How to save the world in just a couple of years

From July 22 to August 18, Russian cities (Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Perm, Yekaterinburg, Vladivostok) will tour the Swiss-Slovenian duo Veli & amos. Artists will show their film “Style Wars 2”-a kind of sequel to the legendary picture of the 1983 New York street art, Row-Muy, dedicated to graffiti scene in the States, Europe, Israel, Palestine. As well as music clips and videos of their many projects, which combine kichevy rap, street art and other disciplines.

- For starters: how did you meet?

He led: this happened in Slovenia, in Maribor, at the railway station, where we made a mistake with our friends. This is shown in the film "Style Wars 2" : Amos lay on the tracks and was going to shoot a train that was supposed to drive over it. We quickly began to stir up something together: record music, shoot a film, draw graffiti. Now our projects are a mixture of all this.

Style Wars 2 Trailer

- How long did it take to make a film? It is preceded by the titer of “No Money Production” - did you look for money for the picture or filmed everything at your own expense?

Amos: Five years have passed from the idea to the embodiment. In 2008, we visited New York, where we saw the graffiti “Style Wars 2” -and since we were fans of this film, we decided to find the author. We worked on him in our free time and without sponsors - therefore, we spent so much time.

True , we took a little money at the cash desk of one of the bars to buy tickets to New York.

Amos: But we were removed by the video camera of the institution, and when we were about to go to America with money, we had to return everything that we stole. Could plant.

- You still stole the money from the box for donations in the church; Did it get away with you too?

Amos: Well, yes, the caretaker at first was very angry, but then she gave us food and even a little money for a railway ticket. There were many adventures with us during the filming.

Switzerland is not the best country for graffiti, everyone fights for the cleanliness of the walls.

- What happens to Graffiti in Switzerland? How good is this place for self -expression?

He led: Well, this is not the best country for graffiti - here is a very expensive real estate, everyone is fighting for the cleanliness of the walls. So it’s very easy to get to the police for graffiti. In addition, there are characters such as Mr. White from our film - they are busy covering graffiti with paint.

- Ordinary stereotypes about Switzerland: a bourgeois country, a measured, boring life. Why did you move there?

Amos: If you are an artist, then living in a boring place is not such a bad idea. Berlin, where everyone hangs out 24 hours a day, would suit us less. Firstly, the movement is very distracting-you all the time go to other people's concerts and exhibitions. And secondly, here we are forced to come up with something bright and unexpected to fight boredom all the time. Plus - we often tour, and from Switzerland it is easy to move to anywhere in Europe.

Led: and then the grass can be grown!

- Legal?

Veril: Well, almost.

- Returning to Mr. White from your film: what drives people who paint over graffiti? He spends a lot of time, energy on this, buys paint with his own money.

Amos: For Mr. White, painting graffiti with white paint is an artistic act. He does not just return the walls their original color, but uses white. Once upon a time, Mr. White was also a graffitic, but then decided to choose such a way to express himself. Although, like other graffiti, he was sometimes taken to the police, he explained that he was fighting for the cleanliness of the houses, and he was released.

He led: now he, in my opinion, is no longer doing this: now he is a rather successful musician. But his old works can be seen in several galleries.

We found one predictor of the future from Belgrade. He opened the Tarot cards to us and said that there is the only way to save whales: to bury the coffin with the sound system.

- The film ends at a huge painted wall in Palestine. Wasn't you scared to go there?

Amos: In some places there are many teenagers-asking people who can be angry and throw a stone into you if you will not give them anything. But in general, we were not afraid.

He led: we became friends there with many people, someone even addicted to graffiti. But this did not enter the film, we had 150 hours of material.

-Banksy left graffiti on that Palestinian wall in the form of a hole with a blue sky and a little boy-artist. In your film, the Palestinian boy paints this work with brickwork. This scene can be mistaken for the anthem of isolationism and Autarchy: they say, this is our territory, leave me alone with us with your Western art.

Incidentally: by the way, tourists come to these graffiti, because they are in Bethlehem, in the city where Jesus was born. Rather, our hero wanted to remind you that the wall is just a wall.

Amos: This, rather, is really such an answer to a beautiful illusion - the reality remains the way it is. By the way, there are many other Banksi works around this masonry.

-During your travels, you found some features characteristic of graffiti in different countries: States, Slovenia, Palestine? Because, in the opinion of the layman, this is very globalist art-it is difficult to distinguish graffiti on the wall in Maribor and in New York.

He led: of course, as in any art, in graffiti there are their own schools and trends. But with the Internet, everything became like. Although in Israel there is more political graffiti, and in New York it moved from the walls to the gallery, commercialized.

Veli & amos - "All of the Lines "

- Tell us a little about the new project Let's Save the Whales International . Why do you want to save whales?

He led: the whole world must be saved, just whales are the largest mammals in the world, so you need to start with them. In fact, we are going to raise many problems in this project, whales - only part of the overall picture.

Amos: We want to change the world: to deal with political and religious problems, unfair laws. In general, make the world a safer place for future generations! This will be the new Road Muy in combination with music tracks. We plan to remove something during a trip to Russia. We want to get to Vladivostok, from there to Japan.

He led: I would call it a “muviment” - something between Movie and Movement . Because there are only two of Amos, and there are a lot of whales - we must attract as many people from the outside as possible to this project.

Amos: We found one famous predictor of the future from Belgrade on You T Ube . He opened Tarot cards to us and said that there is the only way to save whales. It is to bury the coffin with the sound system built into it-which we did in the video "Birds Canat Talk" .

"Birds Canomet Talk"

- YouTube has a lot of funny music videos with you. How did you start making music?

He led: when we toured with our film, we wanted to support ourselves in a creative form, and it was easier to record tracks than painting the canvases. In general, in a sense, our songs are a continuation of our travel diary, which was the film “Style Wars 2” . We do not perform concerts, songs are part of the show, small sketches.

Amos: Although, after voyage in Russia and Japan, we are going to go to New York for six months and concentrate on rap. Rap is something that we do for money, art is a hobby. For us, this hobby began with Lil Wayne . We like his simple rhymes, we very often listened to him - even began to read how he was.

He was: we earn a ramp, we invest money in the salvation of whales. This journey is a common thing for us, but a huge event for Russia. We want to save the world - we will start from your country, continue in Japan, and then we will go to the States.

- That is, you have an art mission.

Amos: Probably, but if we postulate something with our art, then we do it indirectly, very streamlined.

He led: it is like with the wall painted by the Palestinian boy Ibrahim. The more questions and interpretations its action causes, the better.