consider this project to be very successful from the perspective of the artists who took part.

What is Daim actually working with today, can or amongst others brush?
The can was always my main tool. But the development of a sketch on the computer takes significantly longer today than the realization with the can on the wall. Meanwhile, there is a new method called Tapings , so realizing pictures with tapes. These have strong parallels to the vector graphics that I build on my computer, so that the transformation from one technique to another is again the exciting thing for me.

Which brand of spray cans and cap variations do you recommend for such precision workings? When I look at your artwork you have the impression that there are no caps for such detailed workings?

I’ve worked with all kinds of can brands and caps in over 20 years graffiti experience. Starting with Dupli-Color, Trendi and Eisodur over Sparvar, Multona and Auto-K to Molotow and Montana Gold. On my various travels I have worked with cans on site of course, such as Altona in France, Krylon and Rustoleum in the U.S. or Colorgin in Brazil. In a picture it depends on a good style. This can be realized with almost all cans and caps in the world. How useful are the best cans and caps if you have no style?

You have a new website, please tell us what’s there to see?

The “DAIM.org Relaunch 2010″ shall show more than just the current works and projects. I regard the site also as an online archive in which you can follow up my work of the last 20 years. There are published over 700 photos in revised and considerably better quality than before. In addition there are also editions, sketches and videos as well as magazine and newspaper publications.
You can now connect via RSS, Twitter or Facebook with the page in order to stay up to date.

Who has designed and implemented it? Yourself?

The page is based on WordPress and was adjusted by me.

What happened to the project Tagged in Motion and what are your experiences to this? Tell us a little bit more about it.

In the course of “nextwall” I have realized the project “Tagged in Motion” in cooperation with the agency Jung von Matt / next. We regarded this as a first experiment to combine graffiti and Augmented Reality. It was a completely new experience for me to “spray” something into the room and move around the created object at the same time and even being able to go into it. Of course this is only a beginning to develop such techniques and bring it to perfection. The huge response (the YouTube videos were viewed over 1 million times) shows that this topic interests many people. However, I think that this also means an interesting new facet for graffiti but it could never replace the realization of a real sprayed picture of course.

What will we hear from you this year? Any big projects or trips you are already able to tell us something about?

There are already projects and exhibitions. But it’s still a bit too soon to talk about it. The corresponding announcements will appear on my website.

Thank you for the interview, all the best. Do you want to add anything?
Last year we have lost two important persons of the graffiti scene. This is a great shock and bereavement.
R.I.P. Eric!
R.I.P Dare! /…

 

Tags: 3Dstyle, Daim, Getting up, Hamburg, interview, SUK

Topics: Uncategorized

Posted: May 22, 2010