Mirko Reisser

For his technically sophisticated style he obtained the reputation of being one of the best graffiti artists in the world.

• Name — DAIM • Birth Name — Mirko Reisser • Born — 1971 • Birthplace — Lüneburg, West Germany • Field — * Public art • graffiti • painting • street art • Training — Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Switzerland • Movement — Hip hop culture • Website — daim.org

In 1989, Reisser created his first works, still under the name CAZA in those days, which he kept until 1992. He began doing commissioned pieces in 1990. In 1991, right after he graduated from secondary school, Reisser began to work as a freelance artist and renamed himself DAIM. In 1996, he began taking the fine arts program at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Switzerland. In 1999, Reisser founded the studio collaboration getting-up in Hamburg together with artists Gerrit Peters and Heiko Zahlmann. The artist collective has been realizing internationally noticed projects together for more than fifteen years. During his artistic career, Reisser has travelled to many parts of the world and taken part in a multitude of museum and gallery exhibitions. He has also given birth to many art projects, several of them as an initiator and co-organizer. DAIM has been represented by the gallery ReinkingProjekte in Hamburg, Germany since 2005. As of 2010, he is also represented by the gallery MaxWeberSixFriedrich in Munich, Germany.

Reisser was born in Lüneburg. he created his first piece together with Björn Warns – nowadays known as Schiffmeister from the German hip-hop group Fettes Brot – on a feeder pillar behind the yard of his parents' house. DAIM, in those days still working under his writer's name CAZA, sprayed his first, still illegal graffiti works during a time when, after a few arrests in Hamburg, a low phase dominated the scene. Therefore, he knew few other taggers at first and would absorb every trick he could pick up. American influences played a role, especially after a few trips to the US, but the artist's first book about graffiti was Graffiti Live – Die Züge gehören uns. Reisser's style was thus also much influenced by European and German taggers. He was fascinated by the styles of Loomit, Skena, and Zebster, which could be seen in an article about the flea markets of Munich in Stern magazine. During the first two years of his career, he first got to know Hesh and Loomit. Hesh became his partner for several years.

DAIM did his first wall paintings illegally; he was caught once as a 17-year-old in Hamburg and later in New York City. In 1995, DAIM, Hesh, and New York graffiti artist Per One got caught while spraying on a wall of the basketball court of elementary school 107 in the Bronx. The artists had to face charges for property damage, trespassing, and possession of graffiti material. Possible sentences varied from community service to one year in jail, as reported by the spokesperson of the prosecution, Charisse Campbell. They got released after the hearing, however, as authorization for the installation had been requested by an art teacher in the run-up to the spraying.

• Illustration — Wall painting by DAIM and other crew members, Frankfurt (Germany), 1998 DAIM is a cofounder of tcd (trash-can design), the first crew that the artist was a part of. One of the most renowned crews that DAIM is a member of is the American FX crew. In 1996, DAIM was invited to New York and was accepted into the crew. He is also a member of fbi (Fabulous Bomb Inability), suk (Stick-Up Kids), es (Evil Sons), and gbf (Gummibärchenfront).

In 2006, DAIM was one of the artists invited to the sculpture project sculpture@CityNord in Hamburg. One of the curators of this exhibition was Rik Reinking. In 2009, he participated in ARTotale of the Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, where 36 international street artists were invited to the city. Furthermore, DAIM has realised projects for Opel (with Lena Meyer-Landrut) and Volvo (Volvo Art Session 2011 and 2013). He is also one of the initiators of the Urban Discipline exhibitions.

The Urban Discipline exhibitions, held from 2000 to 2002 in Hamburg, are among the most important graffiti exhibitions worldwide. In 2000, Mirko Reisser, in cooperation with Gerrit Peters and Heiko Zahlmann, planned and organized the first one of these exhibitions. In an interview, Os Gêmeos, famous twin-brother graffiti artists from Brazil, called it a great project. Urban Discipline had been one of the first and still remains one of the biggest graffiti exhibitions that had ever been arranged. It also helped artists like Daniel Man and Banksy to take the next step in their career. At a time when graffiti was not merely scribbling anymore but also not taken seriously yet, to those organizing the event it was important to establish it as an actual art form. The first exhibition brought international stars of the graffiti scene to Hamburg. The most important representatives of the international graffiti and street art scene returned to Hamburg for the next two years. In 2001, next to Os Gêmeos from Brazil and Martha Cooper from New York, artists from all over Germany as well as Brazil, Austria, France, America, and Switzerland exhibited their works in the Alte Postsortierhalle in Hamburg. In 2002, 34 international artists came together to exhibit in the Astra-Hallen in St. Pauli. Mirko Reisser (DAIM) in: DAIM - der Profi. Backspin Magazin. Nr. 95, July–August 2008, p.5.

