Dolk
From The Giant: The Definitive Obey Giant Site
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Biography
Dolk Lundgren, or simply Dolk (Norwegian for dagger/knife), is a Norwegian stencil artist whose work has rapidly gained popularity since first being introduced to the masses via Wooster Collective (street works) and Pictures on Walls (POW) (commercially available prints). His "official" biography, courtesy of POW, stated, "The premier stencil artist in Norway and wise beyond his years, Dolk has been voted 'most likely to succeed' by his classmates at vandal school." POW went on to say, "Direct from Bergen, Norway we present Dolk Lundgren. An exciting new artist who lists amongst his hobbies 'sex, sex, and vandalism'." Dolk's profile from Stencil Revolution lists his occupation as "fluffer" and states his interests as "stencils, painting, exploring, sex."
Dolk or Banksy?
Early in his career, it was speculated that Dolk was a pseudonym for famous Bristol-based stencil artist Banksy. It was assumed, due to some stylistic similarities, that Dolk was an outlet for Banksy’s less challenging, more fun works. This has been refuted several times, most notably by thethugsdontwork, the respected Banksy expert and frequent poster on the old Banksy eBay forum.
Along the same lines, Dolk’s earlier work had been criticized in some quarters for being derivative and overly influenced by Banksy, most notably his 2005 Work "Puppy Love" (edition of 200, numbered and unsigned, 45x32 cm, original retail £39.99). POW's advertising copy read, "It's a picture of a dog shagging a robot like you see everywhere else, but this one's got a pink background." This work bears the both the same name and color scheme as a Banksy original, the only difference being Banksy’s focus on two combat vehicles having doggy-style intercourse. Thethugsdontwork succinctly summed up the general consensus of "Puppy Love" by stating, "Dolk's first print was Banksy-lite."
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Che
Popular acclaim for his commercially available work lagged behind his street and stencil-community credentials until the 2006 release of "Che" (signed, edition of 750, 50x70 cm, original retail £50.00) and "Che XL" (signed, edition of 100, 100x70 cm, original retail £100.00). This two-color image, an "instant classic" as per Pictures on Walls and "Banksy-heavy" as per thethugsdontwork, features a cigar-smoking Che Guevara proudly pointing to his t-shirt, emblazoned with artist Jim Fitzpatrick's rendering of Alberto Korda’s (in)famous, much pirated 1960 image of... Che Guevara. Dolk's print is considered by many to be the ultimate riff on Che, who has become a capitalist powerhouse in death. Dolk's work highlights the irony that an image of the man French philosopher Jean-Paul Satre once called, "the most complete human being of our age," an icon of communism worldwide, now appears on hot-selling retail products ranging from t-shirts to mousepads to thong underwear.
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Burger King
Dolk followed up this successful work with the June 2006 release of "Burger King" (edition of 250, signed and numbered, 70x50 cm, original retail £50.00). This piece, featuring Prince Charles wearing a Burger King crown against a blue backdrop, is a re-working of a Dolk street piece for the broader English art market. The original work featured King Harald V of Norway adorned with the well-recognized Burger King crown. With regard to Dolk's print, Pictures on Walls' advertising copy read, "Dolk gets it spot on with a charming portrait of the man who will never be king."
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"Che," "Che XL," and "Burger King" were met with widespread acclaim and greatly enhanced both Dolk's visibility and his popularity in the commercially-available art world. Dolk, and his fans, also benefited tremendously by very fortuitous timing. His emergence was accentuated by a noted lack of Banksy screenprint material and drastic price increases on what was available. This situation forced many less-affluent Banksy addicts to look elsewhere for their fixes. A large percentage of these stencil junkies found Dolk to be, at the very least, their methadone. Many have found him to be their new drug of choice.
Pictures on Walls Interview
It was announced on POW that a Dolk interview would be posted in July of 2006. It wasn't. That was that.
Nuart Festival 2006
Dolk then took part in the 2006 edition of the Nuart Festival. The festival, which ran from September 6 until September 10, 2006, is described by the official website:
This year's festival saw a blur of pervasive assaults on the town of Stavanger, an invasion of territories between the media. A week of cross town subversion, demonstration and events to accompany the Numusic Festival. An internationally renowned group of artists & pranksters using various systems to create a dynamic playground of exchange. Broadcast across mediums to a festival and web wide audience. Taking place in multiple arenas through several media throughout town of stavanger. Specially commissioned works map and interpret public interactions via installations and exhibits. Somewhere between the web, street, gallery or on your mobile phones nuart promises to involve you with its many layered media driven interactions.
