Interview with urban artist Alaniz

Malen und Menschen bewegen

Alaniz, you are an artist, a painter, working in public space and on canvas. When did it all started?

I wanted to be a painter since I was 15 years old. I discovered in high school the very beginning of the mural movement in Argentina. But what really changed things for me was the discovery of the work of Blu. I saw his work in 2009, late, actually.

Did he paint in Argentina?

He did many things in Argentina, but I didn’t get to see them in real, so I discovered his work online. I was hanging out with a bunch of street sellers at that time, and they were part of the alternative scene. They were travellers too. Then I started painting in the streets in Argentina. I may have done like seven or eight murals. I did some exhibitions in trains. There’s this train that everybody use in Argentina, It’s very important. It connects the capital with the suburbs, the train is the soul of the town. I used to go to work two hours by train – one hour to go, one hour to come back. And there is one car of that train that is empty and has no seats, because this is where the people go with the bicycles. It was also the place where everybody was getting high and getting wasted no matter what time of the day, like a party lounge but for poor people. So of course, I loved to go there, in fact I did my first exhibition of canvas in those cars of the train. I always had this social connection. My high school was full of dreamers, 70s revolutionary teachers and I matched perfectly with them. And when I discovered Blu, I already had the feeling that art should be social. I was also influenced by the rock music that had this political background in Argentina. So that’s why I decided to make my first exhibition in this public transportation, in that train, where the forgotten ones were.

And this is why you started also to paint in urban space?

Yes and that’s where you can find the root of what I do now.

Do you know how many paintings on walls you did when you were living in Berlin between 2011 and 2016?

The first year and a half I did paste ups that I painted by hand and were unique pieces. I have done like 20 paste ups, more or less. And it was a good moment, because it got a lot of attention. After three months of being in Berlin, I was invited to a festival in Hamburg. I met many artists there. In Berlin, the first walls I’ve painted were in abandoned buildings, lost places. I did around 20 walls, maybe more.

And when did you start using the telescopic brush?

I guess I saw this technique with Blu, using extensions and rollers. I wanted to paint high walls but I didn’t have any resources to do it. And I never use spray cans. So I used the easiest way to paint high walls with what you have , rollers and extensions. And that’s why I was experimenting this practice in abandoned buildings. And then I realized I could use this technique to reach the streets, always seeking for attention in one way or another.

How long does it take you to do a painting with rollers and extension?

In general half an hour maximum. Rarely one or two hours. I was always going alone, but then I started working with Berlin Kidz and then Paradox. To do it alone is good, nobody knows anything. When you trust people you have to trust them very, very much. And even when you trust them, people can do mistakes. Like a month ago when I was really close of getting busted, because the checker wasn’t there when he was supposed to be. So, actually I have to say that I’m very careful, so I prefer to work alone, I guess.

You started in Argentina with wall paint and brush. What was your link to graffiti writing?

Well, there is a story when I was 16, 17. My best friend who was more connected with the skater movement, he took me and said: “Now we’re going to paint the whole town. We are going around writing our names in the streets”. So I had an Alias name, he had one as well. We will go every night tagging in the city with spray cans. I was just writing my name but I didn’t even know that I was tagging. I guess because that disconnected the country was at the time.

But you were painting already or drawing at home?

Yes, for sure.

“Was American Graffiti”, Style Writing already alive in Argentina?

The writer did home bombings, I guess. But it didn’t look like the New York style. But at that time, we’re talking about the 90ies, the style was arriving through those skater magazines. There was no Internet. There was no access. I was too young and I come from an area that its like a Ghetto. So there was not a connection with the world at all. You know definitely nothing. It was complete disconnected from the rest of the world. That’s why it didn’t arrive to me so early.

After living in Berlin until 2016, where did you go?

I went to Mexico, I lived in Tulum. I was in the process to develop things there. See, when I went there it was just a little village. And I got to develop projects on my own with people and to organize things. And when you don’t have resources, you learn to make things on your own. And I guess that is the way I developed that kind of ability to realize projects when nobody invites you to festivals or exhibitions. So I guess I came to visit Berlin again with that spirit in a certain way. I mean I wasn’t supposed to stay when the Corona crisis started, so I got stuck here.

But where’s your home or your base? Do you have a base?

Not really. After years in Berlin, I wanted to travel. I left Berlin in 2016. But I kept coming back constantly. So Mexico became my base unofficially, but I keep on moving around constantly. And since about a year I don’t have a fixed place. I liked the idea of not having an official residence. It was almost as a statement against borders.

