Trastevere slaps

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Mary C

On Christmas morning, while walking around Rome, we discovered a wall in the Trastevere neighbourhood that was covered with paste-ups, stickers, and other small graffiti. Some of it was made by well known street artists, others by those who remain anonymous. If you know the name of the artist who created any of these, I’d love to hear from you. This is what we saw:

many slaps, stickers, etc, on a wall

below: Red nose boxer with black eyes by MIMI the clowN as well as hands vainly reaching for green dollars by levodopa_046_. A very small pair of very high heeled shoes sneak into the left side.

red nose graffiti by Mimi the clown

below: Fishes Invasion stickers and paste ups can be seen in many places around Rome. They all feature Invader Fish, a two legged walking fish with big lips. The fish actually started in New York City in 2015 and has spread around the world since then.

fishes invasion graffiti

a wall covered with stickers and pasteups

slaps on a wall including a red and white poster of two people kissing

below: ‘Volti spenti’ translates to ‘dull faces’ which is a comment on the poor guy taking a selfie with his phone. The cat is probably the work of Guaro and there is a yellow chick that wants you to know that it’s not a nugget.

volti spenti graffiti as well as a babushka doll and a dinosaur

black and white slaps and stencils

below: The woman on top is by C-ska

slaps on a wall, poster

many slaps

below: To Live and Let Live – Street art against hate.

black and white paste ups

below: Bottom right is an elaborate black and white drawing by Lus57 of a woman who appears to be wearing a long dress but on closer look it’s actually a man’s torso and a tiger skin. She is holding a rifle in her hand. In contrast, there is a woman with bright copper hair and wild sunglasses – the work of stickermaidberlin.

posters and stencils on a wall

below: The bottom half of a Smilin’ Croc above a black and white portrait of a woman by Y-Tong and a big-nosed K2M man with an orange heart.

smilin croc graffiti as well as a big nose by K 2 M, also a black and white pasteup of a woman

below: Even Santa Claus helps spread the word about the Fishes Invasion although the pink and blue tiger seems to have an opinion about that.

fishes invasion graffiti with Santa Claus

below: The Fonz says plant a tree because it’s cool.

thauma red stencil graffiti

below: A purplish blue snake-like fish bites itself. There is also a small C-ska sticker of a woman with a heart in the place of one eye.

long purple fish biting itself

below: My Dog Sighs, a crying eye on page 120 of an old book – with the photographer (selfie?) reflected in the eye. Also, another C-ska piece – a woman with a bird cage for a head… meaning?

eye and red streak painted on a page of a book, now is graffiti, beside a pasteup of a woman with a birdcage for a head

words on paper, Dircksenstrasse

Posted on September 4, 2019 by Mary C

below: An old window on Dircksenstrasse covered with paste ups and other graffiti. The top left pane has two posters with words.

First: ” Nichts andert sich, ausser ich andere mich. Alles andert sich, sobald ich mich verandere” which translates to “Nothing changes unless I change.Everything changes as soon as I change.”

Second (& longer): “Erwartet nicht, dass die anderen euch das Leben, die Liebe oder die Frohlichkeit bringen. Ihr musst zuerst in euch selbst die QUellen des Lebes, der Lliebe und der Freude offnen. Um zu empfangen, muss man mit Geben beginnen”, or in English: “Do not expect the others to bring you life, love or happiness. You must first open in yourself the sources of life, love, and joy. To receive, one must begin with giving.”

four panes of an old window covered with paste ups and other graffiti.

below: A closer look at the bottom part of the window. On the right is a poster playing on the famous painting ‘American Gothic’ (1930) by Grant Wood. The red noses means that it’s the work of MIMI the ClowN

On the left are more words. This time they say “Helft einander. Liebt einander, jeden, alles, jedes, Blatt jeden Lichtstrahl. Vergebt.” or in other words, “Help each other.Love each other, everyone, everything, every, leaf every ray of light.Forgive.”

lower two panes of an old window covered with paste ups and other graffiti

below: Nearby is another old window with more graffiti. The larger yellow poster says: “Das Universum Liebt dich und hil– dir” or in English, “The universe loves you and helps you.”.

On the right: “Dein schones Herz ist voller Gute. Verschenke diese Liebe und Gute uneingeschrankt an die Geschopfe der Welt.” which translates to “Your beautiful heart is full of good. Give away this love and goodness unrestricted to the creatures of the world.”

paste ups covering an old window, two posters with words, and one with picture of two black women

In both of the above posters the words are credited to #Azmuto. He is the author of self-help, motivational type books so I suspect that these posters are self-promotion as much as anything else. I’m not sure how that fits into the “advertising vs street art continuum” but they don’t scream ‘buy me’ so I have included them here.

Cafe Cinema Courtyard, Berlin

Posted on October 14, 2018 by Mary C

The Cafe Cinema Courtyard starts as a small alley beside the Cafe Cinema off Rosenthaler Strasse close to the Hackescher Market. It is almost completely covered with street art of all kinds – painted murals, stickers, paste ups and more.

painted sign for cafe cinema, bear with a gold hat holding a red flag with a white star on it

Cafe cinema courtyard in Berlin, one wall is covered with stencils, pasteups, stickers, and small street art, people walking past looking at it and taking picture of it

two windows on a wall, cafe tables in front of the wall, graffiti on the walls around the windows

red bird graffiti, green with man's face, brick wall

below: “It’s time to dance”, one of many large paste-ups by SOBR

large black and white paper paste up of a woman

grey paper paste up of a bald man in seated position, drinking from a red and white coke can, lots of other graffiti around him including a large hand holding a cigarette

below: The same hedgehog that I saw in Tallinn…. the work of Edward von Longus

small stencil of a hedgehog with an open laptop

below: Flower Power, straight from the 1960’s, by Joiny

magenta VW microbus with flowers on it as well as words love and peace

below: Lisanne, Dagmar and Donna were here as were Berlyn and Yasmyn. Russian matryoshka dolls and Fabrege eggs watch the boxing match between facebooks and instagram. The Russian themed stencil is the work of ost.up.berlin

stencil of Russian babushka doll with two fabrege eggs beside it.

street art, octopus smoking a cigarette

street art, yellow leopard with black spots and blue eyes, mouth open and teeth showing, paw, clown pasteup with red nose

mural of man, large, in grey suit and shirt and tie, from chest up, short dark hair, blue eyes

below: Ann Franke by Jimmy C (aka James Cochrane)

large mural of ann frank, head

large mural of a monkey holding a camera and grinning

below: by Garavato, a Colombian street artist, painted in 2016

yellow, orange and blue mural of a bird and very large claw reaching for that bird

below: A yellow creature by Peng. In the background is a circle with a silhouette of Charlie Brown and Snoopy sitting on the roof of the dog house, by Osch aka Otto Schade.

bike parked in front of a mural of a yellow human like creature with knees tucked up, people in the background looking at the street art