Andres Von Chrzanowski (Case Maclaim)

Born in Germany in 1979, he began his career as a graffiti artist in 1995. In 1999, he founded a crew with Akut (from the tandem HERAKUT) and Rusk, which would become MACLAIM with the addition of the urban painter Tasso. Holder of a diploma in restorer and art curator, Case's particularity lies in his highly technical compositions superimposing human hands, which he has been producing for several years in large format with a spray can on walls all over the world. The hands are one of the oldest subjects in painting if we consider in particular the rock stencils of the Paleolithic found in caves. Gripping organs, they have a wide range of functions in humans. In art, they are often the vector of non-verbal exchanges which are an integral part of language. Taking up this fairly recurrent element in political propaganda posters, Case reappropriates it in the sphere of street art as a symbol of power and unity. The position of the fingers and the gestures relay all the expressiveness of the painting to convey a message, an emotion or an idea. In V, in fist, in the shape of a letter, at Case the pictorial code passes through a graphic alphabet which almost replaces the traditional lettering of graffiti and the propagation of the blaze as a signature. It is therefore the hands that sign, both literally and figuratively. In an ultra digitalized world, it obviously makes sense to draw fingers on the gables of facades facing touch screens.