Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

Vermibus’ Street Interventions Show Beauty is Only Skin Deep

Berlin-based artist Vermibus shocks passersby with haunting public interventions, in which he replaces fashion advertisements with his own manipulated versions. To create the staggering, sometimes startling images, Vermibus splashes a solvent across the printed surface. The chemical reaction causes the faces and flesh of models, as well as the logos and brands they represent, to wash away. This process can be viewed in a video produced by Open Walls Gallery in Berlin.

Berlin-based artist Vermibus shocks passersby with haunting public interventions, in which he replaces fashion advertisements with his own manipulated versions. To create the staggering, sometimes startling images, Vermibus splashes a solvent across the printed surface. The chemical reaction causes the faces and flesh of models, as well as the logos and brands they represent, to wash away. This process can be viewed in a video produced by Open Walls Gallery in Berlin.

Operating in a mode between street art and action painting, Vermibus uses the destructive action of erasing in order to create and transform. In his artist statement, Vermibus evokes “voodoo art which uses human elements like hair, or teeth to create anthropomorphic sculptures.” This sentiment is reflected back upon the viewer who is compelled to stop and look at Vermibus’ posters, such as those featuring Kate Moss in the series entitled “Unmasking Kate.” The supermodel, once a backdrop to everyday city life and an ideal of the perfect female body, is now pulled into the foreground, facing the public with raw scars and imperfections. Once used by the fashion industry as a prop to sell clothing, handbags and make-up, Kate Moss is now exploited by Vermibus to set his own agenda of rejecting beauty standards fabricated by the advertising industry.

Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
Despite some drizzly weather, Portland is looking a little more colorful this week. As of August 24th, the nonprofit mural festival Forest for the Trees, previously covered here, has been in high gear as 29 international artists work their magic on buildings across the city. The festival is co-directed by local artist Gage Hamilton and gallerist Matt Wagner of Hellion Gallery in Portland, who wanted to expand on their city's visual identity through art. For its third year in a row, the project has a goal of creating 19 collaborative new murals.
The interventions of Vermibus utilize solvents and brushes to transform advertisements, deconstructing beauty standards and consumers. The Spanish artist's process is akin to painting, yet reveals something more human in taking away the flesh of subjects. The artist's "Unveiling Beauty" and “In Absentia” series, in particular, reintroduce these creations in public spaces across the world.
For many artists, painter's tape is a handy tool used to draw perfect shapes and outlines that are revealed when the tape is removed- but for Berlin based artist collective known as "Tape Over", the tape sticks. Using tape as their preferred drawing material, founding artists Lamia Michna and Robert Konig began first experimenting with tape art in 2011 at Berlin’s electro night club scene, eventually moving their work onto large-scale installations all over the world. Though much of their work is focused on indoor and outdoor murals, they prefer to be called tape muralists over street artists.
In 2014, Italian artist Millo won a competition that enabled him paint 13 multi-story murals in Turin. His work now fills the walls of the small, northern Italian city, inviting playful scenarios into the mundane humdrum of urban life. Millo's murals center around vague, childlike characters, whom he renders in the form of line drawings without many distinguishing features. The lack of detail allows viewers to imagine themselves as these quirky figures, who tower over buildings and seem to use the city as their playground. It's as if the kids got a chance to run things while the adults were away.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List