Featured Artists: Brenna – www.urbanartcore.eu

Jan Brennenstuhl aka Brenna is, above all, a Street art and Graffiti enthusiast; so passionated about it, to create a blog compiling news about urban art forms and its artists from all around the globe. He is the brain behind the well known Urbanartcore.

The need of documenting his blog with images developed into a large collection of exclusive photographs of street artists in action, which we are now proud to show at West Berlin Gallery.

We interviewed Brenna in order to find out more about Urban Art Photography.

Hi Brenna, could you tell us what got you into Street art and graffiti in the first place?

As a teenager I spent a lot of time in Berlin’s creative, subcultural districts, Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain, which are well-known for their distinctive street creativity. Everyone who ever visited one of these boroughs knows that! For that reason I unavoidable came in contact with bold letters and paste-ups on walls…

I started to document those things just for myself, because I liked it. Walking through the streets photographing all the often funny works soon became a new passion and I stepped further and further into this kind of parallel universe…

As founder and author of the street art and graffiti blog Urbanartcore.eu, could you describe for our readers it’s purpose and it’s aims?

Urbanartcore is mainly focused on stories, news and actions taking place in urban environment. Of course it’s especially about graffiti and street art and stuff, but there’s no master-plan or anything like that!  What I wanted to do with Urbanartcore is to establish a daily source for news about urban art and related things from around the globe. I also wanted to create a platform to document street art, track the development of artists and give them the chance to reach a wider public. As measured by the positive responses, it almost worked out!

What it is you look for in the artists you feature in your blog and photographies?

There is no general concept but often I try to identify not just great artworks but also interesting personal characters. Often, and that’s the major intention of my Urban Artists in Action series, I just want to see how the artists work in their studios or on the streets, legal or illegal. Some of the artists are friends, some I have never met before. All in all, I try to feature a good mixture of graffiti and street artists…

Do you receive any remuneration from advertising, galleries or artists to showcase their exhibitions and works in your blog?

Nope. I mean okay, some book publishers sometimes send me their latest urban art books expecting that I’ll write about it. In that way you could say it’s paid, but in the end Urbanartcore is an independent, uncommercial thing and that’s great! Why should artists or galleries pay for that? They’re doing a great job! For me it’s some kind of a hobby to check out what’s going on out there.

Did you always have a passion for photography or is it something that came along with the need of documenting your blog posts?

As I said before, documenting was the first, Urbanartcore came later. But yes, through all the photographing on the streets, galleries and studios I developed some kind of documentary photography or street photography skills. And to getting better is one of my passions today.

How much influence do you think the internet has had on the success of street artists and galleries dealing with them?

I think blogs, photo-communities and online magazines are a living part of the whole street art thing, and I love it. Having the chance to see amazing artworks from all over the globe almost in realtime, because some enthusiast photographed the latest stuff or wrote about the recent exhibition, is just possible because of the world wide web. And certainly galleries and artists benefit from that.

Do you think Street art is being commodified?

Yes, but I also think this has been part of the game since people describe street art as street art. It’s naive to think artists could live without making money. And if you find a good way to combine your street activities with some payed works, being an (street) artist could be a great life!

And would you say legal street art is still street art?

Of course! All the current main-protagonists like Blu, Roa or Aryz (just to name a few) did mainly legal or commissioned works in the near past. It’s somehow necessary if you like to create huge murals! In my eyes there’s nothing bad about that. Even more, it’s an official and good way to make cities more colorful and to establish a public look and feel which is not just standardized and plain grey.

How would you describe the graffiti and street art scene in Berlin at the moment?

Well, there are a lot of really good guys and girls out there at the moment. I think Berlin has a excellent capability of creativity and reputation, for what reason more and more highly skilled urban artists are coming to live here for the next years! Nevertheless it seems like they are more and more focused to paint in abandoned areas (and there are some really good ones in and near Berlin!) and not that much directly in the street anymore…but there is and will be still a lot of action in public space!

How much do you think Hype affects the public perception of what constitutes good art?

A lot. Just take a look at Banksy or Brainwash…

After this years of documenting and commenting on street art and following it’s remarkable growth in popularity, do you still hold the same level of enthusiasm for it?

Oh yes! Although I sometimes snap myself classifying street artworks by its creators, I think that you can’t break the power of street art. I think as long as there are artists being creative in the streets I will be a fan!

Is there any new artist whose work has really captured your imagination, and you would specially like to photograph in action?

Yeh, there are a few, but I don’t have a special list or something like that. To break it down I would name the Spanish urban artist Aryz, the French Da Mental Vaporz crew, the Bulgarian Trash Lovers crew and the Berliner Irgh…

How do you see the relationship between street art and the art world in general?

In my opinion it’s not that difficult as it’s alway said. And I’m pretty sure street art will have a seat in the next generation art-books like all the other major art-movements before.

What sort of artwork would you hang at your walls at home?

Photos of course! Also large-scale paintings like those abstract works by Morten Andersen or Kofie, some crazy characters like those Rallito X creates or some tape-installation stuff by Buff Diss. I never thought about that though… I guess whenever I have the money and see something I like, I will go and try to get it…