Ministry -El Bocho – I miss my Plattenbau (Green, Pink)

El Bocho – I miss my Plattenbau (Green, Pink)

El Bocho is undoubtedly one of the most prominent urban artists in Germany. He is an anonymous street artist who has made the city of Berlin his big personal canvas. He mainly uses pastes that are known for their size and quality, but he is also known for his work with stencils and standard graffiti. Over the years, El Bocho has created many unique figures and symbols that make his work instantly recognisable. The artist’s work can be traced back to 1997, and this year is often considered the beginning of El Bocho’s career.

He began on a small scale, mainly marking walls and bombing random surfaces on Frankfurt’s streets. Since then, El Bocho has developed and improved what would soon become his trademark. The huge cut-outs and installations, up to 20 feet high. While creating and studying on the road, El Bocho worked as an illustrator and typographer by day. When he decided to focus entirely on street art and interventions, El Bocho stopped doing traditional graffiti. He made a big move to Berlin, where his art could take on impressive proportions. El Bocho wants to reach people who don’t visit art-specific places like galleries or museums. He is also known for never printing, because El Bocho personally draws every scene he sticks on the streets of Berlin.

His main characters:

In 2003, El Bocho invented his own symbol, the famous doll Little Lucy. The enchanting figure was based on a Czech television series from the 1970s that the artist loved to watch as a child. El Bocho named her Little Lucy – Fear of the Streets. Although El Bocho admittedly found the original figure rather boring, he nevertheless took it on and gave it a new coat of paint. The artist chose a strong dash of dark humour and gave his little Lucy the habit of killing her cat! The unfortunate kitten can be found painted in washing machines, cooked as a spit or simply grilled in the microwave.

But El Bocho also has a softer touch that has led him to some interesting series like his famous citizens. This series is based on portraits with little pop-up clouds filled with text, similar to the concepts of communication in comics. Depending on the type of representation and feeling he chooses, the artist uses different types of paper. El Bocho works mainly with large-format cut-outs, but he also uses stencils and has recently started working on tiles. In addition to his brilliant style and skill, El Bocho also has an impressive record. In July 2019, he created the largest piece of tape art in the world in the German capital. Using 15,000 metres of tape, he created an 1100 m² work in front of the Stadtbad in Wedding. El Bocho is featured in national and international books, magazines, newspapers and exhibitions.