Monstfur

Joanna Wolan

According to Xawery Stańczyk – a sociologist and cultural anthropologist – Monstfur represents the Polish school of adbusting and cultural provocation that uses the brandalism strategy. The person that coined the term – Bill Posters – explains the process as “the terrain of arts activism that re-democratises message, meaning and cultural forms of communication dominated by global, mass media corporations." He also states that the aim of the movement is “to force them out of public space permanently" and that the “pollution" of the visual space has an effect not only on the public spaces but also on those private, intimate ones. (Bill Posters, Advertising shits in your head, brandalism.ch/issues/advertising-shits-in-your-head/, accessed: 20 August 2021) Mostfur's works at the August Street Art Auction – though not functioning in the public space – fits into the theory of brandalism.

Mostrfur's inspiration is disintegration. It is visible in the materials he uses – corroded metal sheets, information boards taken from abandoned factories, or walls of old industrial plants. You can also see it in the reoccurring themes in his works. Visible in his compositions are broken trains, old cars, rubble, dead fish, as well as flowers in large-area housing estates. The transformed landscapes, depriving people of work following the principle of the industrial transformation, ever-present signs of orders and prohibitions – all those elements place a person in a completely new situation. This idea is depicted in Monstrur's work “Extra Homeless" where it is hard to tell where are headed those leaving the factory. Monstfur tells a story of an ordinary person living at the time of a crumbling reality after the systematic change. The composition may refer to the condition of those released from industrial plants after they closed. Such an occurrence took place in the artist's native town of Częstochowa, where textile factories – that used to function since the 19th century – were closed down. 

The Monstfur art project came to life in 2006 thanks to Bartłomiej Stypka and Łukasz Gawron. The authors left their works unsigned – from the beginning of their collaboration they wanted to invent a virtual character – Monstfur. The name comes from the English word “monster" and the Polish “potfur" – a phonetically written Polish term for a beast. The artist's principal mean of expression is stencil art – a centuries old graphic technique that is here met with the modern method of aerosol paint. In 2020 Monstfur officially ended its artistic activity.