PISA73

SAD #1 (DETAIL), 2009

spray-paint and acrylic on mdf, 60 x 85 cm
PISA73
GRAINS OF WRATH
by Emilie Trice
Every year in Berlin on the 1st of May, the streets in certain neigh-
borhoods bear witness to an organized anarchy – annual rioting
– the sole purpose of which is arguably little more than some
cathartic collective act by the masses practicing their govern-
ment-granted liberty to gather publicly and purge their plebian
hostilities, pent up since the previous year’s “riots”. Through
drunken demonstration and varying degrees of violence directed
(often rather sloppily) at the policemen called to duty on that
particular day, these riots have become more touristic than legi-
timate, providing passive onlookers the fleeting adrenaline that
accompanies even the most inane rebellion against authority.
The whole charade brings to mind Rivarol’s infamous statement,
“The people did not want the Revolution, they only wanted the
spectacle.’’1
A recent series of work by Berlin-based artist PISA73, entitled
WALPURGISNACHT, revisits the events of April 30, when premature
riots tend to erupt in anticipation of the following day’s festivi-
ties. Derived from photographs that the artist took documenting
IMG_5173 & IMG_4963, 2009, spray-paint and acrylic on mdf, 120 x 80 cm
the unrest, an action that would later result with him being
restrained in a “kettle” (a chain of police that has circumvented
a group of protestors as a means of crowd control). This body of
work observes instances of unwarranted police brutality, while
portraying the liabilities – injury, imprisonment, etc. – that such
riots represent for both sides, whether they’re deserved or not.
PISA73’s depictions of the riot atmosphere from within the fray
arouses a palpable sense of agitation, of unpredictability and sus-
picious semi-concealed movement. Barely visible delineations of
riot gear and suggestions of effected punk youth trigger a heigh-
tened awareness in the viewer, a FIGHT OR FLIGHT impulse. In
one painting, a demonstrator strides across the canvas, his pants
tucked into combat boots, his back arched and head lowered as if
preparing to attack; in another, an almost indecipherable female
figure is restrained by a riot cop cloaked in shadows. It’s not until
the final image, the clearest of the four, of a man conspicuously
taking a photo while a POLIZIST looks on, that the viewer is retur-
ned to the spectacle inherent in these annual skirmishes.
PISA73’s approach to contemporary Western society, especially
its trivial displays of power politics such as Berlin’s May Day riots,
critiques the impotence of these traditional FIGHT THE POWER
equations within our Post-9/11 reality, fraught with conspiracy
theories, bloated by the media and bankrolled by corporations
with political agendas – a cynical opinion of our current social
condition that has come to define an entire generation.
Like many of his dissent-driven contemporaries, PISA73 first gai-
ned notoriety for his work in the public urban sphere, referred to
by some as street art, and by others as vandalism. As the member
of various crews, a proponent of eponymous graffiti tags, sten-
ciling and wheat plaster paste-ups, PISA73 has a long history of
anti-authoritarian artistic practice spanning almost two decades.
Known as one of Berlin’s local street art pioneers, his work is
included in many definitive anthologies of the movement, such as
GRAFFITI WORLD and BERLIN CITY LANGUAGE, although not always
under the PISA73 moniker.2
PISA73’s graffiti writer background is coupled with a formative
affinity for punk music, skateboarding and other characteristic
staples of a particular counter-culture youth movement. In the
same vein as the so-called BEAUTIFUL LOSERS, a group of con-
temporary artists predominately based in California that rose to
prominence in the early 1990’s and includes graffiti writers (Barry
McGee), punk musicians (Raymond Pettibon), and pro-skateboar-
ders turned artists (Ed Templeton), PISA73’s aesthetic and cultural
commentary have roots in a wider artistic community, one with
anti-establishment leanings, a taste for subversive music and an
active appreciation for illegal, albeit occasionally kitsch forms of
expression. In THE ART OF TODAY, Brandon Taylor writes of this
“West Coast Post-modern” movement that,
“Given that youth culture has constituted one of Western
civilization’s most potent inventions since the 1950’s, it is
somewhat surprising that its actual mores (as opposed to its
advertised qualities) did not surface more fully in culture before.
Though its ostensible content is puerilism and miscreancy, the
aesthetic strategies of this art are themselves neither puerile nor
miscreant… For one thing, camp is no longer apolitical, even if
Warhol might have claimed so. Secondly, the new puerilism sig-
nifies ever more urgently how artifice is the key term in dominant
constructions of all social and sexual identities. More cynical and
worldly than Pop art- its protagonists are well into their thirties or
forties- puerilism may be credited with a thoroughly adult under-
standing of the ironic tone.”3
Irony is explicitly omni-present in the works of PISA73, especial-
ly in relation to patriarchal systems, pornographic sex and the
existential ramifications of modern-day living. His work done
