Hollywood in Cambodia

Red, white, and black colours full of slogans, animals, and old Soviet Union-esque labour propaganda decorate the walls of the upstairs section of the alternative urban art gallery Hollywood in Cambodia. Inspired by the enthusiastic punk rock guitar riffs, artist Tester scratches away an image of a laborer hoisting a large hammer upon a plastic transparency.

One of the members of the Run Don’t Walk collective and an inaugurator of the Hollywood in Cambodia – or HIC – gallery, Tester sums up his philosophy of the urban art scene. “You can show something with art,” he explains, “It’s beautiful, it makes the city more spontaneous. If we see something is boring we say, ‘Let’s paint it!’”

Tester and the other members of the HIC crew have recently taken steps to encouraged outsiders to learn more about street art through their last open door art showing called ‘Sindicato’, and they have also begun new stencil workshops aimed at teaching interested street artists the techniques behind stencil art. Unlike many art showings, the open door access of ‘Sindicato’ allowed anyone interested to have the ability to visit the upstairs gallery and see the artists in action as they worked together with ideas and styles to form a new distinct presentation of their work.

The group always collaborates between collectives to share and elaborate upon their art instead of present individual artistic works as in the case of many art galleries. The name ‘Sindicato’ can be seen as a political message, but Tester justifies the name more as a term which best defines their artistic cooperation, with a goal of innovation.

“We are accustomed to working together,” says Tester. “Each one comes to paint something. It shows in progress. Some paint, some like to cut, but essentially we all do everything. It’s cooperative. The idea of this showing is that someone brings an image, another cuts it, and another paints.”

The concept of working together and the constant goal for innovation and creativity can be referred back to the original idea and history in opening the art gallery. Located on Thames 1885 in the hip Palermo Soho neighborhood, the HIC gallery began when a group of friends with a new bar got together. Bar co-owner Pablo Fuchs says that he and his business partners wanted the dream of owning a bar, but they also wanted something more unique. It was in 2005, that a friend of Fuchs’s introduced him to the book ‘Hasta la Victoria Stencil’, a compilation of urban stencil art of the moment with photos of works that different artists had done. Fuchs and his business partner e-mailed some of the artists and proposed a new idea, and new partnership.

“We didn’t know how something from the street would be in an indoor environment,” says Fuchs. “It was the first situation of its type; we wanted it to modify the reality, and to be a contradiction.”

Fuchs decided on the English named Post Street Bar because he wanted to get rid of the negative stereotype of urban art as an unwanted societal element, and to instead embrace some of the younger street artists and their ability to paint or “post” on the walls. Six months after opening the bar, Fuchs explains that the process of inviting the artists to use the space as an artist’s playground ended up being a “good movement with maturation, and innovative firm steps.”

Tester says that when the urban art collectives Bs. As. Stencils, Run Don’t Walk and Malatesta were invited to decorate the principal downstairs floor of the bar, the guys at “Post” didn’t have a way to repay them, so they offered them a place to transform their typical street images and designs to an indoor environment. From this moment in March of 2006 the Hollywood in Cambodia urban art gallery was born.

“We began to do things, we began to have art showings and invite friends, and it was beginning to take form. A little bit anarchic…” Tester pauses, “there aren’t rules, it’s fun!”

Today Hollywood in Cambodia (a name inspired from the Dead Kennedy’s song ‘Holiday in Cambodia’) is operated by the original artists that decorated the paternal Post Street Bar. Comprised of the three urban art collectives, HIC has turned their upstairs gallery into an outlet for new and alternative urban artwork. Tester explains that the gallery is something to be shared and orientated towards illustration, graffiti, stencil, urban art, tattoo, skater and punk rock.

The gallery also changes time to time with around ten different art showings every year. Decisions are talked about beforehand and then different urban artists from around Buenos Aires are invited with the idea of collaboration to do whatever they want. This concept is seen best on the outdoor bar terrace next to the art gallery. Two large building walls surround the terrace which contains artistic drawings, stencils and graffiti of anything from a life size cheetah, to a Johnny Cash stenciled face covering a dress and legs of a school girl. Many of the strange varieties of images found on the terrace are due to the fact that new artists constantly add to the already established artworks. Fuchs adds that these artists are encouraged to participate artistically in whatever way possible as long as it doesn’t cover someone else’s art, or contain a graffiti tag.

An agreement between the collective’s members states that none of their collaborative artwork may take on tags, names or any individual accolades. Tester mentions that the goal is for creative innovation, and that the most unique and fortifying aspect of the artwork seen in the Post Street Bar and HIC is that each person works off of, and integrates their own distinctive styles to create something interesting.

With the stencil finished Tester spray paints it to the lower section of the wall. He finishes his beer, turns off the raging punk music and goes home. Co-Owner Fuchs closes down the upstairs gallery and begins to explain his pleasure so far with the way the cooperative relationship between HIC and his bar have turned out.

“This collective is the collective of collectives!” he says. “Artists can tend to be very individualistic, these guys repeat the necessity to create something new, and here it’s valued.”

For more information visit: The Post Street Bar website www.poststreetbar.com or the Hollywood in Cambodia website www.hollywoodincambodia.com.ar for any news and events.