Two other well-known projects by Reisser were developed in cooperation with the agency Jung von Matt/Next: Tagged in Motion and Nextwall. For Nextwall, DAIM and other graffiti artists created a mural. Later interactive elements such as QR Codes and object recognition were inserted, which allowed people to transfer information to mobile devices. Tagged in Motion, meanwhile, was an experiment to connect augmented reality and graffiti. Using 3D-glasses, it was possible for Reisser to spray his works into space and watch them three-dimensionally. The video, posted on YouTube, received over 500,000 clicks within the first few days.

For two-and-a-half years, Mirko Reisser and Heiko Zahlmann worked in cooperation with Lothar Knode as artistic directors for the project Dock-Art. The piece, which measured 2,000 m 2, was revealed in 2001 vis-à-vis the Landungsbrücken in the Hamburg Harbour at the outside wall of the shipyard's Blohm + Voss Dock 10.

In the context of Mural Global, a worldwide mural art project for Agenda 21, DAIM realized a 300 m 2 mural in São Paulo together with Brazilian graffiti artists Os Gêmeos, Vitché, Herbert Baglione, and Nina Pandolfo as well as the German graffiti artists Loomit, Codeak, and Tasek in 2001. The mural is located under a viaduct of the Beneficência-Portuguesa-hospital on Avenida 23 de Maio and comprises the topics of air, earth, water, and fire. 80 murals were created within the scope of Mural Global, an initiative of Farbfieber e.V. Düsseldorf, under the patronage of UNESCO. The project was awarded with the Innovationspreis Soziokultur 2002 of Fonds Soziokultur.

• Illustration — Sign of the times by DAIM, Darco, Loomit, and others in Hamburg-Lohbrügge Germany, 1995 Mirko Reisser also acted as the artistic director for Sign of the Times. The work got an entry in the Guinness World Records for the highest graffiti in the world. Together with Darco, Loomit, and others, and under the organisational lead of Lothar Knode, the piece, with an overall wall-space of 300 m 2, was realised on a skyscraper in Hamburg-Lohbrügge in December 1995. The artists working on the 30-meter high and 11-meter wide artwork used 1,000 spray cans. Besides its impressive height, the work also inspired awe with its exciting composition of script and pictorial elements, as well as citations from other art masterpieces.

• 2002: getting-up im FREIRAUM, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, Germany. • 2003: Young primitives, Groeningemuseum, Brügge, Belgium. • 2005: Schon vergeben – Sammlung Reinking, Art Cologne, Köln, Germany. • 2005: Passion of collecting, Collection Federkiel, Collection Reinking, Alte Baumwollspinnerei Halle 14, Leipzig, Germany. • 2006: Minimal Illusions – Arbeiten mit der Collection Rik Reinking, Villa Merkel, Esslingen, Germany. • 2007: ID, Kunstverein Buchholz, Buchholz, Germany. • 2007: tapingDAIM, ReinkingProjekte, Hamburg, Germany. • 2007: Walls – L'arte al Muro, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice, Italy. • 2007: Wakin Up Nights, de Pury & Luxembourg, Zurich, Switzerland. • 2007: Still on and non the wiser, Von der Heydt-Museum, Kunsthalle Barmen, Wuppertal, Germany. • 2007: Active Constellation, The Brno House of Art, Brno, Czech Republic. • 2008: fresh air smells funny, Kunsthalle Dominikanerkirche, Osnabrück. • 2008: Call it what you like! Collection Rik Reinking, KunstCentret Silkeborg Bad, Denmark. • 2009: Urban-Art – Werke aus der Sammlung Reinking, Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst, Bremen, Germany. • 2010: DAIM – coming out, Galerie MaxWeberSixFriedrich, Munich, Germany. • 2011: Street Art – meanwhile in deepest east anglia, thunderbirds were go..., Von der Heydt-Museum, Kunsthalle Barmen, Wuppertal, Germany. • 2012: Corner to Corner – Hinz&Kunzt StrassenKunztEdition, Kupferdiebe Galerie, Hamburg, Germany. • 2013: Abstraction 21 | DAIM&LOKISS, Hélène Bailly Gallery, Paris, France. • 2013: HANSEstreetartWORKS, MARTa Herford Museum, Herford, Germany. • 2013: POESIA – Works from the Collection Reinking, Städtische Galerie Delmenhorst, Delmenhorst, Germany.

DAIM is represented in the following art collections (selection): • Collection Arsenale Novissimo, Venice, Italy. • Collection MuCEM, Marseille, France. • Collection ArtFonds21, Frankfurt, Germany. • Collection Reinking, Hamburg, Germany. • Collection Klingspor-Museum, Offenbach am Main, Germany.