German street artist LAPIZ recently unveiled a nearly 10-foot tall, brightly-colored rendition of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin kissing himself on a prized wall in Munich’s Werksviertel, a vibrant urban conglomerate of modern and historical commercial, residential and cultural sites. The mural is a recreation of a piece first constructed in 2018, where it was featured in a festival in Lemwerder. During that time, the FIFA World Cup was being held in Russia, and the mural aimed to highlight Putin’s narcissism and homophobia. Four years later, the motive rings truer than ever.
“When I pitched the idea to Loomit [a pioneer of the Munich street art scene, Loomit is regarded as the godfather of graffiti in Germany and has been based out of the Werksviertel-Mitte area since 1996], he immediately understood that it needed to be regenerated,” said LAPIZ. “And just like that, he gave away part of his most prized wall in Werksviertel, which featured a piece he painted back in 1999. However, I didn’t cover his piece with my new addition, nor those of Os Gemeos who also painted there. I was so blown away to be painting not only in the Werksviertel itself, but also in the most prominent spot.”
Over the next few days, LAPIZ recreated ONE LOVE to again illustrate the lonely, homophobic, narcissistic man who loves no one but himself.
Political statements with a healthy dose of social criticism are often central to LAPIZ’s message. He continually seeks to disrupt his art’s viewers from life’s pseudo-soothing normalcy, seeking to evoke dialogue and truth. Earlier this year, after a two-year hiatus, LAPIZ painted the stairwell of the Kunstlabor 2, Munich’s outstanding 100,000-plus square foot art laboratory, with three new concepts.
The first, “There is No Planet B”, takes a look at digital escapism in a collage of wallpaper and stencils. It features a man sitting in a kicked-back lounge chair, escaping into the digital world, oblivious to his actions or lack thereof. Instead of enjoying nature as it is, he consumes a parallel, untouched universe with gleeful abandon.
“I wanted to paint him as a person escaping into nature, someone who takes nature for granted and a way to escape the daily routine, something to be enjoyed and consumed without considering that his actions might have an impact on that nature,” said LAPIZ.
Additional murals “Still Love” and “Wallporn” deal with the public perception of the female body, a body that has been shamed, politicized and regulated like a commodity. Inspired by Baroque wallpaper, “Wallporn” features a decorative stencil design that hides a variety of dildos, vibrators and other sex toys in plain sight. The flowers in “Still Love” are soft tampons, which are often used by prostitutes to continue working during menstruation.
The mural whispers with a knowing nod that these sexual items are normal and beautiful—a far cry from society deeming them profane or gross and thus, relegated to secrecy behind closed doors.
“Commonly, the female body is highly sexualised in advertisements, media, pornography or prostitution while female sexuality and normal bodily functions are deemed private or even taboo,” said LAPIZ. “People would rather talk about Viagra than menstruation. When I painted the mural, I kept asking people what they saw and when I revealed the work is about menstruation, I got the impression that some people were literally ready to move on and get out of the stairwell. There really is a need for a lot of discussion and change on women’s issues, and that is what the painting is about.”
About LAPIZ:
LAPIZ is a self-taught artist working on canvases and walls. His ever-evolving stencil work seeks to disrupt unwitting viewers from everyday life’s pseudo-soothing normalcy. While his work is socially critical, he believes that jarring realizations rendered beautifully benefit society. Anger, sadness, or disbelief are the natural inputs that precede action, organization, acts of hope—they are the by-products of critical thought. LAPIZ creates work that simultaneously exposes the injustices of our world and the development of his own creative self. Its vivid colors scream from between the stencils’ neat lines, sometimes breaking their bounds in an effort to promote truth and provoke dialogue.
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