Global Graphica

There’s a lot of street art in the gallery-theater compound tucked into a back-alley courtyard off Rosenthaler Strasse in the Hackescher Market area of Berlin.  Below is an illustration-styled painting a girl with pink hair, reminiscent of a character in a Japanese comic book (“manga”) or graphic novel.

Street art in a courtyard alley in the Hackescher Market of Mitte in Berlin: This black-and-white human-scale poster of an illustrated cat says “I’m not free.” The cat wears a t-shirt on which is written the name of Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei, who was briefly jailed in China earlier this year.

The Humboldt Box on Museum Island in Berlin’s Mitte. The building is an “interim” exhibition structure on the site of the future Humboldt Forum, which will be built on the same site and completed in 2019.

The iconic Daimler Mercedes-Benz logo speaks for itself atop this 1960-70′s era office tower in Charlottenberg, in the former heart of  west Berlin. The logo slowly spins around, as the pix below attest.

Love this. Here’s another one of those sculptures that’s bound to make somebody say “WTF?” when they see it.  We stumbled upon this near the Museum for Photography and Zoo Station in Charlottenburg, in Berlin. The artwork is a powerful, mysterious and verging-on-ominous post-modern object, hinting at some dark industrial process with its pipe-like elements. Thing of beauty within the faded, conservative glamour that is heart of posh West Berlin.

A random sample of station-name signs on the U-Bahn subway in Berlin, Germany. Pictured here: Potsdamer Platz,  Stadtmitte, Oranienburger Tor, and Mehringdamn.

While some of the Global Graphica team have decamped to Berlin this week and is posting from the German capital, some of us have been cooking up a little visual goodness of stuff in New York City.

Here we bring you the first clip in the Global Graphica “Visual Culture” video series: A video snapshot of some of the art, architecture, design, branding, street atmosphere and creative landscape of the NYC Meat Packing District.

Visual Culture in the NYC Meat Packing District from Super Core on Vimeo.

The wonderful modern-contemporary architectural design of the towering GSW Hochhaus building in north end of Kreuzberg, near Mitte, in central Berlin.

Stencil street art on Museum Island in Mitte, in Berlin. What’s so striking about this stencil is that it’s duplicated and the image of a masked man — reminiscent of a terrorist –  and the “A” (for “anarchy”?) is itself mysterious and discomforting.

That the image is on a government street barrier in the cultural heart of Berlin, an area with scant graffiti or street art, is a statement, perhaps. The juxtaspostion of black stencil paint and the red and white of the barrier catch the eye as if to worn the viewer.

The presence of a hardcore German football (soccer) club supporters sticker — Karlsbande Ultras — brings another element of disruption to the image and the hint of violence.

In front of the Martin Gropius Bau museum in Berlin currently hangs a large red banner that says “Freiheit fur Ai Wei Wi” (Freedom for Ai Wei Wei”), the influential Chinese artist who was arrested and held by authorities for a few months earlier this year. A major exhibition of Wei Wei’s artwork is scheduled at the Gropius Bau this autumn.

“Escape” wheat-paste street-art posting on a utility box at the Wall Memorial at Bernauer Strasse near Wedding, near the north end of Mitte in Berlin. We’ve seen a lot of these posters around the city, sometimes with different words or phrases.

The old-school and beautifully decaying kiosk on the U-Bahn subway platform at Mehringdamn Station in Kreuzberg, in Berlin.

The sexy architectural design of the Otto Bock building in Potsdamerplatz in Berlin. The structure was built to  house the company’s Science Center Medizintechnik and to mark Otto Bock’s 90-year anniversary.

Our favorite piece of street art we’ve seen thus far in Berlin and one of the best we’ve seen all year. It’s about the context, the “meta” of it: A street art wheat-paste poster of a large-format high-res photograph of a dude in a red hoodie writing or drawing on a wall.

Super-cool graphic design on a poster for a Red Bull-sponsored music event at the legendary Hansa Studios in Berlin.

Pictured here are True Religion’s bicycles parked in front of the denim brand’s Berlin shop on Munzstrasse in the Scheunenviertel neighborhood of Mitte.

Bikes are everywhere in Berlin. The streets are filled with cyclists and there are many bike lanes connecting neighborhoods. The city has adopted a bicycle-share system  like those pioneered in Montreal, Barcelona and elsewhere in recent years.

Some shops and hotels deploy there own albeit small branded bike-loaner systems.

The “How Long is Now” on the side of the  landmark Kunsthaus Tacheles artist studio-squat complex on Oranienburgerstrasse in Mitte.

More pix of Mykita: This time, images of the wonderful interior design at Mykita in Berlin. Also … more pix of those future-chic sunglasses in the window display at Mykita.

Mykita is a maker of high-quality, high-end eyewear. The company has built a much-loved brand around the design and manufacture of edgy, stylish hand-made frames that sell globally to a loyal following. (We have to admit, we are among the brand’s devotees, with a couple of pairs of Mykita glasses already to our name and, perhaps, another set.) Below are a couple of futuristic pairs of eyeglasses in the display window showcase at the beautiful flagship Mykita boutique in the Scheunenviertel neighborhood of Mitte, in Berlin.

We’ve seen a few of these Alias “Devil Girl with Roses”stencil artworks in Berlin, around the Spandauer Vorstadt area of Mitte and in the Prenzlauer-Berg area. This one was found – to be more precise – on Kastanienallee street  in Prenzlauer-Berg.