Sponge Bob Ross – Graphic Façades #1
I first saw this paint effect creeping up on interiors of PB restaurants. Terracotta hues blotted around whimsically with a sponge to create an Italianate back drop for the pan-Mediterranean micro experience of eating a pizza. Italy equals terracotta sponge effect, simple. One sponge and so much atmosphere. It’s that suffix that’s problematic to me, italianate, meaning it’s vaguely something, like the Mexicali Auflauf that was served to friends of mine in Marburg on their German course, Mexicalianate Auflauf.
There is little we can do about the terracotta sponge effect, it seems, as it continues its ascent onto exteriors, too. Fitting, I guess, since this place is so often described as the most Mediterranean of the Northern cities. An example was unveiled recently on the Knopffabrik (yawn) on Prenzlauer Allee. Maybe that’s how they got away with it – ” it looks like a mineral facade” i.e. terracotta, which probably satisfies some vestigial Stimmann code. I say that without knowing if they even apply beyond the marbled carrees of Friedrichstraße.
“Look what I’ve done, everyone!”, the facade seems to say. Pupils contract to shield the iris from this radiating gaudiness to the silky and sonorous sound of an inner Bob Ross: “just like so”. No, not like so! Maybe the artist attended a Bob Ross® Malkurs offered around Berlin. But you didn’t finish the job. What we’ve got is a Ross primed canvas for a landscape of the American Southwest. Still missing are the glorious palette knifed sunset and a few petrified trees sprinkled around.
But do you have to apply what you’ve learned to facades? Unless you are sponging Bob Ross’s giant ’fro on a glitzy carree. That would be kind of cool. Can I ever have something in common with the person that finds this acceptable, agree on a stance on torture, or the financial crisis? Then of course, Bob Ross always struck me as warm and interesting person.
Glad you’ve managed to span the contextual gulf between Italianyness and Boss Ross via sponge-dabbed façades. It’s the terracotta holding it all together. Loose that, and default to, butterscotch tones, and you’re off into the realms of organic supermarkets, student accomodation and motorway service center cafés. But it’s all about the soft edge. There’s a soft-edge tendancy in the names of shops and coffee bars in Berlin too: “Can We Still Be Friends”, or “On A Sunday in August”, or “My Cutesy Wutsey Little Fluffy Bunny Wabbit”. Despite Bob Ross’s famous sponging technique, he did always seem like a nice guy: someone you could stir-fry tofu with whilst philosophising about kayaks.
There is another example of this paint technique – although I wouldn’t cast it in such a negative light – on Bergmanstrasse in Kreuzberg? (what district is that). It is actually an interesting design in my opinion, with some high tech glass double windows and a cool blue sponge job on the exterior. Mediterranean? Perhaps. But not bad.
I could see blue working as a sponge effect. I am not against effects per se, I just prefer them applied with some irony, I think, or at least some awareness of the simulation you are creating. I think it’s problematic if these effects are used to convey a faux sense of hominess or pastiche Mediterranean (sheep’s clothes), masking pretty brutal development in terms of massing (wolf) behind something we associate with child’s play and finger painting, as is perhaps the case with the example in yellow or butterscotch at Senefelder Platz that I think Ian was referring to in his comment.
Great headline. I appreciate the attention given to this sort of thing – they shouldn’t get away with it.
There is something inherently anaestheticising about these things. Individually, they seem superficially harmless, just someone’s creative expression, but each little example contributes a little to a general loss of authenticity, which irks me. Each instances requires a little micro excavation of reasons as to why it is fair to reject it. (I am aware of a possible essentialist position here, with which I am increasingly comfortable, I think). I am always amazed how hard it is to come up with good reasons or explanations for individual examples of such irresponsible simulation devoid of irony, that are, in my opinion, also just simply of bad taste.
Bob Ross is King! I love his relaxing voice. I could listen to the guy all day. zzzzzz