Totally Stockholm 1
Photo: Per Englund photo: Christofer Ekman Paul S
vensson How was it to be a part of the graffiti and skateboarding communities in Sweden in the early 90s, under the no-tolerance policy? Do you think working under that no-tolerance policy affected you as an artist? In the early 90s, the colourful skate scene of the 80s, with vert ramps and rock star pros died out and made way for the new more technical street skating scene. Younger pros with snotty attitudes and a new bag of tricks, took the stage. New companies with a F-U attitude and a whole new aesthetic took over the market from skate moguls. The new skate scene of the early 90s wasn’t crowd pleasing, it was for skaters by skaters. Skateboarding’s popularity decreased until there were only a few of us left. In Stockholm we were a tight-knit group of about 30 people, skating parking garages and the remains of the 80s skateparks for a couple of years. Around 95-96, the ugly style of early 90s skateboarding and skate fashion had gotten so polished that it caught the eyes of the public again and started growing. Skateparks were built, business was booming and skaters grew to stardom. Now, it’s bigger than ever. The graffiti scene in Sweden almost went through the same transformation. In the 80s, big, colourful, super-complex, wild-style pieces were the norm. But due to the zero tolerance policy, the writers needed to be quicker. Probably there was also the fact that the new generation had different taste than their predecessors. New styles and letterforms started to appear. Simpler built, almost ironic takes on classic graffiti styles became the norm. The early 90s were about experimentation. In the late 90s the experiment was ready to become a thing again. Graffiti and street art became popular, graffiti shops opened and the legal walls was crammed with people. I’ve always been more interested in the aesthetics and the social part of graffiti, rather than the adventure of hard core painting, so the zero tolerance policy didn’t affect me so much personally even though it sucked when iconic pieces got buffed (removed) and art shows got raided (yes that happened). Of course when all the legal places to paint got shut down it was a bummer, but we found new places where you could paint in broad daylight and hang out and party. You later moved on to working with poster art. Do you think the leap between graffiti and poster art isn’t that big? They’re both a kind of street art that depend on catching the attention of passers-by. Yes, it has got a lot of similarities, having a background in graffiti and an interest in composition and letterforms has definitely helped me in my poster work. The driving force of wanting people to see your work is totally the same. I get the same kick out of seeing my posters or designs all over town as I got seeing my piece on a wall. How did you get involved in working with design for musicians? When I was younger many of my friends had bands or were club kids, I started out doing their flyers and xeroxed posters. As we grew, the work grew too. And being a social kid who liked to party and go to clubs gave me many friends, friends who later became promotors or artists. How does it feel to be someone whose art has a presence in the real world, via posters, album covers, skateboards and so on? How does it feel when you see your art out in the world? I love it. It’s awesome to see your work in the real world, or to know that your skateboard graphic is hanging on the deck wall in every skate shop in the world. Even though you get used to it I still get hyped every time I see a kid in a skate park riding one of my designs or see someone in the streets wearing my design on a t-shirt. But the coolest thing is when I have had poster cam17