In addition to Dolk, the Nuart Festival featured artists such as D-Face, Pobel, Nood, Toby Sparks, Eelus, Nick Walker, Word to Mother, Mir, and Graffiti Research Lab. It is highly recommended that you check out Numusic's Flickr Slideshow of the event for some stunning streetwork photos.
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Santa's Ghetto 2006
In December, Pictures on Walls' 2006 rendition of "Santa's Ghetto" marked the first widely-known appearance of Dolk's work on canvas. It has been reported that four different canvas pieces were sent by Dolk to "Santa's Ghetto." However, only one was known to have been put on sale, the slightly damaged "Che" seen below (notice the damage by Che's left ear). The canvas "Che" sold for 750 GBP. It was unable to be repaired and was instead replaced.
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Herman Friele
On March 20, 2007, Dolk's humorous take on the mayor of Bergen (Norway), Herman Friele, was featured in an article on iBergen.no. A translation will be posted some time during the next five years, but it is known to say that Mayor Friele enjoyed the stencil and believes that Dolk makes the city more exciting.
Pretty fly for a white guy
- Jeg digger grafitti, og syns det er godt tegnet, sier ordfører Herman Friele om hiphop-utgaven av seg selv.
Av Roy Hilmar Svendsen (iBergen.no):
Flere steder i byen har det dukket opp såkalt streetart, laget med sjablonger, med dels kjente og svært forseggjorte motiver, blant annet av Helge Omen Kaizer fra Kaizers Orchestra. Men et av de som vekker mest oppsikt, er en fremstilling av selveste ordføreren i Bergen, Herman Friele, som er sprayet på innsiden av tunnelveggen under Smørsbroen.
- Veldig fint!
I kunstverket er kaffekongen fremstilt med lue og hendene i «West Side»-posisjon, og ordførerkjedet erstattet av en skikkelig bling-bling-lenke med svært dollartegn. Verket er signert 28 år gamle «Dolk», som er en kjent skikkelse i byens streetart-miljø.
Ordføreren selv er svært smigret over kunstverket.
- Jeg syns han har vært veldig, veldig flink. Skulle nesten tro han brukte bilder for å få det så likt. Veldig fint, sier Herman Friele til iBergen.no.
- Hvordan er det å se seg selv i full hiphop-positur?
- Artig! Jeg prøver jo å være talsmann for alle subkulturene i Bergen, ikke bare for finkultur som Harmonien og Festspillene. Her kjenner jeg meg absolutt igjen. For eksempel bruker jeg jo lue når det blaser og er kaldt. Det virker som om han har tatt forskjellige ting ved meg, og satt sammen i sitt uttrykk, sier Friele.
Vil lage «noe fantastisk»
I et intervju med nettstedet graffiti.no forklarte «Dolk» litt om hvordan han lager sine forseggjorte bilder
- I gjennomsnitt bruker jeg ti timer på å kutte ut en stencil (sjablong, journ. anm.). Det å designe stencilen tar dobbelt så lang tid som selve skjæringen. På en av mine mest avanserte stenciler brukte jeg en uke, forteller 28-åringen fra Bergen.
Avslutningsvis lover han å lage noe helt fantastisk og grensesprengende før han gir seg i kast med andre uttrykksformer.
- Drivkraften er at jeg vil lage «kunst» som folk vil huske. Stor i kjeften sier du? Husk hvor jeg kommer fra, sier 28-åringen til graffiti.no.
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DIFUSOR
Difusor was an international stencil meeting that took place in Barcelona, Spain from June 29 to July 1, 2007. Dolk, representing Norway, joined an impressive collection of worldwide street art talent featured at this event (for a full roster of participants, click here). Difusor's bio of Dolk stated that he, "Talks dirty, paints dirty, smells dirty."
An impressive set of photos from this event can be seen as a Flickr Slideshow by clicking here.
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Nuart Festival 2007
As he did in 2006, Dolk will be taking part in 2007's Nuart Festival, which runs from September 6 to November 4 in Stavanger, Norway.
"Nuart is a dynamic city wide event on both gallery and street walls. From the first week in September an international team of street artists start to leave their mark on the city of Stavanger, Norway.
The resulting work will form a static show at Rogaland kunstmuseum that runs until November 04th. There’ll be Nuart film premiers, workshops, panel debates, artist presentations, concerts and work city wide from the artists listed below plus others participating in various ways.
