Aghirre Schwarz (aka Zevs) is a french street artist. He was an early and influential graffiti artist and active as a tagger in Paris in the 1990s. He is named after a regional train, Zeus, that almost ran him over one day he was down in the metro. Working with other French names of the second half of the 1990s like André and Invader, Zevs has been among the prominent figures who pioneered the French street art scene. By the end of the 90’s he became known for his poetic drawings of shadows in Paris. Later he ‘bombed’ models on the billboards between the eyes. Though his interventions have been very popular, it has been discussed in France whether it is vandalism or art. In 2008 Zevs had his first major survey exhibition at the classical art museum the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, Denmark. His work was displayed alongside masterpieces in the museum’s permanent collections such as Edouard Manet’s The Absinthe Drinker and Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker. In 2002 he cut out a model of a gigantic Lavazza-poster at Alexanderplatz in Berlin. Above the hole in the poster he wrote: “VISUAL KIDNAPPING – PAY NOW!” This intervention not only struck a chord with art lovers and people in Berlin. It has also inspired political activists. Stealing an image from a poster in Germany is now spoken of in the media as a visual kidnapping. “Visual kidnapping is like entering an interactive game: If the brand on the billboard kidnaps the attention of the public with the purpose of consumer demand, I reverse the situation and I kidnap the model on the poster and I demand a ransom of 500,000€ from the brand. This sum represents the symbolic price of an advertising campaign for the brand.” Zevs has been doing what he calls ‘proper graffiti’ since the beginning of the 00s, where he writes on dirty walls with a high pressure jet. “In the logic of walls made dirty by graffiti, Zevs, the graffiti writer end author of painted shadows has executed proper graffiti. It is about graffiti painted by use of a high pressure jet on walls. “Since the mid-00s Zevs has become famous for his work with dripping brand logos. A beautiful illusion is created by the dripping paint from the logos, giving them an appearance of dissolving. In 2009, Zevs has his first solo show, Liquidated Logos, in Asia at Hong Kong-based gallery Art Statements, documenting how ZEVS cleverly distorts the logos of big brands. He kickstarted the exhibition by dabbing a dripping, black Chanel logo on the outer wall above the window of a Giorgio Armani boutique in central Hong Kong. “Of course, there is a graffiti aesthetic to my art but I primarily play with the visual effect. I use the original colours and re-paint the logo with excess. By pouring paint over them, the logo dissolves in front of the viewer’s eyes, drawing attention to, and visually disturbing the recognizable and omnipresent trademark. By doing so, I try to investigate the logo’s visual power. It’s a simple gesture, just as in Aikido when you reverse the power and change the flow of energy.”
