POKRAS LAMPAS X MADE IN BED

Pokras Lampas is a well-known Russian artist, developer of his own “Calligrafuturism” style and the creator of the largest calligraphy graffiti in the world. By painting the square in front of the RZD Arena in Moscow, he set the world record. The area of the graffiti is 11,000 square meters. Over the past years, Pokras has collaborated with brands such as Nike, YSL, Dries Van Noten, FENDI, Nasdaq, and more, and has participated in international fairs and art projects in Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, China, South Korea, United States and the UAE. He is also represented by the Opera Gallery.

Hi Pokras! I really appreciate that you have found some time for me. Please tell us about your artworks. What are the ideas and meaning behind your art?

My Main goal is to show the harmony of different cultures, merged by calligraphy art together in balance and harmony. Reflecting on the difference and common forms of African, American, European, Oceanian, Middle Eastern and Asian calligraphy, I created a self-developed style, “Calligrafuturism”, based on my vision of the re-created letterforms of scripts and calligraphy in the future. Taking part in urban art, I’m representing the Calligraffiti movement: traditional handwriting with a metropolitan attitude, creating large outdoor projects all over the world.

Do you always think up in advance what your final work will look like, or are there also improvisations?

I often work on composition in advance and calculate the width of the instrument for it. Since we write calligraphy and do not draw letters, it turns out that the thickness of the instrument is the introductory element that needs to be calculated in advance, so that the work is performed qualitatively in terms of space, rhythm, object, contrast and so on. In the process, there's always a possibility that things will go wrong, for example, a surface that does not absorb enough paint or a brush that at some point becomes ineffective on a ribbed wall and you need to use a roller. And it completely changes the style and type of calligraphy, so I try to test it in advance, but of course, there is a lot of improvisation.

You’ve also been working with the fashion industry since 2014. Could you please tell us more about your experience?

When I started working with fashion, for me all this was absolutely unknown, inaccessible. And I am so glad that my path partly started not only with the street but also with graphic design because it became at one time my only job, career and method of learning how to interact with clients and people from all over the world. In the beginning, it was various design projects with inscriptions in my authorial style of calligraphy for Reebok, Nike… The peak was working with Dries Van Noten, when I saw the entire process of creating a collection from the beginning to the end. In other words, I have also seen how the fabric reference was selected, the types of application, the composition. And it was so cool to do all the sketches, inscriptions, communicate with the Dries’ team, and then eventually fly to Paris for the presentation of the collection and see it with my own eyes on the catwalk, then in the showroom and then on customers around the world. In general, after I learned all this, felt it, and applied it in my work, I wanted to use it for myself. Consequently, since 2018 we have actively started working on my own brand and using art not only for some client projects but also for our own clothing collections.

© Sobaka.ru magazine. Dries van Noten men's collection in collaboration with Pokras Lampas, spring-summer 2017. Paris Fashion Week.

I really liked your work in Yekaterinburg, when in the framework of the festival "STENOGRAFFIA" you made a “Meta-Suprematist cross” inspired by Malevich and aesthetics of the artistic movements of the early 20th century in Russia. What other artists inspire you?

© The Village magazine. Meta-Suprematist cross. Yekaterinburg 2019.

Thank you, it's very nice to hear that. I am very inspired by 20th century art because in this way I partly reflect on what society was like, how technologies and new tools influenced designers and artists and the way how we see the modern world today in terms of architecture, art, fashion and life in general. I was very inspired by the works of Kandinsky, Malevich, Lissitzky, Rodchenko, and modernist statements. The further we delve into 20th-century art, the more powerful examples we see from the middle and second half of the period. Starting with Marcel Duchamp, up to Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and continuing with Moscow conceptualists, with works by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, and Erik Bulatov. At the same time, Basquiat, Rothko, Barnett Newman, Keith Haring and many other great artists have a strong influence on me. I would also like to note that I was very impressed by one of the most powerful performances from Alexander McQueen, which was shown at the MET museum in 1989, Savage Beauty, and at that time I discovered a lot about the connection between art and fashion technologies and how it can affect our world.

How did you become so successful at such a young age? What is your main market? And how did you manage to enter the international market first?

Actually, I always believe that it is very important to remember, not success, but your own philosophy and where you are going, why you are going there. When I was just beginning to explore the world of art and design, I spent a lot of time on modern communications, social networks and the presentation of my projects. I have an education in advertising, management and PR, and this is the knowledge that helps me not to get lost in the modern world, not to lose my style and my individuality. I believe that one of the main reasons for such a career is that I spend a lot of time on the image of an artist in addition to the art. And I do this for myself, I don't have any special team for this, so I am absolutely sincere in my statements and in my strategy. I always divide my projects in the field of fine art, where I am represented exclusively around the world by Opera Gallery, so the whole world is open to art. We have exhibited my works in Asia and the Middle East. I've done some projects in Europe, done various installations with brands like COMME des GARÇONS from New York and Paris to Tokyo and Hong Kong. I think it's very important to have your own message. My work really has a lot to do with globalism, with how we perceive communication through the lens of calligraphy art, how the modern world and the changing world in terms of mixing cultures will affect the new writing, and how this new writing will in turn change the type of calligraphy at some point.

© Pokras Lampas. Opera Gallery. Dubai 2016.

Please tell us about your collaborations? Which projects are your favourites?

