America’s ongoing, haphazard response to the coronavirus pandemic sparks a forlorn envy. New Zealand all but eradicated the illness. South Korea gained fame for its uber-organized response. Ever original, Americans followed their own rhythm, embracing a widespread frenzy over facemasks and faux personal freedoms.
This year’s pandemic illuminated both logistical shortcomings and cultural clashes. It made sense to me that hyper-individualistic Americans floundered while more collectively-inclined countries like Germany found solid footing. Dissent still took root, even in the land of logic. With an eye on creative responses to the crisis, I was surprised to learn the motive behind German street artist LAPIZ’s work titled “Liberty Suspended,” which questioned the moral basis of the measures Germany put in place to protect their people.
The artist’s biography states that “LAPIZ is currently living in Germany, but taught himself to paint on the streets of Dunedin (New Zealand). In Africa he worked on HIV, but the shocking social contrasts were processed via public interventions. While living in Buenos Aires (Argentina) he started painting huge, socio-critical Stencils.”
Over a video chat bridging the Atlantic, LAPIZ and I talked careers and coronavirus. I wondered if he’d always been so frank about his contrarian opinions. “No, I was super quiet,” the artist smiled. His fraternal twin brother was the outspoken child in their household. When LAPIZ left Germany to begin university, he told himself, “This has to stop now. I’m going to reinvent myself.”
When LAPIZ left Germany to begin university, he told himself, “This has to stop now. I’m going to reinvent myself.”
The transition, though momentous, came with ease. The artist recalled, “it was just a completely new, clean slate.” LAPIZ spent his youth moving around the world with his family, even residing in New York during the 1980s. As he continued to traverse life and countries, he found a bit of extroversion imperative to meeting friends and having a good time.
LAPIZ earned his master’s degree in biology while working at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. The soon-to-be artist spent his 2004 to 2005 tenure “working with mothers whose newborn babies were HIV positive.” He recalled that at the time, “it was the place with the most HIV cases in the world. A quarter of the population was positive.”
LAPIZ moved onto New Zealand, earning his PhD at the University of Otago in Dunedin while helping to develop an orally-administered vaccine against tuberculosis. “It was like a completely different world,” the artist said of this move. “In South Africa, you would not know what would happen the next day. The life was pumping, and you could feel it. I love New Zealand, it’s a beautiful place, but it’s in the land of nowhere.”
“In South Africa, you would not know what would happen the next day. The life was pumping, and you could feel it. I love New Zealand, it’s a beautiful place, but it’s in the land of nowhere.”
“It was this rift that happened in my mind where I just needed to vent myself, my feelings,” LAPIZ recalled with emphasis. He remembered, “that’s when I started doing art. I was a scientist for a few more years. I would say for the last two years that I lived in Argentina, I became a real artist, doing only art.”
He left New Zealand in 2010, searching for more exciting pastures. The artist was mugged while travelling in Nicaragua. LAPIZ knew that he didn’t want to return to Germany or to New Zealand. His girlfriend, who he’d been travelling with, originally hailed from Buenos Aires. Together, they set off for Argentina.
At first, LAPIZ bounced around various abodes in Tigre, just outside Buenos Aires. “I first taught some English and German, and then did a post-doctorate at the Ministry of Agriculture,” he said. “When the economy crashed, I went to Patagonia for six months and worked as a tour guide.”
He brought these skills back to Buenos Aires, working for a street art tour company upon re-entering the city’s bounds. Inspired by the change of profession, LAPIZ also began painting murals on the street. Like fate, he met internationally-acclaimed muralist Fintan Magee through the tour company. LAPIZ worked as Magee’s translator and assistant while the muralist endeavored upon his first Argentinian project. Magee was the first artist Lapiz met who made a living from street art. “Why not try it?” LAPIZ asked himself. “Why not go for it and see where it gets me?”
LAPIZ boasts no formal artistic training. “I used to do wood cuts and put them on papers and put them in my cupboards. No one would see them. Then a friend told me about Banksy,” LAPIZ said. The hopeful upstart felt fascinated that an infamous artist had made their name in an accessible medium like stencils. “It clicked and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, this is exactly what I want to do,’” he recounted.
The hopeful upstart felt fascinated that an infamous artist had made their name in an accessible medium like stencils. “It clicked and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, this is exactly what I want to do,’” he recounted.
That decision spawned a career. Today, LAPIZ’S bio cites that “his interventions have been featured on television and in blogs such as Brooklyn Street Art, I Support Street Art and the London Street Art Design Magazine, and can be enjoyed at festivals and collections worldwide, including the Grenoble Street Art Festival, MUCA, the IBUG, and Kunstlabor.”
His principles developed along the way. “I won’t go into a favela and paint some really horrible social critique because they really don’t need that,” LAPIZ said. “What they need is something uplifting. But if I go to some rich place in Germany, I’m not going to paint a happy child. It doesn’t compute for me. I think you always have to give the people what they need… In Germany they need way more nudging and poking.”
“I won’t go into a favela and paint some really horrible social critique because they really don’t need that,” LAPIZ said. “What they need is something uplifting.”
