Between exhibitions in Berlin and Denver, Colorado, some works by Patrick Hartl can currently be seen in Puchheim’s Kulturcentrum Puc. This is due to chance. The curator at the time saw pictures of the artist at a mutual friend’s house and contacted him. Would he like to exhibit at the Puc? She asked. His answer was whether she knew that his way to school was there.
Hartl’s exhibition in his hometown has been in planning for two years now. Everything was supposed to go very quickly, but then the pandemic got in the way of the plans. The composition of selected works with the title “First Lines” has finally been on view since mid-September. Hartl Werke combine calligraphy and the style of street graffiti.
The later Puchheimer, who was born in Eichenau in 1976, made his first attempts at graffiti art at the age of 13 with the spray can behind the basketball court of the secondary school. Years later, with his talent in his luggage, he ended up at the University of Applied Sciences in Augsburg, where he studied design. The calligraphy lessons there were particularly exciting, he reports. Hartl soon began to abstract the historically detailed work on the Fraktur typeface – the most widely used typeface in German-speaking countries for four centuries – and to incorporate his own style. After graduation, several engagements as a graphic designer follow.
But a permanent position is out of the question for him, he longs too much to spend one hundred percent of his time artistically. “I knew relatively soon that I had to make art with all consistency,” says Hartl, describing this turning point.
Michael Kaller, head of the city’s cultural office responsible for the Puc, addressed a few words to the writing artist in his opening speech. “From the street to the temple of culture” is how he understands his career. If you look at the 17 exhibits by the graffiti artist, you will look in vain for an overarching topic. “The works are more to be understood as excerpts from my artistic career. You play with different types of writing,” explains Hartl. Evidence of this can be found in all of his mixed media works that can be seen in Puchheim. On one series, large Fraktur-style letters appear to spring from layers of sprayed paint.
Hartl’s calligraphy has long ceased to be about legibility. Form quality and momentum are in the foreground. Then Hartl says goodbye to the fracture. He tries to transfer his beginnings from public spaces to the studio. The complexly structured works show swirls of touch-up pens, stickers and subtle purple to pink color elements. “Almost like cutouts from the walls from back then,” Hartl classifies the style. Here, too, he does not attach great importance to legibility, but tries again to emphasize the gestures of the graffito imitations.
In “First Lines” mixed media with colors running diagonally through the picture can be seen. They are evidence of the collaboration with the artist Christian Hundertmark, one of the more recent stations in his artistic career. He organized the Berlin exhibition with Hundertmark, and together with him and other writing-art artists from all over the world, he will be showing selected works in the USA in November and December. The projects in the duo give the otherwise very intuitive Hartl more structure. They made his pictures “clean,” as it were, explains Hartl.
When the artist, who now lives in Pfaffenhofen, looks at his first art projects, he realizes that they have “poled him more firmly”. Why it is like that? “For me it was a very formative time in my youth in Puchheim. Many of them don’t even know how much effort was put into graffiti back then – it was always an exciting process from the idea to the implementation,” remembers Hartl. He still creates such murals from time to time, but as an expert in his field he is now also familiar with artistic circles that convey a more elitist understanding of art. He appreciates the experience with the so-called high culture, but also feels a balancing act between the two worlds. Hartl maintains the friendly and friendly approach to colleagues in street art, whether in renowned galleries or when meeting former acquaintances, such as at the vernissage of his exhibition in Puchheim.
Patrick Hartl “First Lines”, until Thursday, October 28th, in Puc, Oskar-Maria-Graf-Straße 2, in Puchheim. Open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., Tuesdays from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and Thursdays from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
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