Cork man
Cork men or street yogi are small, barely hand-sized figures that have been seen on street signs in Berlin since 2009. The figures, consisting of two bottle corks and a shashlik skewer, are the work of the Berlin yoga trainer Josef Foos (* 1956). They go back to the Little People project by British street artist Slinkachu . As art in public space , the around 1000 figures (status: 2014) met with greater media coverage for some time from 2011.
Emergence
As a publicity stunt, sports teacher Josef Foos came up with small, easy-to-make figurines based on the model of the Little People project by London street artist Slinkachu. The mini-sculptures, held like stick figures, have a cork as a body, the second cork has been divided into five parts and serves as the head, arms and legs. He called the first dolls Street Yogi because they were designed in yoga positions. In the meantime, other types of movement such as walking , climbing or dancing are shown. The variety of figures by Josef Foos is particularly evident in his Street Artists in Action series , with which he creates mini monuments for many more or less well-known Berlin street artists. Foos usually (still) tinkers the figurines himself and places them on street signs without tools. They are now found in large numbers in all Berlin districts .
Due to the material used, cork men are ephemeral as street art. Like other performers in public space, Josef Foos uses the Internet with his own homepage as well as Flickr and Facebook under the name Joy Fox . Extensive but incomplete documentation of the street yogis can be found on these platforms.
According to Foos, he only knows one other street artist in Berlin who regularly and permanently puts up cork men. He is on the road under the name Alte Wilde Korkmännchen or Friedenauer Korkmännchen and is also represented on Internet platforms. Beyond Berlin, cork invaders are also active in Halle (Saale) . Since November 2017, more and more cork men have also appeared in Münster . In addition, a number of sporadic attempts by other people are known, at least in Berlin. On closer inspection, the cork figures can usually be assigned individually through characteristic features.
Web links
- Street yogis populate Berlin on tip-berlin.de
- Welcome to the cork men
- Street yoga homepage with a photo gallery by years and handicraft instructions
- Album collections with street yogis
Individual evidence
- ↑ Street Yoga Homepage
- ↑ Yogis in sight, street art ahead . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , December 10, 2011, accessed on March 17, 2019.
- ↑ a b Berlin originals . In: Berliner Zeitung , June 16, 2014, p. 25.
- ^ Street artists by Josef Foos
- ↑ Cork Invaders Hall
- ^ ARD media library: The invasion of the cork men in Münster. November 13, 2017, accessed January 8, 2018 .
- ↑ Welcome to the cork men .
- ↑ Invasion of the Corkman