Sticker twist
Stickers are cool. And Klebstoff is really cool.
A magazine made up of page after page of stickers by great artists, it’s published from Dresden by editor Matthias Speck, and grew out of his many other sticker-based activities. Issue seven is out now, made in collaboration with Finerats, Barcelona’s lowbrow arts magazine, so I caught up with Matthias to find out more.
The new issue looks fantastic. How did you end up working with Finerats?
Actually we worked with them before; Edjinn and Ibie participated in the very first issue of Klebstoff. Later on when they started their own magazine we helped them to distribute it in Germany, and they took Klebstoff to Spain. It all worked out very well so we said instead of exchanging magazines, let’s do one together.
We want to spread the idea of Klebstoff as far as possible, but going international is difficult without local partners or a big publisher, so we’re always on the lookout for interesting cooperations.
Why do you work with stickers? What’s the appeal?
Stickers are fun, and despite the street art hype that started a few years ago there are still lots of possibilities for stickerart that haven’t been exploited yet.
We started working with stickers around 1998. Later we founded Stickma, our own sticker printshop in Dresden, and in 2005 we launched the International Sticker Award. The resulting documentation of the worldwide sticker scene resulted in two book releases and annual exhibitions in different cities.
The sticker award always brings out many fresh unknown artists, who we then try to publish in Klebstoff. Sometimes people ask how they can participate in the mag, and I’d always say that taking part in the International Sticker Award is the best way.
I love Klebstoff but I’ve never brought myself to actually use the stickers yet! Do you feel that pressure yourself or are you happiest when the stickers are being used?
Not really. Stickers seem to slip out of the magazine naturally. I mean these are stickers – it’s fun to stick them to weird places or people or whatever. As a kid you would have never said “OMG I will never touch these!”
It’s also about the added value the magazine offers. Klebstoff is like any other art magazine in that it bundles the work from different artists in one place, but in our case the published work is not bound to the printed matter. In this way Klebstoff expands the range of its content; any reader can help to spread the work of the artists he or she likes, and people who don’t even know the magazine are able to find these pieces if they’re lucky.
But of course we understand the love of collecting things and for guys like you we recommend to buy two copies!
