HONET GIVES US THE KEYS TO TRAIN GRAFFITI EVOLUTION IN EUROPE

The new generations will not know much about Honet, but he is undoubtedly one of the most important writers in the history of European graffiti. His interest in transcending graffiti to a new stylistic, geographical level and attitude has created a kind of chain reaction, influencing different generations that laid the foundations of the current scene. His visit to Montana Gallery Barcelona together with 2Shy and JC Earl compelled us to interview him. We ended up talking more about graffiti than art.

The exhibition “Ugly Cool” at Montana Gallery will remain open to the public until 3 November 2023.

How does it feel to visit Barcelona after almost 15 years?
One simple thing happens to me: every time I travel somewhere and I meet people again, it seems like I left them yesterday. Time goes by so fast that, for me, it’s quite fluid. Then, of course, people change a little bit, but otherwise it’s like nothing has happened. For example, in the 1990s I went to Finland and I really liked it. I really liked the people I met. And even though I go once every 10 years, each time it’s as if I had been there the day before. I run into the same person again and now we have known each other for 40 years. In fact, because graffiti is so intense, you never forget the people. There is something that unites us forever.

Then, of course, there are things that change in cities over time, but there are always small details that remind us of the past. All you need is a graffiti to take you back 10 or 20 years, like a Xupet Negre on a store, for example.

In any case, it is difficult to get to know a city that is not your own, and besides, when you travel a lot, there are times when you get a little confused and say to yourself, “I’m in Germany. I’m in Italy. No, I’m in Spain.” Over the years, everything gets a bit mixed up, but there are always small elements to your right and left that don’t change.

Honet in Barcelona 1999

“I did graffiti because I didn’t know how to do anything else and at some point in my life I had to choose between trying to change, quitting altogether, looking for a job like everybody else, or trying to find a way to live with what I liked to do and what I knew how to do.”

How do you view the evolution of urban art throughout all these years?
You see, first of all, I don’t think I’ve positioned myself in the art world. It’s not really what I was interested in at the beginning and anyway, I’m not sure I really got into that world. I did graffiti because I didn’t know how to do anything else and at some point in my life I had to choose between trying to change, quitting altogether, looking for a job like everybody else, or trying to find a way to live with what I liked to do and what I knew how to do. So the question didn’t arise. I was going to try to do something that was more or less artistic, with all the complications that word implies, to try to do something productive with the little I knew how to do.

Works by Honet, 2Shy and JC Earl at “Ugly Cool” exhibition

Can you explain your personal evolution in this aspect?
Very early on, when we were doing graffiti, we were already meeting people from the cultural scene from the neighborhoods, from the MJC, who were proposing to do things with graffiti. At that time we were very frowned upon. Graffiti was not considered art or anything like that. You were a graffiti artist, you were a delinquent, nothing more. In Paris, on the other hand, there were a lot of cultural people who were interested in this novelty. Very quickly, exhibitions started popping up. I think the first one was in ’82 or ’84, and it was then that writers were able to exhibit for the first time in museums. For example, at the Trocadero with artists like JonOne. They didn’t necessarily make money, but it was clear that there were many ways to go down that road. I saw it very early on. People from the world of culture were coming to us with proposals and, although it wasn’t necessarily what we were interested in, we were offered sprays, we got paid for things and we were happy.

So what has actually changed?
What has really changed, quite simply, is the way people look at us. As I was saying before, we were singled out by everybody and now it’s the opposite. We are not losers doing things on the street; we are artists with a slightly different view. It’s a little sad, but that’s the way it is. That said, there’s still a generation that grew up with graffiti and has always seen it, and it’s this generation that’s in the cultural centers and the galleries and appreciating it. They have really taken it to the next level.

“In the beginning there were 10 of us. 6 months later, 50. After 2 years, 200 and now it’s hysteria. There are thousands of people painting from all over.”

Can you tell us how you started painting trains and how everything evolved afterwards?
When we started, there were very few people painting trains, especially in Paris, where there was a kind of graffiti tradition based on tags. Before us, some people from the first generations who came from New York did some trains, but very few. They didn’t try to reproduce what was going on in New York. They just did 2 or 3 trains and then went straight to doing canvases or things on the street. During the second wave of graffiti -my generation- there were a lot of young people doing tags and very few doing trains, just a little bit of subway. I think, by accident, it was during our generation when people started to discover the first graffiti fanzines. So we saw what was going on in other places and we saw that there were people doing trains in other European cities. We didn’t even know it. It was a different time, when there was no internet, no social media. We knew graffiti was being painted in England, but we didn’t know it was being painted in Spain, for example. We came across fanzines that were about trains, so we thought: “How weird, people are super motivated by this and the truth is that it’s nice.” We saw a lot of different trains and subways, and there was a kind of aesthetic that really caught our attention.