indoors, typically on cardboard and found objects, still testi-
fies to the artist’s history of criminal art-making by way of his
continued loyalty to spray paint and stencils. He only works from
photographs and found images, which he then reproduces as
hand-cut stencils that can be used a handful of times before they
disintegrate.
His pieces combine slogans taken out of context with loaded sym-
bols of violence, religion and power to form irreverent composi-
tions that address the tragic humor of our Post 9-11 condition. In
the work (…) EFFORT, for example, PISA73 borrows from George
W. Bush’s line acknowledging the debate around “Whether the
(war) was worth fighting? Whether the fight is worth winning?
Whether we can win?”4 and pairs it with close-ups of a car crash,
an appropriate metaphor for Bush’s entire presidency.
(...) EFFORT, 2008, spray-paint on mdf, 53 x 154 cm
PISA73’s work commiserates the prevalence of certain postmo-
dern “truths”, ie that truth no longer exists, that ideologies are
inherently corrupt, that propaganda still infiltrates the masses,
and that, as philosopher Slavoj Zizek argues, society’s submission
to the dominant system is no longer defined by the Marxist as-
sumption that, “They do not know it, but they are doing it”, but
rather, “they know what they do, but they are doing it anyway.”5
It all adds up to a pretty bleak perspective of humanity.
PISA73’s work parallels many of Zizek’s theories, especially the
“cynical distrust” that Zizek uses to describe the modern-day
dissenter. He states, “The distrust of the big Other (symbolic
order), the subject‘s refusal to ‘take it seriously’, relies on the
belief that there is an ‘Other of the Other’, that a secret, invisible
and all-powerful agent effectively ‘pulls the strings’ and runs the
show: behind the visible, public power, there is another obscene,
invisible power structure.”6 The punk band Clutch, whose music
PISA73 considers influential to his work, refers to this encroaching
paranoia in their song BINGE AND PURGE,
Perhaps it‘s just the way the light falls
But everything looks like a target to me
And I don‘t know where the gun is
But I‘m certain that it‘s pointed at me.
Although the Western world’s classification of “punk” conforms
to a preconceived narrative, long since taken hostage and
commoditized by pop culture, the punk ethos, in the traditional
anti-authority sense, is still very much alive and well in Berlin.
However, PISA73 observes that
punks have a tendency to fall
into cliché antagonistic roles
when attempting to oppose
The Establishment writ large.
He views their misguided acts
of violence as inadvertently
solidifying the US VS. THEM
status quo – a textbook, albeit
innocuous display of what
Foucault described as the
“immanence of resistance to
power.”7 It’s precisely this con-
tradiction that PISA73 seeks to
articulate in WALPURGISNACHT.
Guns and masculine icons
also play a recurring role in
the work, most recognizably
Charlton Heston, the American
PRO GOOD, 2008 actor known for heroic movie
spray-paint on mdf, 68 x 34 cm roles and conservative politics,
especially his outspoken affiliation with the National Rifle Asso-
ciation and passionate defense of the 2nd Amendment right to
bear arms. However, the image PISA73 chose to recreate is from
a photograph taken in 1963, when Heston participated in the Civil
Rights March on Washington with Martin Luther King, Jr., a far cry
from his later political activism and denouncement of affirmative
action.
One such work bearing the image of Heston is PRO GOOD, in
which Heston’s portrait is accompanied by a red cross and the
bold wording, JOIN US. PRO GOOD. A hovering gun dominates
the upper half of the composition, suspended mid-air like an
ascending icon. The insinuation of this ensemble is clear, making
sardonic reference to the religious right and their worship of the
automatic weapon. Heston’s altered value system renders him
an ironic figurehead, considering his ideological metamorphosis,
although, as Murray Edelman states, in our convoluted political
age “Metamorphosis becomes the norm.”8
The tone of PRO GOOD is cautionary, but this critique is not neces-
sarily confined to trigger-happy neo-conservatives. Every cultural
subgroup obviously claims their mission is pro-good in order to
illicit mass-membership. “Good,” having been stripped of any
absolute meaning ever since Nietzsche announced that God was
dead, has become a smokescreen onto which any community can
project its own self-proclaimed values.
The rhetoric PISA73 re-contextualizes in his works is a signifier of
our society’s counter-productive tendency to diametrically cont-
radict itself by employing the same vocabulary for opposing value
systems. The presence of the quotation mark as a motif in many
of PISA73’s works is also central in understanding the work as
an abbreviated lexicon of absurdly re-appropriated imperatives,
with words like “BEHOLD!” followed by the defeated dismissal,
“Nevermind.”
PISA73’s assemblages of text and imagery bring to mind the
works of Barbara Kruger, whose social criticism takes its form
in the pairing of ironic statements and simplified subject matter
reminiscent of advertising campaigns. Her iconic work, I SHOP
THEREFORE I AM, mocks the materialistic values of a consumerist
society by sardonically
propagating its ideology,
