The Prague Post Online: Tempo: Around Town

October 12th, 2008

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Around Town

Outdoor art goes upscale

By Benjamin Thomas Cunningham
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
November 7th, 2007 issue

It was the art of the deal for sometime-graffiti-artist Damien Mitchell, who held his vernissage opening at Café Café Nov. 2.

Mitchell, 22, has managed to parlay his talent for stencil images (look for originals around the city — one at the AXA Arena in Letná, another on a bridge in Stromovka Park near Prague Zoo) into a rather pricey art exhibition at the trendy watering hole at Rytířská 10 in New Town.

Mitchell’s blowup dot paintings of homeless people, which he makes by tracing black and white pictures on a wall from an overhead projector and filling in the dots with Magic Marker, are the latest stage in his six-year artistic career. The Australian practiced his first stenciled graffiti subjects in one of the never-opened metro tunnels of Studůlky a couple of years ago; he previously painted in his home town of Wagga Wagga and in Melbourne.

When he got sick of the stencils, Mitchell turned to the blowup dot pictures — he bought an overhead projector in Prague.

But is what Mitchell and other street artists do salable art? Certainly, his dot paintings have price tags on them, ranging up to 20,000 Kč ($1,070).

Those we talked to at the art opening say yes, it can be, the same way music samples are used to create new music.

Jitka Sumová, 48, says she would rather look at graffiti sometimes than ugly concrete walls, including the graffiti wall in Prague 8 in a tunnel near the Florenc metro station that she walks by every day. Some pictures are nice, some are ugly, but they make people think, Sumová says.

Her friend Maddie Crook, who says only that she’s in her 50s, from Seattle, says art is always accepted by the masses — if it’s good. She points out that various graffiti artists have already gone “mainstream” in the United States and argues that the same thing will soon happen in Prague.

Pavel Kroupil, 66, tempers his enthusiasm a little, after having seen the explosion of graffiti in Prague in the 1990s. If artists are making the outdoor environment better, he accepts it, he says, but graffiti just for graffiti’s sake isn’t always welcome.

Jan Richter, 21, is a friend of Mitchell’s who thinks the overhead projector technique is “totally awesome.” While we might agree, we also remember getting similar assignments in middle school to make drawings blown up on a wall from the projector, so we’re not sure how much artistic skill it takes.

Richter showed up to promote his band, My First Date, which he characterized as “emo,” the latest iteration of the heavy guitar grunge sound of the 1990s. Blaq Mummy front man Reverend Feedback, 45, gave us a deep explanation of music-sampling techniques.

Talent agent Alena Svoziková was there, too, pushing her client Lee Andrew Davison as the “best jazz man in Prague.” Davison didn’t make an appearance.

In keeping with the “homeless” theme, Daria Drbohlavová, 20, a Prague native, told us about the hottest culture center in town, in a former “squat” near Anděl.

The scene didn’t really start hopping, though, until management took the “private party” sign off the door and a woman dressed in burlesque, with several dolls, a scarf and other props, sat down at a nearby table.

Are stencils and manipulated pictures really “art”? Check it out and decide for yourself.

Benjamin Thomas Cunningham can be reached at bcunningham@praguepost.com

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