Since the early 1980s, Marcus Krips has been one of the artists who regularly appears in connection with the term graffiti.

With a background as a punk and occupier of the former Cologne chocolate factory, his pictures are not in the mainstream of American pieces, but rather find their connections in a simple, universal graphic language. Similar to the Graffiti A.R. Pencks and Harald Naegelis used their pictures as a spontaneous expression on the wall and also integrated individual text elements.

After further academic training with Nam June Paik and at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, Krips repeatedly carried out media transfers of his graffiti. A CD-ROM project commissioned by the Research Center Jülich (together with the media artist Lili Voigt) allows his characters to appear as line creatures in photos and films from the science institute; or they stage similar interactions between the paintbox, the interactive viewer and found material in exhibitions and media festivals. A more recent work by Krips creates a new relationship between the original drawing impulse for graffiti and the public. As KripsKunstSpam, the artist offers to send a picture daily by email. The electronic subscription to artistic production combines the ideal of self-marketing with the graphic marking of the environment.

It is not without irony that Marcus Krips speaks of spam, the electronic form of information waste, in relation to his own existence as a sprayer. At the same time, the opportunity for the artist is as tempting as it is demanding: a product every day, paid for regularly. The fact that he can almost persistently connect his stream of consciousness to that of the viewer is another parallel to his images, which can still be found in many places. Here he can administer his criticism of advertising, commercialization or the manipulation and control by the media in daily doses - in keeping with a practice that is based on a small commercial solution

Credits to https://www.kripskunstspam.de/index.php?id=47
translated on Google translator

Artworks in Cologne