His art excels in nudging, particularly pieces like ‘Liberty Suspended.’ LAPIZ believes that while the coronavirus situation in Germany was under control, it gave Germans a palpable superiority complex. “As a scientist, I wonder why our numbers are so low. There might be a lot of different reasons,” he explained, beyond virtuousness or pragmatism.
His passive observations progressed into volition by way of contemplation. LAPIZ currently lives near the border that once separated East Germany from West Germany after WWII. “People would die because they tried to cross over to the West. The people there fought for a long time to just be free to have normal human rights like the right of gathering, or the right to protest to say your mind. I found it so weird, how easy it was to just suspend it.”
He continued, “I think the one thing that I really got sick of hearing was ‘it’s all for security.’” While he thinks Germany’s mentality appeared to be, “you have to take care of the safety of others,” LAPIZ noted that “in Germany, it’s bullshit. We have the autobahn where you can just drive as fast as you want to.”
The double standard frustrated him, until LAPIZ finally said, “I can’t take this anymore. I’m just gonna have to do something.” ‘Liberty Suspended’ was a small, but powerful installation. Placed at an intersection typically central to Hamburg’s nightlife, ‘Liberty Suspended’ appropriated Lady Liberty’s likeness, draping her in the cautionary tape that German officials used to cordon off forbidden areas. LAPIZ set this powerful symbolism against the German constitution and highlighted the many freedoms which had been suspended to deal with this health crisis.
In a sense, the artist harbors a cautious respect for the virus’s power. “What I like about viruses is that they don’t care,” LAPIZ smiled. “They don’t care about skin color. They don’t care about if you’re man or woman, they don’t care about your income level. They don’t give a shit about that. It’s just a virus.”
In a sense, the artist harbors a cautious respect for the virus’s power. “What I like about viruses is that they don’t care,” LAPIZ smiled. “They don’t care about skin color. They don’t care about if you’re man or woman, they don’t care about your income level. They don’t give a shit about that. It’s just a virus.”
I pointed out that the pandemic sparked conversations, at least in America, about how race and class play into issues including one’s likelihood of contracting the virus and their access to healthcare. He countered with the story of a burgeoning coronavirus hotspot centered around a Tönnies meat processing factory. “There was a huge outcry,” LAPIZ said, “and then it came out that there are no Germans working in the whole factory. It’s just Polish and Romanians, because it’s work that no one would do.” These underpaid foreign laborers live and work in crowded areas lacking proper sanitation.
“On the one hand, you have rich people that go skiing in Austria, and they bring it back,” LAPIZ explained. “On the other hand, you have migrant workers that get totally fucked up in Germany, working in horrible conditions. They go home and they take the virus with them… the rich can afford health care and the other ones, they won’t get it.”
A driven artist of fervent moral character, I wondered how he balances his ideals against his desire for material success. “It’s really boring to be doing the same thing over and over,” he mused. He conceded that some subject matter deserves consistent attention, that artists should “dig deep into a problem,” whether it’s coronavirus or human rights or child labor. “It’s not like you paint a wall and then ‘fine, the subject is over,’” LAPIZ said. The trick lies in creative exploration with a fixed focus on what’s important.
He’s struggled in his quest for this delicate balance. LAPIZ described a piece of his art that clients often commission. “There’s a girl dancing in the rain,” he began. “It’s colorful rain, and it’s a happy girl dancing. But that’s just the lower part. Above, there’s all the nasty shit. People normally just want the lower part.” LAPIZ sighed, “I will do it because they pay me to do it, but my heart is not in it. I do that for money. But if I do something that my heart is in, then I think it’s authentic.”
“I will do it because they pay me to do it, but my heart is not in it. I do that for money. But if I do something that my heart is in, then I think it’s authentic.”
He yearns to “paint more, get paid more, but most all, stay true to myself and do new stuff. It’s really important to venture into an entirely new area, do stuff that you have never done before. I like the projects the most that have a 50/50 chance of failure… I really don’t want to do art that is safe or self-centered. I think that’s the worst thing you can do as an artist.”
For the world at large, LAPIZ hopes “that people will come to their senses.” He mentioned that German policymakers have “this horrible term, ‘relevant to the system’… they say, ‘a teacher is relevant to the system, a nurse is relevant to the system, but we’re not going to pay them anything. We’re just going to stand on the balcony and clap and that’s cool, but we’re not going to pay them anything more.’ I think that has to change, for sure.”
Overall, though, LAPIZ enjoyed shutdown. He had some friends come to visit, and the artist savored spending time with them free from the distractions of parties and openings and panel discussions. “I would really hope that they would do this, fuck the virus, once a year for two months… I wish we would just dial back a little bit. We don’t have to live that fast.”
“I would really hope that they would do this, fuck the virus, once a year for two months… I wish we would just dial back a little bit. We don’t have to live that fast.”
This coming from the man who created ‘Liberty Suspended.’ One of my favorite things about interviewing street artists lies in the common thread that seemingly unites them all — a brave willingness to explore life beyond the traditional milestones set before us. Some of our freedoms don’t actually render us so free. The freedom to capitulate to society’s frantic rat race is not any great liberty compared to the actual factors which make life meaningful. Pandemic or not, taking accountability for one’s own values is the greatest liberty of all. It is never suspended, but frequently forgotten. Artists like LAPIZ help us remember, if only for a moment, with a chance encounter on some paint-splashed street corner.
