Heiko Zahlmann

HEIKO ZAHLMANN

Heiko Zahlmann was born in Hamburg in 1973 and has been a graffi ti artist for more than 20
years. He started out his artistic career using colors to emulate different surfaces.
Today, he spends most of his time with a spray can in his hand, redesigning entire districts
through the creation of gigantic murals.
Since he is working in the studio, too, he has increasingly departed from the use of painted
effects.
The art critic Hajo Schiff wrote the following about Heiko Zahlmann in 2007:
“Heiko Zahlmann considers it wrong to simply apply graffi ti to a canvas and hang it in a room.
This is because what makes graffi ti special outside can hardly be domesticated and carried
over into a closed art location.
In applying his art to slabs of concrete — to the original material so to speak — he pays tribute
to his roots. In a neutral exhibition area, he demonstrate the power that a simple sprayed line
can have. (…)
Heiko Zahlmann’s new pieces, created in the design studio using acrylics, are more at home in
a showroom. They are somewhere between a traditional panel painting and profi led image.
They also feature a number of freestanding steles. (…)
The 2-dimensional hard form, precisely calculated, has been transformed into a threedimensional
creation. The typically hazy transitions have become part of the interplay of light
and shadow within the three dimensional form. The dynamism of the quickly sprayed lettering
becomes a form.
The light and shadow within the piece play with this form, also using the ambient light. Thus,
the sprayer became a painter, a sculptor, and an autonomous
artist all in one.
The term graffiti, in encompassing an enormously broad fi eld and an endless range of
manifestations, says little about an individual piece. But it has a fundamental relationship to
writing, or at least, to the action of writing.
These more recent works of Zahlmann’s are also writings, and range from hermetical
fragments of his distinctive artistic signature to longer texts. In creating them, Heiko Zahlmann
has stayed true to his sprayer roots.”

EXHIBITIONS
2010
-Von der Wand in den Raum in den Himmel, Galerie Peter Borchardt, Hamburg
2009
-Urban Art | Werke aus der Sammlung Reinking, Neues Museum Weserburg, Bremen
-BANDE, Galerie Peter Borchardt, Hamburg
2007
-Still on and non the wiser, Von der Heydt Museum, Kunsthalle Barmen, Wuppertal
-Aktive Konstellationen‘ Haus der Kunst der Stadt Brünn, Czech Republic
-WAKIN UP NIGHTS, de Pury & Luxembourg, Zürich, Schweiz
-We are the people darker than blue, Stilwerk, Hamburg
-Schwarze Bilder, Galerie Art Studio 1, Deinste
2006
-MINIMAL ILLUSIONS Arbeiten mit der Sammlung Rik Reinking. Villa Merkel, Esslingen
-What would I be without you … ‚ German Art Last Forty Years. City Gallery Prague
-Coming Soon…, Projektraum Blashofer, Berlin
-Artbeat, Post CS, Amsterdam
2005
-Smell of paint in the air, Halle K³, Kampnagel, Hamburg
-Passion des Sammelns, Alte Baumwollspinnerei, Leipzig. Sammlung Reinking/ Federkiel
-Codigos Urbanos, Leganes, Spanien
-Smell of paint in the air, Westwendischer Kunstverein, Gartow
-Art Cologne 2005, Köln, Sonderausstellung Sammlung Reinking
-Getting-up, Galerie K31, Lahr
2003
-Zeichen an der Wand, Lebensspuren Museum, Wels/Wien, Österreich
-Da Sein, Sammlung Reinking, Ernst Barlach Museum Ratzeburg
2002
-Getting-up FREIRAUM, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg
-Urban Discipline 2002 Astrahalle, Hamburg
2001
-URBAN DISCIPLINE 2001 Alte Postsortierhalle am Stephansplatz, Hamburg
2000
-URBAN DISCIPLINE 2000 Thomas I-Punkt Halle, Hamburg