Visiting Artists include:
AROFISH (UK), BLEK LE RAT (FR), DFACE (UK), NICK WALKER (UK), M-CITY (POLAND), LOGAN HICKS (USA), DOLK (N), SIXTEN (SWE), RENE GAGNON (USA), CHARLES KRAFFT (USA), HERAKUT (DE), EINE (UK), KNGEE (JP), WORDTOMOTHER (UK), PØBEL (N), MIR (N), THE DOTMASTERS (C6), KAROLINA SOBECKA (USA), SLINKACHU (UK) TRISTAN MANCO (UK)"
Nuart presented the following as the description of Dolk:
There was a time when I thought every country would eventually have it's own version of Banksy, it was only after several years of seeing the work of weak copyists that I decided otherwise and realised that Banksy was an artist of pure genius, a true pioneer and one of a kind, there wasn't two Mark Rothko's, two Andy Warhol's, two Caravaggio's.. why would there be two Banksy's. But... there were and are, many incredibly talented artists influenced by those above, who used previous achievements and templates as a starting point to build their own body of work. Movements and schools are not the preserve of a single artist, but a free flowing exchange of creative ideas, techniques and theories that merge at different points to create something new. The same... but different.
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The Cans Festival
It was announced that Dolk would be joining a lineup of international street artists including Banksy, Logan Hicks, Blek, 3D, and fellow HMP artists Pobel and M-City, as part of The Cans Festival taking place in London on May 3, 4, 5 of 2008.
Below are Cans Festival pieces that have been attributed to Dolk:
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Handmadeposters.com
Handmadeposters.com is the eagerly-anticipated new home of prints and canvas works by Dolk, Sixten, and Pobel. For months, stencil junkies worldwide hit F5 hoping that the image above would change.
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On April 25, 2007, Handmadeposters.com finally opened for business. The initial offerings featured two canvas pieces by Dolk, "Grenade Lovers" and "Police Line" (also known as both "Marathon" and "Crime Scene"). Each canvas was a limited edition of 15 pieces, acrylic and spraypaint on 70cm x 100cm linen canvas, and retailed for £1500. In addition, two new Dolk prints were offered, "I Am Your Father" and "Officer Down." "I Am Your Father" was a limited edition, one color, hand-pulled silkscreen that was both signed and numbered (500 copies, 70cm by 50cm, 250gsm art paper). "Officer Down" was a limited edition, two color, hand-pulled silkscreen in an edition of 500 signed and numbered copies (70cm by 50cm, 250gsm art paper). Both prints retailed for £70. Rounding out the new material were prints and canvas pieces by Sixten and Pobel, including Sixten's well-known "Jesus Shaves" and Pobel's "Hard Work."
On April 26, 2007, the following message was posted on HMP:
Thats all for now folks!
It seems that the people at PayPal thought it was going a bit too well for us.
Today we received notice that there was abnormal activity going on in our account. I guess it was too many payments coming in. -So they decided to close the account.
For those of you who have purchased our prints and originals - dont worry! they are in the mail!
For the rest of you, I guess you will have to wait a bit while we put up a better payment solution from someone who are a bit more serious about their business.
There are more prints available, but it will say "out of stock" until a payment solution is arranged.
We are truly sorry about this.
On May 31, 2007, HMP proudly announced that their new payment system was up-and-running and that prints and canvas pieces were once again available for purchase from the website.
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Girl With Teddy
On July 25, 2007, HMP announced their next print release, the much anticipated "Girl with Teddy" by Dolk. The work will be released in an edition of 200 hand pulled prints, in three colors on Somerset 250gsm paper, numbered and signed by DOLK. It will be made available some time during August.
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On August 22, 2007, HMP released "Girl with Teddy" as a three colour handpulled screenprint, printed on 250 gram Somerset Satin Paper, edition of 200, signed, numbered and stamped by DOLK. HMP stated that, "The little girl handcuffed to her teddy bear sold out on canvas before we even got hmp launched. Now the print is finally ready." The entire run sold out in a few hours despite the release being announced around 2:30 AM EST, while many American Dolk fans were sound asleep. When queried about the release time, Morten from HMP promptly replied, "Truly sorry ...We depend a bit on our computer wizards during the release, and had to release during their work hours. I’ll try to put the advantage in your favor the next time."
Zooicide
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On November 11, 2007, HMP announced the details of the future release of "Zooicide" as an edition of 250 prints, in two colors on 50x70cm Bakeri Everest, 250gsm (heavy) paper, signed, numbered and embossed by DOLK.
