Cut for the streets

MANILA, Philippines - Having painted murals in cities as varied as Odessa, Sarajevo, and Bristol, German street artists Jasmin Siddiqui, 32, and Falk Lehmann, 35, together known as Herakut, came to Manila with the most superficial knowledge from some Filipino friends. In their local exhibition, “Beauty is a Sanctuary,” they show an intimate discovery of sacredness in the city’s chaos. Since meeting through a collaborative project in Sevilla nine years ago, Hera and Akut (their graffiti names) have been combining their sketchy forms and photorealistic details to create arresting wall paintings inspired by hip-hop, exiled writers, and experiences — real and imagined — from their sides of the formerly Wall-divided Germany. This journey, they grapple with the international language of The Fort as much as Quiapo’s neighborhood bakery cake typography, handmade jeep paintings, dyed chicken hatchlings, and plastic-wrapped religious statues. That’s just in the Manila leg of their current Asian tour where they discover our side of the third world as wide-eyed as our endemic tarsiers and as inspirational as our national hero, from whom they borrowed for a new work the immortal quote: “Ang kabataan ang pag-asa ng bayan.”

YSTYLE: Hera and Akut are alter egos. In real life, how different are Jasmine and Falk from these personas?

JS: Just like all the superheroes, we made these disguises. Hera is the superhero cape that I put on when I say things that Jasmine is too shy for… We become stronger when we become these graffiti alter egos. Graffiti comes from such a rebellious place where you don’t really care about authority, you don’t really care about what other people think about you. As Jasmine and Falk, we care a lot about what our parents think…

It’s relevant to style in that your art requires you to put on something.

JS: Our work uses exactly that role-play. Our characters are very fragile children, women, and men, usually nude, which stands for a timelessness that is just simply human. It’s like capturing pure being. We also add some symbolic elements like hats, capes, and masks, and those things stand for the sort of role that these individuals play in society.

What have been the most rewarding things to hear about your work?

JS: That it inspires them to do something themselves, that it gives them food for thought. What we do is not just paint a pretty picture but to paint something pretty with a message… We created our own aesthetics without having to see a professor; we are not following any directions. That means that we just use the art market to finance our work… When we paint outside…that’s sort of a charity thing because we want to share our talent with the world, and not for fame but to have a place in society.

How would you describe your exposure to other street art while traveling?

JS: When we travel, our influences don’t come from other street art.

FL: If our inspiration comes from art, then it’s like incest, and what we produce would be retarded.

JS: The inspiration comes from the world that’s not related to art. For instance, we went to Quiapo. We wanted to see how are people like without the international connection. What’s the real character? What we loved about it was that there was so much energy and commitment to life.

It’s full of religious elements and, at the same time, an almost tribal atmosphere.

FL: Old Manila is closer to the roots. We painted in the Miami Beach version of Manila: The Fort.

JS: We are two contrasts, yin-yang, so wherever we go, we wanna see the whole by looking at the hugest contrasts possible.

Making art is also a form of luxury. How do you see dressing up as opposed to this?

JS: Art is everywhere, so in the clothes that you choose in the morning, you can be very artistic. You arrange colors on yourself. It’s always a creative decision. But when we paint, we don’t really think about ourselves too much. I think what we’re trying to do is try to create whatever mask or armor to be as individual as possible and as honest as possible. It’s a way to introduce yourself to the world.

What are you most excited about for the next few months?

JS: We’re doing The Giant Storybook Project all over the world. We’re going to pull everything together and work with an author to form a story. It’s already been traveling with us, like improvisational theater, and it’s been growing up like we do. In the winter months, we’ll have time to put together something that we’d want our own children to know. We don’t have children yet, so that’s the next big thing.