And then the whole thing grew over the years…
In the beginning there were 10 of us. 6 months later, 50. After 2 years, 200 and now it’s hysteria. There are thousands of people painting from all over. Foreigners from all over the world, even from the farthest corners of Australia or Canada. Everywhere, really. I’ve really seen an explosion of a kind of fascination with trains.

What is your current activity like?
For me, I’ve stopped a bit because I’ve gotten older and I’m trying to work for a living, but I still see what’s going on around me and I see that there’s a kind of mass hysteria around it.

“The fact that you sacrifice everything for your painting is what interests me the most; the fact that you have some kind of artistic goal and you’re willing to sacrifice your whole life, your family life, your parents, spend all your money just for your passion.”

What interests you about this phenomenon?
For people, it really is a way of life. It’s all they live for. They all know each other. They’re in very specific networks. They’re geeks, plain and simple. They know everything by heart, all the model trains, and they go around the world to paint as many different trains as possible. I mean, they don’t half-ass it and I’ve always liked the more extreme side of things, not necessarily extremism for extremism’s sake, but in art I find it very interesting.

The fact that you sacrifice everything for your painting is what interests me the most; the fact that you have some kind of artistic goal and you’re willing to sacrifice your whole life, your family life, your parents, spend all your money just for your passion. It’s crazy. It permeates every aspect of the lives of people who really live for it. It’s all they think about and they can even become super haughty to others or not talk to people who don’t paint trains. It’s not contemporary art, maybe not even art, but it’s an overflowing passion when it comes to something artistic or, at any rate, artistically and creatively based.

Name 4 names that have made European train graffiti what it is now.
That’s difficult. I could name more than 3 but, for example, I would say Mellie in Amsterdam, Nug in Stockholm and Egs in Helsinki. At one point these people completely broke away from graffiti as we knew it before, which was American-inspired and very codified.

In the beginning, people were not trying to differentiate themselves from the United States, they were trying to copy. But these 3 people appeared in the early 90’s, in countries that were culturally speaking very distant from the United States.

What I mean is that it was rather curious that people started doing graffiti in Finland, for example, a very nice country, in the north, where it’s cold and there’s a rock and roll culture. Sweden is the same way, a real rock and roll culture, and these people didn’t listen to hip hop at all. They were far from anything that could be considered New York graffiti: rap, breakdance and so on. They were Vikings who drank all day, listened to heavy metal and thought, “Well, yeah, they do that in New York. We’ll do it too.”  They were more inspired by Mirò, by people who really came from painting, by Metal album cover designs, by rock culture in general, and by traditional elements of their country. In short, their inspiration was much more focused on something European than something American. They also had an excellent mentality: as soon as someone arrived, they went straight to welcome them and teach them to paint on their home turf. There was an immediate exchange.

“What I had experienced in Paris before was that everyone was in their own group, in their own crew. You weren’t supposed to talk to others and the aim was to look down on others.”

How did it differ from the Parisian scene?
What I had experienced in Paris before was that everyone was in their own group, in their own crew. You weren’t supposed to talk to others and the aim was to look down on others. There was even this kind of policy, that people like the BBC proposed, in which you had to have a really macho attitude and say: “We are the best, we don’t talk to others, we are superior.” These people were totally the opposite. In those days there were no e-mails, so we would send a letter and they would reply directly: “See you at the station, on such and such a day, such and such a time.” Something that today would be unlikely. We would take a train and manage to be at the station at such and such a time, and then they would be there, very happy that someone was coming to meet them. Often they were not alone. They would come with almost every other writer in the country. They would greet us with flowers and everyone would go and paint together. There was an incredible dynamic, generosity and a desire to share and show what they were doing and to discover what I was doing.

2Shy works at “Ugly Cool” exhibition.

What struck you most about these writers?
I was very impressed to see that they were doing things totally different from what I had seen in Paris. They had total stylistic freedom, the crazier the better. Although they weren’t really doing anything crazy, they were simply looking at what modern painters were doing, things in the art world. These people were educated, they had gone to good schools and so on, so they knew the art world and they found a way to put their own spin on it to include it in graffiti without it being too obvious. There was still an American graffiti base, but they mixed all that with their own culture, with things that they saw on a day-to-day basis that were really typical of their country, and that was really interesting.

“(…)in Paris, people who had done 20 metros bragged as if they were absolute stars: “I’ve done 20 metros, so you can step off.” All this, while Mellie was doing 20 a week he never said, “I’m the king”.”

