Hugo Kaagman - Stencil King: The Dutch Godfather of Stencil Graffiti

160 pages
Text(s) by Tristan Manco, Oscar van Gilderen and Hugo Kaagman
20.3 x 22.8 cm
Language: English
Softcover
Publisher: Lebowski
2009

Hugo Kaagman is the Dutch pioneer in the field of street art: ever since the end of the seventies coinciding with the punk and squatters movement. He shows his work in the streets of Amsterdam and the surrounding area. His work is influenced by a striking mix of politics, reggae, Moorish architecture and Delft blue.

In the late 1970s and in the 1980s he became known for the fanzine Koecrandt published by him and Diana Ozon, which also includes the Sid Vicious from the Dutch punk (and also graffti) scene Dr Rat published. Dr. Rat died of an overdose in 1981 at the age of 21. Kaagman, however, is the King of Stencil: the life-size templates he’s already finished in the seventies, make him one of the great pioneers of the world street art movement.

Hugo Kaagman has certainly not been idle last thirty years: he painted walls and buildings all over the world, decorated airplane tails with Delft blue motifs (to the dismay of Margaret Thatcher), and developed from an old school politically active artist into a contemporary urban artist. He was therefore the only Dutch delegate who was invited by Banksy and Tristan Manco to the by organized them Cans Festival in 2008.