just as another piece
raises feminist concerns of
patriarchal government by
labeling the White House
as “Man’s Best Friend.”
Barbara Kruger: UNTITLED
(I SHOP THEREFORE I AM),
1987, Photograph, 125 x 125 cm
© the artist, Sprüth Magers
(London, Berlin, Munich), Mary
Boone Gallery (New York)
In his re-appropriation of imperatives, PISA73 creates self-de-
precating propaganda, basically propaganda that makes fun of
propaganda, be it commercial, religious or political. Through
hyperbole, blatant hypocrisy and ideological incongruence, he
asserts that all propaganda has become so transparent, it’s only
common sense to recognize the absurdity of its claims.
PISA73’s preferred medium, the stencil, has its own ties to state
propaganda and the military, based on its historical use to label
soldier helmets, duffle bags and other army accessories. The
same merits that made stencils an obvious choice for assembly-
line identification also rendered them the most effective medium
for guerrilla image-making. Quick, reproducible on a massive
scale and easily transportable, stencils allow graffiti writers to
commit their “crimes” in a matter of seconds in countless locati-
ons. However, in PISA73’s practice, the stencil becomes a tool for
painstakingly meticulous draftsmanship.
Although stencils typically reduce forms to flattened bitonal
shapes, PISA73 layers a multitude of stencils for each subject,
achieving deceptive depth and a certain augmented photore-
alism. His images of women in particular take on the stylized
shadows characteristic of retouched supermodels or photoshop-
ped celebrities. This practice of airbrushing images until they no
longer resemble physical reality is an instance of the SIMULACRA
that, as Baudrillard argues, replace the real with the “hyper-
real”, in that the depictions that have become more real than the
objects or persons they represent.9
In his most recent works, such as the WALPURGISNACHT series,
PISA73 has shifted his aesthetic from the flattened color panes
of his previous stencil work to a more abstract, fluid style that
focuses less on explicit content and more on atmospheric repre-
sentation. These compositions are still based on stencils cut from
photographs, but PISA73 applies his chosen forms to MDF board
prepared with a coat of black paint using a unique technique that
can be considered a contemporary interpretation of Paul Signac
or Georges Seurat’s ubiquitous pointillism, subverting art histori-
cal reference points and leading them to a conceptual closure.
Even though these works
are comprised only of
dots, PISA73’s technique
diverges from Signac and
Suerat’s conscientious
placement of each indivi-
Paul Signac:
LE PONT DE VIVIERS, 1928
oil on canvas, 73 x 91,5 cm
Private collection, Geneva, CH
dual mark. The “points” in PISA73’s paintings are more random,
but the artist’s deft application of spray paint allows him to cont-
rol their density, if not their precise application, resulting in vivid
luminosity in some places and subtle gradient shifts dissolving
into total darkness in others. This virtuosity with the aerosol can
stems from years of working as a graffiti writer.
In his manipulation of the monochromatic, PISA73’s pointillist
style is more reminiscent of Seurat’s drawings than of his vividly
colorful paintings. While PISA73 adds points of light to his solid
black backgrounds, Seruat lifted his highlights out of the paper
itself, which he first covered in a uniform coating of charcoal, so
that he could excavate light from within the pictoral plane. As in At present, PISA73 spends much less time tagging the streets
Seurat’s drawings, PISA73’s subjects, when lit from behind, are illegally and much more time in the studio, creating work to be
illuminated in semi-halos, iridescently glowing in the otherwise exhibited, legally, inside. As such, one could make the argument
overwhelming sea of black. that PISA73 has lost some of his rebellious credibility and that the
work itself is less subversive since the artist is operating within
The objects and the parameters outlined by the very authority he seeks to under-
bodies portrayed in mine. However, by deconstructing and reassembling appendages
these recent works of propaganda with ironic
are depicted in acu- hyperbole and cynical humour,
tely minimal shapes. PISA73 takes aim at the
The abstract shift in systems of power he opposes
PISA73’s aesthetic, from via parody and, according to
explicit appropriation to Baudrillard, “parody makes
suggested representa- obedience and transgression
tion, signifies a critical equivalent, and that is the
departure from his most serious crime, since it
earlier works and, just cancels out the difference on
as Seurat abandoned which the law is based.”11
“the contour line of his Although the artist himself
training,” PISA73 now declares that TALK IS CHEAP,
refuses the rigid outline his work asserts the inherent
Georges Seurat: of the stencil, allowing and undeniable democratic
EMBROIDERY (THE ARTIST‘S MOTHER),
1882–83, conte crayon on paper,
his forms to oscillate value of vocalizing dissent,
32 x 24 cm between substance regardless of the target.
and radiance. In doing
so, these images achieve a different kind of realism; in the same
manner that Seurat created an “impossibly accurate description
of subjects using the barest of means.”10