And now how do you feel being stuck in Berlin?

I was missing the travelling, because travelling is a beautiful addiction. But it gave me time to rethink myself, you know, in many aspects of all my work and to reorganize myself. Because the fact of being constantly on the move doesn’t allow you to take care of certain aspects, like making a book or making a video and developing projects here in Berlin.

We were talking about Corona and how this is going to affect people’s minds. What is your experience?

It did affect people’s minds. Yeah. I mean, we are lucky here in Berlin. You know people in other countries being trapped in their houses. Horrible.

So I saw at Urban Spree that you did right away during the first days of the lock down a wall painting with WESR. Tell me about this painting.

We were going about to go to this abandoned cinema. We did it like a week before, and then we decided, okay, let’s go again. But then we visited RAW instead searching for a wall. And there was this brand new wooden board, empty. So we said perfect. And we asked Pascal, the owner of Urban Spree. Pascal was closing Urban Spree exactly that day. So he said, well, yeah, sure. We improvised at that moment as many times. I love to improvise. Going with the flow. It grew. It could have come out better. But I guess that’s the feeling always, you know, It could have come up better.

Can you describe the wall painting at Urban Spree?

It’s a person wearing a diffuse full suit against viruses and the mask. But at the same time, holding like an iPhone or a phone.

It was one of the first images we could see on Instagram by a local artist.

Yes, it’s true. It is about the media, how this was affecting the people around me. The whole media. Because for me at that point it was like, well, I mean, maybe this virus is real, you know. They’re saying it, but they are really fucking up people’s minds, you know, with all this information and misinformation, it is like confusion from the official media. I’m not even talking about the alternative sources. I’m talking about the official media. I could see how it affected the people around me.

Did it affect you?

Not at all. I tried to engage as little as possible. I did my research. I investigated. I tried to get my own explanation of what’s going on, because in some way, I don’t know, for me it’s always necessary to explain things not in regular ways, but to try to find explanations for many things. And I found my own answer for what was going on. I was cool with that. Hoping or waiting for things to be proofed to us as I saw, they were. Gradually truth is going to come out, for me it’s like the situation at 9/11. That’s the first impression. It’s not like most of the official things that happen out there. The news that you get are not exactly as they come in the first moment. So I knew that this is going to be something like that. You know, the governments were overreacting, all day that people were being manipulated with fear from media, because that’s from where we were getting the information in the end. They just like putting fear, they’re controlling people with fear.

So do you think art can help in the actual situation? You reacted with the wall painting at Urban Spree, now the mural at FIT Tankstelle. Can you tell me about the mural there? And is it also a reaction to the crisis?

It is a reaction, I guess in some ways, because I always try to keep myself informed, to be more connected with what’s going on in the world. And then the idea pops out like naturally, so it’s an expression of what’s going on inside me. And sometimes I don’t even know what I’m painting. And I find the explanation after. In some way it is, because I’m always surrounded by information and I’m not so disconnected from the situation that is around me, the context of my life or the place where I am in the world. And so it comes out as an announcer for sure. I mean, Corona was like a moment to talk about this, because it’s happening and it’s fucked up and is global, it’s kind of like impossible not to.

You knew the wall because you painted a wolf there a couple of years ago. So you went to ask for permission and then you organized everything yourself?

Yes. Because, I had already painted the wall before actually. When I was in Mexico, I had time to analyse the things that I could have done in Berlin. And one of the things was to collaborate with Paradox, because I like his work. So I came to Berlin, and we tried to organize a couple of things unofficially. But there was the quarantine. So I thought I have to organize something with permission, so I contacted “Hausverwaltungen/landlords”, of buildings with free walls trying to reach out to people. But it’s difficult, especially during the Corona times, because nobody knew what was going to happen. So nobody wanted to invest in something like that.

And so finally it worked out, so what did you paint on this 20 m high wall at FIT Tankstelle?

I painted a native kid from North America. Many people think that it looks like from the Amazon, because I use a face of an Amazonian man, then I painted the clothes of Native Americans. An Amazonian wouldn’t match with the wolf that I already painted there years ago. But the idea started from the Amazonian. For our development as society certain destruction of the world is inevitable, even some destruction of the Amazonian forest is necessary for the lifetime we’re having now. We have to be honest in that sense. We have to recognize that we have this comfort because humanity destroys certain resources, we are all consumers, and we are all part of that. So it’s like an unnecessary negative side of the world. Everybody talks about the car crisis, about there are things that are happening that probably we don’t know, for example, the destruction of the Amazon or like the oil pipes that the people were fighting against in the USA. The Natives, they were making all this process in the past years against oil pipes crossing their lands. Because they could break and contaminate their lands. After so much protest the put the oil pipes and it did happen, one of the pipes broke, spilling oil in their lands. So when you see things like that, it’s almost like a very bad joke. And we are basically living in a very surreal world. But now we are also on a point where we are smart enough to reform the way we have to live in, you know, to make it in a smart way, sustainable.