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On December 4, 2007, HMP announced that "Zooicide" would be going on sale later in the day. The edition of 250 prints was sold with a 1 per customer limit. HMP's payment solution had difficulty dealing with heavy traffic, resulting in some frustration with the initial ordering process.
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The sold-out "Zooicide" edition was shipped on December 10, 2007.
Prisoner
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On January 8, 2008, HMP announced that "Prisoner" was available as a limited edition of 250 signed, numbered, and embossed prints. This screenprint sold out on March 18, 2008.
M-City
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On March 18, 2008 (and via email on March 19), Morten Landmark announced that M-City would soon join Dolk and company as part of the HMP stable.
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On March 27, 2008, M-City's "Bomb" was released in a limited edition of 150 copies.
Last Mona
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On May 8, 2008, Morten Landmark of HMP announced that "Last Mona" by Dolk would be the next print release.
On May 13, 2008, Morten Landmark of HMP announced that Dolk's "Last Mona" was available as a limited edition of 250 signed, numbered, and embossed prints (67x67 cm, 4-color screenprint on Conqueror Conoisseur Soft White 300gsm paper). This screenprint sold out on the same day of issue.
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Monsters Prefer Blonds
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On June 5, 2008, Morten Landmark of HPM] announced that "Monsters Prefer Blonds" by Pobel would be released some time during the week of June 8, 2008. "Monsters Prefer Blonds" will be a threecolor, 70x50cm screenprint in an edition of 100 copies and will be signed/numbered by Pobel.
Dolk "Last Mona" Canvas Edition
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On June 19, 2008, Morten Landmark of HPM announced that "Last Mona" canvas edition was available for sale. The "Last Mona" canvas was limited to a total edition of only 6 pieces. This work was done in acrylic and spraypaint on 34"(90cm) square linen canvas. The initial retail price was 3500 GBP + shipping/taxes. The entire run was sold out within 3 days.
M-City Canvas Release
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On July 10, 2008, Morten Landmark of HPM announced that two new M-City canvas works were now available. "Plane" and "Zeppelin" were both 100x70cm, spraypaint on linen canvas, editions of 1. Retail price was 1000GBP each plus taxes, customs, and shipping expenses.
Handmadeposters.com Archive
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Recent Work
This space will be continuously updated as new works are discovered. Please note, names are not official and are used just for ease of reference.
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svennevenn from Flickr reported that Dolk was commissioned to execute "Sleepwalking from Wheelchair".
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Flickr Slideshows
Images of Dolk's street work are plentiful on Flickr. The following are links to slideshows of some of Dolk's most popular works. No credit is taken for these photos as all were sourced from generous users on Flickr who have shared them with the public. Massive thanks and utmost respect to those who have shared these amazing images. Please note, many of these names are not "official" and are just being used in order to avoid saying "this cool one by Dolk" or "that awesome one by Dolk." Also, on June 25, 2007, the slideshows were all fixed and updated.
Please click the link under the photo to be taken to the Flickr slideshow.
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The Eskigirl Collection
Eskigirl on Flickr has provided the most oustanding collection of Dolk streetwork images available. All respect and thanks to Eskigirl sharing these images on Flickr.
Presented below are just a few highlights from this amazing collection of images. To view the entire collection, click here or follow this link for a Flickr Slideshow of the Eskigirl Collection.
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Canvas Work
Two members of The Dolk Lungren Fan Forum, AgentBacardi (a moderator) and Silky (the administrator), shared images of their Dolk Canvas pieces. "Girl with Teddy" was a limited-edition of 15 pieces that was originally intended to debut on Handmadeposters.com. It sold out before the website opened. "Grenade Lovers" and "Police Line" (aka "Marathon" aka "Crime Scene") debuted on HMP on April 25, 2007. The canvas version of "Burger King (Original Norway Edition)" was featured at the 2005 Dolk vs. Strok exhibit. The canvas version of "Last Mona" was released on HMP on June 19, 2008.
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Prints
The following prints were retailed by POW:
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The following prints were retailed by HMP:
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Postcard
Pictures on Walls began issuing "Che" postcards sometime in the fall of 2006. The postcards, along with postcards of Nick Walker's "Mona Simpson," were included free of charge with orders.
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Stencil Revolution
Prior to becoming known to a larger public via his POW-series of prints, Dolk was a member of the Stencil Revolution website. The contents of his members gallery can be seen below, featuring rare images of early Dolk work as he honed his skills. To view as a slideshow, click here.
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