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I love Plattenbau, 2021
von • by Matthias Brandt / Yamakasino
www.yamakasino.de

Born in Bielefeld in 1978, photographic artist Matthias Brandt began

his creative career as a graffiti writer, producing commissioned

spray-painted artworks for private clients, companies, schools

and community centres for over ten years. During this period,

Brandt experimented with various graffiti techniques, including

stencilling and so-called “one-liners” – tags or lettering created in

a single, uninterrupted line. It was through this early practice that

the artist, now working under the pseudonym “Yamakasino”,

developed his keen eye for striking compositional lines and colour
contrasts. The photo series I love Plattenbau is a declaration of

love for the post-war social housing blocks of Kreuzberg and

Friedrichshain in Berlin. Shot in steep, cropped perspectives, the

towering buildings are transformed into bold geometric forms

of colour, light and shadow, forming high-contrast compositions

against the sky and their urban surroundings. “Having spent the

first 20 years of my life in a village near Bielefeld, in the middle

of nature so to speak, I was both fascinated and shocked by

Berlin’s massive, repetitive architecture,” the artist explained. “I

felt overwhelmed by the sheer bulk of the concrete monoliths –

and at the same time drawn to their clean lines and minimalist

forms.” Each image serves as an invitation for viewers to perceive

the urban landscape in a new and different way – and, ideally,

to come to appreciate its aesthetic value. With this body of work,

Yamakasino has won a number of international art awards,

including the Minimalist Photography Awards, the Refocus

Awards and the Chromatic Awards.