Before I used to get mad or depressed. Then I started a few years ago with this idea that if you want to transform the world, you have to transform yourself first. In the sense of like improve yourself if you want to improve your surroundings. Then I kept on working on that mentality and trying to focus in myself as an example. Because before I was around pointing fingers of all the things that were wrong and that’s pretty easy. But what about yourself? In my case, I’d prefer to be more honest in that sense and why judging others? Because in the end, that’s one of the biggest problems of the world – how we go around judging, how we go around pointing fingers without putting ourselves in other people’s shoes. Oppressive police and dictators, psychopaths or rapists are existing. The only way to really stop those issues is to understand those people and to understand what generates those feelings. That’s the only way that you can stop it. In my perspective.

Let’s talk about your work on canvas because you work in the studio on canvas since a long time.

And I started pretty late. I mean, I experimented and I have been experimenting on canvas. In the beginning, I was interested just on working in the streets. But then I realized canvas actually give you a place where you can experiment, you know, develop techniques, discover new ones or develop styles of painting. Because it’s not only about the message. You also have at one point to develop your own way of painting. If you want to go around calling yourself an artist or a painter – sort of making canvases have helped me to do that. I took a break from it, like a few years ago in 2018. I didn’t do much canvas work then. I was experimenting with other things, like collective work with other artists. I initiated a house of artists in Mexico. But I came back, strongly this year to work on canvas. The current crisis helped to that. And it’s great. When you are a painter, if you love to paint, any surfaces are welcome. So, of course you need discipline, to leave your room and go to the studio and go on painting because you know you can’t go out like you do. I guess it is better to work at home, because it’s really easy to get distracted. So it was positive in that sense.

We’re all getting older. But do you think there’s a time when can you imagine that you’re going to be fed up of doing painting in the streets one day?

No, I don’t know. I mean, it’s difficult to see what’s going to happen in the future. But, you know, I just still love it. The passion is because of that. With your mural art, with what you have to say and to inspire other people, inspire other artists to do their own things. To put some seeds like in India, for example. Thailand, Indonesia and Mexico as well. At least if you are taking over the streets or you have something to say, it is a responsibility the way you present yourself.

So what do you like to do besides painting?

To organize together, to connect people, to promote art in general because it’s all about that. And then of course, these are part of life when you have to care about yourself and take care of your own stuff, of your own work and the direction you actually want to take as an artist. But there is a space. And I think that through unity any energy can be positive for all the people. You know, the message of “let’s put the ego aside”. Think of all of that, working together could benefit us in general – my philosophy. It’s very difficult to work with people and especially artists, they have their own dream in the brain, but we are all beautiful individuals. At one point you have to understand every person’s dream. If you put yourself in their shoes, you can try to get to handle them, even though sometimes it is going to be very stressful. And I like the idea of not limiting myself only to paint.

What do you like in art?

Let’s be honest, tastes are very individual, just like everybody has a different taste concerning art. There are people that are capable of recognizing beauty. And I respect that because not everybody can. But I do believe that there can be more opportunities for everybody. But you can find beauty in a huge range of possibilities or situations or images. You know what I mean? And when I talk about beauty, I guess, I refer to something that touches you, something that you can connect to. It’s not always aesthetically pleasing. There can be beauty in pain, there can be beauty in ways of expressing a message with violence. Conceptual art can be great. If your stuff is properly thought. But it still cannot reach many people. I do believe that art can be universal like music, so we should try to reach everybody. Everybody should be able to develop a sensibility, because maybe not everybody has it naturally. It doesn’t matter what it is, you know what I mean? So, yeah, let’s reach everybody. And art that is taking over the streets, is starting from that feeling, because graffiti is part of this. It is connecting with the part of society that can’t go to those galleries, that can’t go to experience those places because these were in a way presented, as kind of exclusive. So it doesn’t make you feel being part or to have the desire of going. Sometimes that cleanness of white walls makes you lose the human connection or the emotions.

Thank you for your time and good luck Alaniz!

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