the street is our gallery

Know your place citizen – Consume! Even though Germany has not applied quite a harsh lockdown compared to many other places in the world it has become an indicator for what is deemed essential. With this year coming to an end it becomes more obvious each day: What really matters to society, what really counts and what defines the system, is the ever growing economy. We shall reduce our social contacts so we can consume. Restaurants and Bars need to close, socialising and eating is not important anymore, neither is culture, even worse it is punishable. Museums, theatres and concert halls are closed while galleries remain open for business.

Can anyone remember how it was to party and escape everyday life in a club or a festival? All of this does not matter anymore but we’ll get something in return: Christmas….well Christmas-shopping to be precise starting with Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Kids stay in school, so their parents can work, after all, someone has to buy all that “Christmas” crap. All hail the GDP, who needs to be happy anyways!

This artwork was in Sankt Pauli district in Hamburg, Germany, December 2020

About LAPIZ:

LAPIZ is a self-taught artist working on canvases and walls. His ever-evolving stencil work seeks to disrupt unwitting viewers from everyday life’s pseudo-soothing normalcy. While his work is socially critical, he believes that jarring realizations rendered beautifully benefit society. Anger, sadness, or disbelief are the natural inputs that precede action, organization, acts of hope — they are the byproducts of critical thought. LAPIZ creates work that simultaneously exposes the injustices of our world and the development of his own creative self. Its vivid colors scream from between the stencils’ neat lines, sometimes breaking their bounds in an effort to promote truth and provoke dialogue.

LAPIZ:  [email protected]  / @lapizgraffiti