10 YEARS OF STROKE IN MUNICH – URBAN AND CONTEMPORARY ART

THE STROKE ART FAIR 2019

The Stroke Art Fair opens its doors on May 16 at 5 pm. in the Alte Akademie at Neuhauser Straße 8 in Munich. The motto of the event: Art should be revolutionized. Reason enough for us tattoo fans to stop by – we are always looking for new motifs and impressions. Even for people who are considering getting a tattoo, the Stroke offers plenty of room for thought-mongering.The Stroke is a trade fair for new global developments in urban art. It wants to present art for the 21st century.The Stroke is a very open event where art is supposed to interact between artists and visitors. Itforms the framework around which there are numerous events. There are workshops, live paintings andparties all about the art world. Very interesting: There is also tattooing live. Every visitor can immerse himself in new worlds and emerge from them richer. To then dive back in again. That's how inspiration works.

In the English Garden, MUC 1Certainly, Banksy's art is a well-known figurehead of such urban, unmediated art. With his graffiti art, he has created the notoriety that the middle society associates with young, wild street art. Because it is not the wild guerrilla graffiti artists who alienate the cities, as the tabloid opinion wants us to believe, itis the numerous interests of the city designers and bad advertising campaigns. Banksy says:"They come every day and deface our cities. They leave their idiotic lettering everywhere. They make the world an ugly place. We call them advertising agencies and city planners."The many individual artifacts such as graffiti and murals, as well as the successful tattoos of individual city and country dwellers, are signs of personal added value that enrich our visual world. In contrast, there are the massive slogans of advertising banners in the city, who want only one thing: to get us to buy. These consumer ads, often unconsciously and imperceptibly, tarnish our cityscape. This is what Banksy thinks when he argues that cities should be covered more with individual things, be it graffiti orother artistic actions, and thus "beautify" them in this way. As a result, many tattooed people choose to support this statement and get one of the famous Banksy graffiti tattooed on their skin. For example, the panda with the revolver, the protester throwing flowers, the rat with the sunglasses or the children with the balloon standing on the arsenal of weapons. Tattoos can also be used to set signs against the status quo.The Stroke Art Fair is social entrepreneurship and a form of a newly understood marketing concept at the same time. She wants to take up art on the street, in backyards, and such art which is not already established as soon as it sees the light of day, but often acts in the dark, and make it visible as a "revolutionary" trend.We can look forward to seeing what the Stroke 2019 will present to us. For example, the joint political project of the Munich artist Capo, the agency Serviceplan/Plan and the Stroke itself is presented: "Scarsof Democracy." Here, pictures of painted people are shown, on which there are numerous slogans tattooed on their skin. The project is dedicated to the censorship of artistic freedom and the suppressionof individual expression, which is still common around the world. You have taken to heart the statement of Deeyah Khan of UNESCO:"The rights of artists to express themselves freely are under threat worldwide. Art has the extraordinary capacity to express resistance and rebellion, protest and hope..."

This liberal, artistic approach must be supported and can also be included in the tattoo scene. This is where art is brought directly, authentically and aesthetically thought-out onto the skin and thus into the world. A tattoo thus has a social, relevant component.Let us support the Stroke 2019 in Munich with our appearance, because the gem of alternative art is at risk. The rents in Munich are now so high that both the artists themselves can hardly find room for theirwork, as well as the Stroke can no longer and does not want to keep up with the real estate prices in Munich. The Stroke Art Fair should not be held in Munich for the last time. The subculture in and around Munich must be preserved.by Julian Bachmann