Fasim for Urban Skills 2018

The Barcelona artist Germán Bel / Fasim recently participated in the first edition of the ‘Urban Skills’ Festival. Held in the town of Alcoy In Alicante Fasim created somewhat of a surprising intervention.

A risky proposal

Taking seven days to complete, Fasim surprised the festival organisers with an unexpected proposal. He proposed a risky experiment of making a collage game. Fasim’s idea is based on the old game from the surrealist group headed by André Breton. There is also themes taken from Paul-Émile Borduas’ group ‘Les automatiques’ and the avant-garde Dada. The idea is of automatic drawing but taken to the gigantic scale of mural painting.

Fasim for Urban Skills Festival. Pic by Jordi Arques

Fasim said “This psychological game has always attracted me because it changes all concepts, poses new meanings and I like to alter things. Since I was a child I always try to see things from other points of view, even the impossible or delirious that are my favourite. It is an act of poetic rebellion.”

The inspiration for this mural came to Fasim in August whilst in Paris. He visited the Lourve Museum to study some of the ceramics treasured by the Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities. This trip left Fasim bursting with ideas that bore positive fruit when he set to work on this new and fascinating series.

The giant figure in the humble district of Batoy recalls the power of the ancient gods and is also a return to the figure of the Totem. These totem’s are practically forgotten today but fundamental in our history. From the Totem all religions departed and this comes from the pareidolias and the ancestral shamanic visions. The neighbors were pleasantly surprised from the first moment that the two faces of the tigers emerged from the top of the building.

Wildstyles

It seems that this unexpected twist of Fasim has surprised the urban art scene more accustomed to its classic black figures created from juxtapositions of abstract stains or its legendary wildstyles.

“I always like to work with new challenges. I’m not always painting the same painting or the same mural. I couldn’t do it, because I always find new ways of expressing myself. New series that excite me and I end them or abandon them when I’m already in another new game.”

He stated that this wall is only an experimental that has been successful, but that could have gone very badly.

“Sometimes what one prepares as a sketch does not always work on the wall. I risked a little but in the end I am very satisfied with the result.”