Earlier you talked about Mellie from Amsterdam….
As far as Mellie is concerned, he started making pieces in the Amsterdam subway in the early 90’s and, unlike the people before him, he started making lots and lots of them. At that time, there were at least 5 of his pieces in every subway. He painted every day. It was also a slap in the face for me, because before, in Paris, people who had done 20 metros bragged as if they were absolute stars: “I’ve done 20 metros, so you can step off.” All this, while Mellie was doing 20 a week he never said, “I’m the king.” He was always super humble, always happy to share his stuff. He and his crew were machines. When they went to paint, they went in camouflage, they knew all the schedules by heart, they knew all the routes, they went beforehand to plan everything out. In Paris we didn’t see people doing that and we learned a lot from them.

So, on the one hand, there are these 3 people who were, for me, the 3 most important people in Europe. But then there is another character called Chintz, originally from Dortmund, who is completely different but probably just as important.

Honet painting at the MTN Headquarters Barcelona

Chintz is like a figure that only real graffiti scholars know about. How do you explain his importance?
Chintz is a peculiar character. He didn’t talk to anyone, he didn’t have many friends, but he painted more than anyone else, and he had been doing it since the mid-80s, if not before.
He’s been there from the beginning and he’s the first person who really tried to do conceptual things on trains, distancing himself from graffiti with letters doing something more abstract, more reflective; playing with phrases, shapes, and colors and so on.

He was someone who did so many things that he could afford to experiment artistically. Up until then, people had been doing letters, characters, things that had been done before in New York. He had a kind of German rigor with everything done extremely well. For example, he used scotch tape when for a long time people had said that scotch tape was cheating.

“In the end, you realize that people say, “Well, no, there are rules. You have to do it like this. You have to do the letters like this, and if you don’t do the letters like this, well, it’s shit”.”

Graffiti and its rules…
In fact, the strange thing about graffiti is that people make up rules when it’s supposed to be something super free, off the beaten path, against the law, against the orders imposed by parents or by the rules of the city, and so on.

In the end, you realize that people say, “Well, no, there are rules. You have to do it like this. You have to do the letters like this, and if you don’t do the letters like this, well, it’s shit.” So these guys thought they were painting so much that they could afford to piss everybody off, and if they felt like using duct tape, they used duct tape. “If I want to do something that you all think is ugly, I don’t give a shit, I’ll do it. I do things for me. I paint so much that no one can say anything. I’ll crush them. Besides, at least I’m not just here to do the same thing over and over again. I’m also here to push the limits.”

Therefore in himself are the graffiti and contemporary art attitudes compatible?
Chintz is someone who may have a bit of a complicated character, almost worse than the Parisians. But at the same time, there’s a good reason for that, and it is that he’s ultra-efficient in everything he does. He’s really amazing. He’s a magician. You can’t understand how he can do such huge, clean things and have such a reserved attitude. Sometimes he even takes people to paint and doesn’t paint with them. He takes care of them and then comes back the next day, or 1 hour later, to do something bigger alongside it. It’s so extreme that I find it very interesting. It’s artistic, in fact, it’s a character concept. It’s not just his painting, it’s him, the mentality that he represents, the way he does things. All of this is just as interesting, in fact. If I really had to talk about the art world, I think his character deserves to be dissected and analyzed psychologically or artistically, because what he does in terms of painting, lifestyle and commitment is incredible. The way he talks to other people, the way he puts himself above all of it, is really interesting. Then, in the art world, he’s not successful because he behaves the same way with people in the gallery world as he does with other people. He is very reserved. He refuses to go to openings, he doesn’t talk to people he doesn’t know, he doesn’t smile when asked to. This attitude has a lot to do with graffiti, and it’s a shame that the contemporary art world still doesn’t understand it.

“(…) the concepts that Taps & Moses use were first developed by Chintz, but they are much more politically correct.”

It’s too complex, closed and dark, so they’ll say, “Well, let’s not focus on him. Let’s focus on Taps and Moses.” Their work is inspired by everything Chintz does, because he trained them. They were his disciples. He taught them how to do things, the concepts they use were first developed by Chintz, but they are much more politically correct. They use colors they like, they know how to promote. They also have something interesting: they know how to create a link between something big and something very, very social. There you have it, related to the media. It’s also important to know how to make that connection. It’s like knowing how to sell your work. I understand all that too, but the genius behind everything that Taps and Moses do is Chintz, who was there before them, who did everything before them, and he was the one who told them, “Here, you have to do it like this.” They were his disciples. They didn’t surpass the master, but they were able to make the things that he had taught them stand out•