New Works by Herakut
28th Nov through to 7th Dec 2008
Preview 27th Nov 6.30 - 9.30


Campbarbossa are pleased to present a very special commission-only Herakut show.
For the uninitiated, Herakut are unlikely collaborative German artists extraordinaire, the cunning confluence of aliases Hera and Akut and the finest artistic alliance of Frankfurt and Efurt the modern art world has to offer. It’s not like we’ve actually researched this part but if there’s a finer alliance we’d like to know.
All the works on display are new, pre-commissioned pieces. So this is simply an opportunity to come along, hang out, have a fine time, admire Herakut’s increasingly bold, unique body of work—the strangely beautiful union of Akut’s photorealist spray paint and Akut’s distinctively scratchy, sexualised, everyday world.
And if that hasn’t whetted your appetite come down and tell us why

Herakut is a symbiosis of the aliases Hera and Akut, two graffiti artists from Frankfurt and Erfurt, Germany. Their collaboration started when they first met in 2004.
Both were invited to paint at the Urban Art Festival Sevilla in Spain and before that time had only seen each other’s work in graffiti magazines. To everyone and themselves it was clear that despite the fact they both focused on character painting their styles had nothing in common whatsoever.
And that has not changed a bit. The differences in Heras and Akut’s ways of approaching art and the painting itself are vast. Akut started doing graffiti at the age of fourteen with no artistic background.
The photorealism he spraypaints today is self-taught and needs a bundle of preparations consisting of a concept that has been mapped out on the computer, high resolution photo material and a predefined assortment of aerosol paints. If this is all set, Akut patiently assembles his characters dot by dot with one eye on the concept, the other on the wall, while blending out everything else.

When Akut and Hera paint together now, they prefer shift work. So, after a sloppy background done by Hera, Akut creates a detailed layer for the face without knowing what kind of body will “spontaneously show up” at the end The reason for mixing these two different signatures, and fighting as well as compromising a lot while doing so, is simply for the fun of surprising yourself with each outcome.
It is risky and slighty schizophrenic because a piece by Herakut always contains two different messages or at least intentions since there were always two brains seeking to express themselves
within only one picture

Hera in contrast thinks that preparing a piece is to handcuff yourself. It ties your perception to the scetch and allows no space for the influence of the surrounding atmosphere nor any immediate response to the wall as a very individual medium to paint on. Different from Akut who had experienced graffiti closely connected to the hiphop-culture, Hera just felt the urge to work big-dimensioned when
she originally started to paint on walls in 2001.
Therefore none of the unwritten rules and restrictions of the established graffiti scene had an impact on her work although another mental boundary did: As reaction to years of strict education of artistic techniques which Hera had received as a child, she today demands as much freedom as possible for intuition and spontaneity in a painting

http://www.herakut.de