By replacing imperative commentary with implicit scenarios, such

as the anxious unrest of Berlin’s May Day riots, PISA73 imparts
the emotions of dissent, however scripted, to the viewer, allowing TALK IS CHEAP, 2006
them to vicariously experience a community to which they may spray-paint and chalk on wood
not otherwise have access. Whereas his earlier works have 121 x 46 cm
nihilistic undertones and verge on the misanthropic, these so-
called “Black paintings” signal the possibility of redemption, in
that they reveal the bond of transgression as a inspirational and
exhilarating force, one that can unify just as fiercely (if not more
than) it divides.
1 Baudrillard, Jean. Selected Writings, Ed. Mark Poster, Stanford University
Press, 1988, pg. 154., sub quoted.
2 For a complete bibliography on the artist, refer to the final page of this
catalogue.
3 Taylor, Brandon. The Art of Today, Calmann and King Ltd., 1995, pp 150-151.
4 Speech given on March 19, 2008, the 5th anniversary of the beginning of
the Iraq War, at the Pentagon.
5 Zizek, Slavoj. Spectre of Ideology, in S. Zizek (ed.), Mapping Ideology, Lon-
don:Verso, 1994, p 312.
6 Zizek, Slavoj. (1998)‘The inherent transgression‘,Journal for Cultural Re-
search,2:1, pg. 1 — 17
7 Foucault, Michel 1984: The History of Sexuality Vol I. Robert Hurley trans.
Harmondsworth: Penguin.
8 Edelman, Murray. From Art to Politics, WHO, pg. 66.
9 Baudrillard, Jean. Selected Writings. “Simulacra & Simulations”, pg. 167,
1998, Stanford Univ. Press.
10 Jodi Hauptman, Museum of Modern Art, Geroges Seurat “The Drawings”,
Cat pg.12, Oct. 2007- Jan. 2008.
11 Baudrillard, Jean. Selected Writings. “Simulacra & Simulations”, pg. 178,
1998, Stanford Univ. Press.

Emilie Trice is a writer and curator based in Berlin. She received

her BA from Middlebury College and recently curated the exhibi-
tions Highway Child at Galerie Mittwoch and Lynchmob at HBC in
Berlin. Her writing has appeared in NY Arts Magazine, Artforum,
Artnet and Artillery Magazine, among others.
Ω KATI, 2004
spray-paint on cardboard, 47 x 65 cm

∑ SUPERBOREDOM BOX, 2006

spray-paint and wall-paint on cardboard, 78 x 59 x 15

∑∑ EVIL BEAMER, 2005

spray-paint on mdf, 130 x 82 cm
 ¥ I AM GOD (STILL), 2007
spray-paint on hdf, 130 x 91cm