Speaking of collaborations, the most important thing for me is to work not just with a well-known brand, but first of all with people who represent the brand and believe in our common values, believe in the harmony of joint projects, mutual respect between the brand and the artist. One of my major and most valuable projects definitely was a collaboration with FENDI in 2017, when I painted the roof of the Square Colosseum. This was a temporary installation on an incredibly important building for Rome and Italy. At the same time, I wrote the manifesto of millennials and I said a lot with this project, which I hope is relevant for the present and for the future. Indeed, an equally important project for me was the collaboration with COMME des GARÇONS, when I worked directly with Rei Kawakubo and Adrian Joffe and their team, which lasted more than six months. It always inspires me to see how your work finds its form in small printed compositions, as well as in giant storefronts, in installations of boutiques around the world from Dover Street Market in London to New York and Paris. This shows me once again that art has no borders, that art unites different worlds and connects them with common meanings, aesthetics and inspirations.

© Pokras Lampas x F is for FENDI: the largest calligraffiti artwork in Italy. Rome 2017

© Pokras Lampas. Dover Street Market. London 2019

Tell us, what is the most important thing for you when cooperating with brands and companies? What factors could make you refuse a collaboration?

It is crucial for me to find a common ground with the team and to know that they came to me not as if to a designer, but to an artist with own vision, philosophy and the ability to say what I want, not what they want from me. And it is equally important for me to learn something new in the course of the projects, so, obviously, I want to take the most complex projects and ones that cannot be done by an artist on their own. For example, the square in front of the RZD Arena in Moscow. This is the largest calligraphy graffiti in the world for a reason. It’s the area of 11,000 square meters, one and a half meter long brushes, 6 meters long letters, and an unbelievable amount of paint—more than 5,000 litres. It is a complex technical preparation process that took around eight months from the first meeting to the final implementation of the project, the difficult shooting, and the presentation of work to the football community. I am glad that there is an opportunity, not just to speak out, but also to work with the new tools and other scales.

How is the art market affecting you as an artist? Where is the line for you between art and commerce?

I believe that the art market should not influence the artist directly, because if you perceive your art only in terms of whether it can be sold or not, we lose the artist's sincerity and his/her own personal identity. That is why it is important for me to always speak in my projects not only about the meaning, but also about the quality of implementation. This applies to the high-quality canvases on wide stretchers, style, proper paints that do not turn yellow and do not crumble in six months. To do this, you need to have successful commercial projects and sales, so that the artist is not just independent in his projects, but also has his own choice of how he wants to work and what he needs for the quality of the implementation of his ideas. I always separate commercial and creative projects. So, the creative projects that are done in the studio on canvases, it is primarily things that go through time. The viewer often does not know that I painted, for example, in 2018, a canvas that they may see only in 2022. I treat art as a deeper philosophical part of my own cognition, and therefore the most interesting, complex experiments are always out of people’s sight, even those closest to me.

At the same time, I believe that my mission is to change the attitude towards commercial projects as something wrong. An artist today must have a high value of their work, because it's a huge amount of time, effort, intellectual and physical labor that is invested in a particular work. It's the management, the presentation, the representation of your community through the style, it is often working on social networks, and it’s a long preparation phase for the projects. So, to make sure that everything is done at the proper level, to give work to the best creators in their field from photography, shooting, directing and ending with the technical production of the product, I try to make sure that the projects are appreciated and paid for and the resources are given to do that in the best possible way. When we do commercial projects, they are often intended for a wide audience, and we must understand that this is a strong blurring of the artist's message, because often we work with an audience that doesn’t know us yet, or knows little, and they don’t have time to immerse themselves in your art. In other words, this is the first meeting with a new audience, while there is also the identity of another brand. Therefore, my main advice to artists is to work with brands at a time when you already have your own individuality, your own strategy. And no matter how big and strong a brand is, it should not affect your creativity. On the contrary, it should support, develop and expand it. In this case, the commercial project will not look commercial at all, but as a creative one with brand support and with an enhanced message for the audience.

And the last but not least part is the opportunity to earn money on large commercial projects, which often give the artist the opportunity to create in the studio completely independently and allow you to invest in yourself, make your own choice and not get involved with any funds, grants, etc. Thus, being simultaneously outside of institutional art projects, but being in the art community and in the current art paradigm.

How has the time in self-isolation affected you in general? Do you have any new online projects?

The beginning of the pandemic resulted in the emergency cancellation of all my flights, foreign projects, and museum projects that I was interested in because it is all connected with the public. I urgently reorganised my work schedule, tried to make sure that I had everything in the studio that I need for regular work on new canvases. I ordered a whole truck of clean canvases and started working every single day without losing time and without losing touch with the team that is with me in St. Petersburg, and with whom I work with in the studio on Vasilyevsky Island. I just reorganised my plans and my strategy for the near future and I am glad that I managed to change everything quickly and effectively. The most important thing for me was to be as effective as possible in relation to the new works, and it is rare to have such an opportunity to work for an extra few months in the studio at a time when a big season of flights, project presentations, murals, street projects begins. Therefore, I have almost no time left for online, but I tried to go live and communicate with journalists and prepare lots of different Internet content.

How do you think the art market will change after the Covid-19 pandemic?

I think it’s logical that there will be a certain decline in purchasing power. But I’m trying not to focus on this, because experience shows that any market has both ups and downs, and this is normal, it is all predictable. And I hope that the main thing is that people have the ability to consider their more important needs, both socially and otherwise. Art will always find its window and its door, through which it will be under review, and not necessarily through museums or galleries, if this is important for social distance and security, for example. Generally, we are increasingly seeing a growth of online projects, digital projects, and the intersection of art and technology, but I believe that it is too early to draw any conclusions.

Thank you Pokras Lampas!

Kristina Lyamtseva,

Contributor, MADE IN BED