Antistrot

Interview: by Renata Espinosa.

You could call Antistrot a crew, definitely, though not of the graffiti variety - the output of the Rotterdam-based collective might look like street art from a distance, but they’re really Academy-educated muralists making paintings reflective of a generation raised on a diet of magazines like Vice and The Fader, graphic novels and classic comic books and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. They combining pop cultural references on densely painted canvases or in epic murals, like an extended YouTube video re-imagined by a group of bad boy muralists run amok. There’s lots of sex in the form of porn-perfect female characters, who might be juxtaposed with some very nerdy-looking guys next to a Papa Smurf yogi. In another painting with a beer theme, they’ve rendered New York hipster artist Dash Snow slurping a brew. And then there’s violence: Guns, tanks and scary-looking animals. Chaos on canvas.

At the moment, Antistrot consists Paul Borchers, Johan Kleinjan, Bruno Jaime Ferro Xavier Da Silva, David Elshout, Silas Schletterer, Michiel Walrave - and from Japan, they sometimes work with female twins Eru and Emu Arizono and Syogo Yoshigawa. The painting process is always a group effort. Their extended family also includes Yvonne Gaemers, who makes costumes for their outlandish and chaotic performances and Marco Kruyt, who is their “Technical/Construction Division.” (Some of their performances involve robotics, and they’ve also constructed a robot scanner designed to go through their entire studio building scanning the artwork on the walls). Antistrot came to New York in April for their first solo show in the U.S. at Sara Tecchia Roma New York, entitled “What We Do Is Secret,” (“When we make the art, people like to see how we work, but when you see the show, you cannot see that anymore,” explains Paul Borchers) and before he headed back to Rotterdam, Borcher sat down with us to shed some insight on Antistrot’s antics.

Renata Espinosa: The theme of this issue is "Nomads" and how art or fashion or music changes when it's moved into a different context. It's really a metaphor for moving around in different circles. In a literal sense, you guys came to New York to do your first solo show here – though you've probably done shows like this in other places, I'm sure.

Paul Borchers: We were in a group show in New York at Sara Tecchia before, but this is the first really big show we've had here.

What's your experience been like with the New York art world?

We were introduced to this gallery about a year ago, and we thought it was cool that we found a gallery here that was interested in us. It's been a really great experience to see how big art is in the U.S.

Did you change the way you work for the New York show? Do you typically do the big murals or is that just one aspect or did you scale things down to be more saleable?

We make different kinds of pieces when we do the smaller paintings. The murals are really different. In the exhibition, the smaller painting are much fuller, while in the bigger ones you've got a lot more empty space.

Can you describe your process for Antistrot's work, whether it's small or large?

First we start with a layer of color or an image. Lots of times we use a graphic image, like a silhouette, and then we individually make our own pieces over that. First we do the color and then we do the inking, like a silkscreen process.

When you work, do you all approach it from the same angle or are you all looking at it from different sides?

We used to all sit around it, but now we are doing some pieces that are straight on.

I noticed in the show that some of the characters or images have been drawn upside down, or on their side.

Yes, we always drop the canvas on the table and go at it.

How many people make up Antistrot?

In Rotterdam, we are six people. Then we have Eru and Emu, from Japan, who collaborate a lot with us. They’re two girls, twins. We call them the goblins.

Why do you call them the goblins?

Because they look like goblins! They have a fashion brand called Dranheal.

How did they become involved with Antistrot?

We’ve met them in Japan several times and we saw they made crazy, nice art so we thought we’d invite them to work on a project. We didn’t really know how it would turn out, because their drawings are really different from ours, but it worked out really great.

What do they do that’s different?

Their images are more fantastical, stuff we would never come up with.

So they take more from their imagination rather than the pop cultural references you guys use. Do you have a set of recurring motifs or characters that pop up frequently?

Yes, there are comics that we use quite often. For instance, superhero stuff like Conan the Barbarian. We also like old complilations of news imagery, like the best photos of 1996.

It seems like a narrative emerges in the paintings where there are certain stories that come out based on the way the images react to one another.They almost look like you’ve taken a bunch of things and put them in a salad spinner and then shaken them onto the canvas. You’re breaking down the a more rigid storyboard format. Does Antistrot work with a conscious narrative in mind?

There are no specific stories, and there’s also no moral meaning. We have a lot of inside jokes, stuff we think is funny.

What kind of jokes?

We might hear something or see something on YouTube or in a magazine and it becomes something totally different in the painting.

When you look at YouTube, are you just looking at the crazy things that real people do?

Yes, there’s a lot of that.

So do they show up in the paintings as personalities, or maybe it’s just something they’ve said?

Sometimes we use words that we’ve heard in the videos as text in the paintings.

In a radio interview you guys did, I heard someone refer to you as a boy group, perhaps meaning that you guys have have this masculine guys-in-the-locker-room joking sensibility.

We’re sort of like a boy band.

Do you ever have conflicts with each other, like “Oh, I don’t like what you’re doing over there in that corner.”

No, it’s usually not a problem, we really get along with each other. We are really on each other’s back, seeing what the other person is doing, but we don’t care. If we do something wrong, it’s okay.

You guys formed Antistrot with the idea of being against the rules. What were the rules that you were rebelling against?

The main thing was we had to sketch all the time before you started working. With Antistrot, there’s no sketching.

You just jump right in.

Yes. We just start directly with ink. Also in the beginning we wanted to make the most horrible typography imaginable, to get it out of our system. We didn’t like what we’d been taught in the academy.

It was more traditional. Your approach sounds much more like an “extreme” sport. There’s no room for practice, you have to just launch into the thing immediately. Another word I’ve heard used to describe your process is “attack.” You guys attack the canvas. Does that word speak to you?

It’s more like a puzzle. We might start with a big image, or a smaller image, and that’s easy. But the more images there are, the more you have to try to figure out how to connect everything with each other.

Do you work on projects outside of an art context? Other collaborations?

We did a shirt for K-Swiss once, and we do our own shirts of course. We have an online store now and we’re trying to attract designers to work with us. We’re trying to get some of our art in Japan, and that market it totally different. People there wouldn’t buy big canvases, so we’re looking for other ways to do our work.

In a product sense?

Well, yeah, no vinyl toys for us! [laughs]

Does anyone in the group do a comic book, or does Antistrot do one?

No, but we were thinking about it. We did a couple of pages in Vice magazine.

What were they like? Were they pushing buttons Vice-style or were you just doing your own thing?

Just our own thing.The story didn’t make any sense. They were really just really loopy drawings.

What about music?

Almost everybody in Antistrot is involved with a band. In total, we figured out that we have 14 bands between us. With Antistrot, we do a lot of performances. They’re really wild explosions of craziness, with wild costumes. We’ll start with something simple and then end with total chaos. We also have Leprauchan Island. We were reacting against the “Lord of the Rings” hype.

Kind of like Matthew Barney’s Isle of Man. Do you dress up for this as well?

PYes, I’m the lead singer and I dress up like an elf, then Emu and Eru are in this twin costume that looks like a rainbow and Johann plays keyboards as a wizard.

So it’s fantasy rock!

Dutch fantasy rock! [laughs] You should check it out on YouTube.

Where do you perform, in galleries?

Most of the time if we have an exhibition, we’ll do the performance there. We’re not like a touring band.

So you won’t be opening for Journey anytime soon.

No, no. [laughs]