UNTITLED PRO GOOD SOMETHING,

2008 ∑
spray-paint, wall-paint
and pencil on mdf, 63 x 56 cm
(collection Ulmer Musuem)
BESTÀ BURS, 2008
spray-paint and acrylic on cardboard
145 x 267 cm
Ω IMG_5076, 2009
≠ IMG_5105, 2009
∑ IMG_5173, 2009
∑∑ IMG_4963, 2009
spray-paint and acrylic on mdf, each 120 x 80 cm
ÜBERFRAU, 2009
spray-paint and acrylic on mdf
each 200 x 120 cm
Ω IMG_5414 - ROB WRIGHT, 2009
≠ IMG_5555 - STAGE DIVER, 2009
spray-paint and acrylic on mdf, 120 x 80 cm
IMG_3888, 2009
spray-paint and acrylic on mdf, 80 x 120 cm
IMG_4517 - IRVINE ALLEY, 2009
spray-paint and acrylic on mdf
80 x 120 cm
Ω IMG_5118, 2009
∑ IMG_1298 - KREATOR 1, 2009
spray-paint and acrylic on mdf, each 80 x 120 cm
PISA73
born in South Germany
lives and works in Berlin, Germany
EDUCATION
2002 Degree in visual communication / graphic design,
University of Applied Sciences, Pforzheim, Germany
SELECTED SOLO SHOWS
2009 “Grains of Wrath”, Wilde Gallery, Berlin
2009 PISA73, Galerie Tobias Schrade, Ulm
2002 “I Am God”, Kradhalle, Ulm
SELECTED GROUP SHOWS
2009 “Street/Studio”, Irvine Contemporary, Washington DC
2009 “Paper Trail”, curated by Steven Perelman,
Judy Rotenberg Gallery, Boston
2009 “Berliner Unkraut”, 111Minna Gallery, San Francisco
2008 “PISA73 & EVOL”, Galerie Itenerrance, Paris
2008 “OFF THE WALL – From Vandalism to Urban Art”,
Wilde Gallery, Berlin
2008 “Walden im Ufo” (at Projekthaus/Hamburg),
Galerie Walden, Hamburg
2008 “Urban Affairs” (with evol and other artists),
Urban Affairs, Berlin
2008 “CT‘ink” (with evol), Galerie Walden, Berlin
2008 “Steal From Work”, steal from work, Bristol
2007 “Galerie Walden”, Tease Art Fair, Cologne and
4. Berliner Kunstsalon, Berlin
2007 “CT‘ink” (with evol), Superplan, Berlin
2006 “Absolute search”, CBK Centrum for Beeldende Kunst,
Rotterdam
2006 “CT‘ink” (with evol), Basementizid, Heilbronn
2006 “From Where I Stand”, arttrail, Cork
2006 “CT‘ink” (with evol), Hello Moose Gallery, Rotterdam
2006 “adicolor”, adicolor studio, Berlin
2006 “So langsam ist uns alles egal”, Galerie A. Zellermayer,
Berlin
2006 “Secret Showroom”, Bread & Butter Show,
Barcelona and Berlin
2005 “CT‘ink” (with evol), Ronin Gallery, Nürnberg
2005 “Islands and Bridges”, fifty24sf gallery, San Francisco
2005 “A World of Influence”, Urbis Artium Gallery, San Francisco
2005 “Berlin Exil” (with Andy Greif), Ulm
2005 “CT‘ink” (with evol), supalife kiosk, Berlin
2005 “Urban Art Factory”, 2. Berliner Kunstsalon, Berlin
2004 “rock the coat”, spiewak & vapors magazine, New York, USA
2004 “urban art factory”, 1. Berliner Kunstsalon, Berlin, Germany
2004 “urban act”, studio 14, Rome, Italy
2003 “ct’ink” (with evol), Spielwiese, Berlin, Germany
2002 “handshake collective”, Salon Hansen, Ulm, Germany
SELECTED LITERATURE
2009 “Grains of Wrath”, Emilie Trice, Wilde Gallery Publication.
2008 “400 ml”, Gautier Jourdain, Kitchen 93 Publishers,
2007 “Urban Illustration: Street Art City Guide”, Benjamin
Wolbergs, Gingko Press.
2007 “A/REACT”, by CT’ink (EVOL & PISA73), Drago publishers.
2006 “Notebook”, Dario Morgante, Coniglio Editore/Bamako
2006 “Berlin City Language”, Christoph Mangler, Prestel Verlag.
2005 “Street Art – Die Stadt als Spielplatz”, Daniela Krause,
Christian Heinecke, archiv des jugendkulturen e.v.,
2005 “Berlin Street Art”, Sven Zimmermann, Prestel Verlag,
2004 “Graffiti World”, Nicholas Ganz, Thames & Hudson,
 SAD #1, 2009, spray-paint and acrylic on mdf, 60 x 85 cm

This catalogue was

published on the occasion of
the exhibition

WILDE GALLERY COVER

PISA73 Chausseestr. 7 © the artist, the publisher IMG_3997, 2009
“Grains of Wrath” 10115 Berlin and aforementioned copyright spray-paint and acrylic on mdf
Sept 11th – Oct 10th, 2009 www.wilde-gallery.com holders, Berlin 2009 120 x 80 cm