A few years ago I bumped into Asbestos while he was busy rubbing down one of his large-scale pieces of someone’s hand on somebody else’s wall in a suburb of Antwerp. I know his work but had never met the guy so I stopped to talk. It’s at moments like this that you know you’re gonna get on with someone and me and Asbestos click like a clockwork orange and that is it: Down for life, and so we hang out for a weekend doing the ‘street-art shuffle’ and generally getting down with some serious hang time and talk shop.
‘My art is defined by the people I meet and interpreting them, it’s about the human form and the environment that I live in’ he says. ‘I like to interact with the space that’s around me and the streets are ripe with opportunities to express yourself. Whether it’s a painting I’ve put up on a wall or a sticker on a lamppost, it all adds to the layers of dirt and personality of a city. My paintings are meant to become part of their environment and the longer they stay up, the more they blend in and integrate with the walls. Hopefully the odd passer-by will see the work and react to it. Positive or negative, any response is good for me — once work is out on the street it’s fair game to be loved or criticized, I release all control of it once I put it out there.’
What I like about Asbestos’ work is that his gallery pieces are all created on discarded material found in the streets, usually around where the show is taking place.
‘All my work is done on found objects, be it wood, plasterboard, metal or anything else I notice in a skip at 3 am. These objects have a history and a personality to them that cannot be faked. They’re a snapshot of the past and part of the fabric of the city which missed their chance of a quiet life in a landfill site.’
His art has evolved in a natural way. He has never jumped on any bandwagon or followed any trends in art whatsoever.
‘In the last year my work has been inspired by the use of the triangle and deconstructionist shapes that I’ve seen in architectural structures. The triangle has now become a central element in my work that ties together the dirty, random, found aesthetic that I’ve always loved with a hard and structured form of the triangle. Thinking about the triangle, I’ve come to realize it’s the coolest of all the shapes — circles and squares have nothing on it.’
The other side of Asbestos’ art is his Lost Series of stickers and posters that advertise random missing objects that are lost but may not need to be found.
‘This series has been a constant in my work over that last few years and provides me with a bizarrely fun outlet to interact with the public. I’m constantly getting amused and bemused mails from people who’ve spotted the stickers to tell me that they’ve found what’s lost or that they hope I find one of my errant objects.’
Jonas Åkerlund is one of the world’s most visionary and consistently innovative film directors. He’s created some of the greatest, most memorable music videos for the likes of The Prodigy, Madonna, Blink 182, The Smashing Pumpkins and Ali-G (respect!) and made the transition to the big screen seamlessly with his debut feature Spun — a film so dope that it made me want to start taking drugs again (after being totally clean for at least five years) when I last watched it! His Swedish sensibilities ensure that his work is always original, and bacon-sandwich-droppingly controversial. Way back when, Jonas happened to be working for a production company when he was presented with an opportunity to step up his game.
‘I was working in other areas of production when Swedish TV went commercial. We were one of the last countries in the world to have commercial TV and when it happened every company wanted a commercial. So I just started shooting commercials. It was the most natural thing for me to do.’
He then began to make commercials in Europe and then gradually moved into music videos, which is where he found worldwide fame. He blew up with his brilliant and controversial ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ video, which is still the greatest music video — ever.
‘I think being Swedish I have a different shock level than the rest of the world, so I honestly try and bend the rules. I know that you can’t show certain things. With the Prodigy video, the most shocking thing was how big it became. This was before the Internet so everyone was passing around videotapes. Everyone saw it you know, Jay Leno made jokes about it on his show for five nights in a row… It was the first time that I made something that seemed to affect people…’
I kinda wonder if the music video is still relevant now as it was back inna day, when MTV ruled supremely. I ask Jonas if he still feels the same when he is making the videos today as he was back then.
‘I still enjoy making music videos but the problem I have is that everyone is worried about the content. There used to be a time when the videos were creative and free from all red tape, the brief was ‘just do something that we haven’t seen before, something that sticks out that people talk about’. And today the brief is that it’s gotta be ‘Iconic’. Making music videos has recently become a bit more like doing a commercial, but with an inexperienced client. The thing with advertising agencies is that they know what they are talking about. They know their audience. With the music world they are all smart-asses who all think they know what they’re talking about — but they really don’t. Out of that inexperience comes great creativity, that’s why I still love it!’
Back in 2002 when he made Spun, no one would even send Mickey Rourke a script, let alone cast him in a movie; he was seen as box-office poison by the fools who run the show, but Jonas ignored all this bullshit and cast him as ‘The Cook’ — one of Mickey’s finest roles to date. I give him total respect for that action alone. Jonas has recently completed shooting a $25m horror film, Horsemen, and continues to create amazing music videos and commercials around the world.
So I may be a bit biased (as I used to be an art director, hence the ADZ in my name) but advertising has had a massive influence on street culture and vice versa. In terms of audio/visual culture, adverts are not only massively influenced by street shit (usually they are always playing catch-up to what is really happening on the street), they also, once in a while, influence it. Okay, so right now the advertising industry is in a bit of a strange place as the Internet came along and changed everything. The web is a showcase of original ideas, created by everyone and anyone — it totally changed the way ad agencies worked, who were no longer an exclusive source of creative genius anymore.
Back inna day a full-scale ad campaign to launch a new product consisted of a couple of press ads, some outdoor and — the king of ads — a TV spot or two. Now all that has changed but some of advertising’s most respected players — and my personal heroes (Tony Kaye, Oliviero Toscaniro) — have made their names in advertising before moving on to bigger and better things. Take for instance the legendary Dunlop-Tested For The Unexpected TV ad from 1993, an advert that totally changed the face of how TV ads were made and watched. The most amazing visuals (an S&M mask-clad man, a grand piano on wheels driving across a bridge, black ball bearings), cut to a Velvet Underground