| David Elshout: I missed the pulsating energy of New York City, coming back again felt familiar. Upon arrival, I found out the guys had prepared a cool basic graphic theme, with a strong industrial 1920s feel. All our social and artistic influences morphed into a giant piece made on site, which gradually evolved to the fitting title, When A Magic Trick Goes Wrong. I think it works well with the impossible perspective, the Sideshow Americana, and Animistic themes, supplied by the “Goblins” (Eru & Emu Arizono). We spent a lot of time on preparing the paintings for our first solo show in New York. Our style is a substrate of many years of different artistic endeavors. We developed our visual language through different experiments in video, drawing, painting, performance, and publishing. | 
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Dutch collective Antistrot’s solo exhibition What We Do is Secret was on view at Sara Tecchia Roma New York in June.
Antistrot, What We Do is Secret, 2008. Frescolithe, gouache, and ink on muslin, 29.5 x 29.5 inches. Courtesy of Sara Tecchia Roma New York.David Elshout: I missed the pulsating energy of New York City, coming back again felt familiar. Upon arrival, I found out the guys had prepared a cool basic graphic theme, with a strong industrial 1920s feel. All our social and artistic influences morphed into a giant piece made on site, which gradually evolved to the fitting title, When A Magic Trick Goes Wrong. I think it works well with the impossible perspective, the Sideshow Americana, and Animistic themes, supplied by the “Goblins” (Eru & Emu Arizono).
We spent a lot of time on preparing the paintings for our first solo show in New York. Our style is a substrate of many years of different artistic endeavors. We developed our visual language through different experiments in video, drawing, painting, performance, and publishing. Concept was always premier before medium. Gradually we’ve been developing ourselves more on an aesthetic and technical level. Nowadays, our drawings, silkscreens, and paintings are a visual bacchanal of all the graphic and artistic themes we cherish. A banquet in which we consume all our influences from photography, graphic art, art history, and our own shared fantasy world, “the Antistrot Mythos.” I feel there is no end to the visual and graphic possibilities of our visual language. We hope to develop our collaboration even more on an intuitive level, as well as raising our concepts to new heights.
The opening itself was a flurry of activities and social events. I spent a few days walking the streets afterward. I think the era of “balls-to-the-wall” high rolling-capitalism is changing New York into something new, though I don’t know what, which makes it so exciting.
Silas Schletterer: I hate airplanes, but it’s so much faster than a boat. Once we landed safely, the New York skyline gave me an energy boost. Target in sight and crew by my side in the city that never sleeps and I’ve been awake for 2 days.
The walls at the gallery looked like they were waiting to be filled with color. We control. We use the technique by putting a lying spirit in its mouth. We are Antistrot and we perform magic. Although the outcome may look like a bad dream or a nightmare, the escaped mad brute is here to please your needs.
Paul Borchers: It was a tough process stapling the canvas to the wall. It was the first time we put a canvas to the wall this way and it seemed like a bad idea to proceed. Bruno and I arrived to prepare the canvas and without any sleep we drove right into Manhattan to gather all our necessities.
To stretch the canvas without any wrinkles seemed almost impossible as the canvas was way too wide and a wall doesn’t really stretch, so we cut it in three pieces to divide the problem and this made it almost disappear (magic?).
Like all our other paintings we are always looking for new ways to make our compositions so we would never go on autopilot. When A Magic Trick Goes Wrong is a huge painting we made in the gallery. It’s like no other canvas we’ve made at all and it’s definitely not “our magic” going wrong.
The Goblins: This experience was like a ride on a roller coaster. We rode on a roller coaster called Antistrot as passengers. It ran through Tokyo, Rotterdam, and New York at super quick speed, and one picture was done. It was a very high experience. We love Antistrot!
Johan Kleinjan: I was not part of the selection of colors for the mural. It was not necessary because after this previous period of intensive painting everybody was happy with any color. In the end, we used ice cream colors. Because the plastic paint cans always explode or burst open on the airplane, we decided to use tin cans this time. They survived the flight much better. The day before I went to New York I saw Paul and Bruno having difficulties with putting the canvas on the wall. After a Web cam consultation we decided to cut the canvas in three parts to stop it from wrinkling. Luckily, this worked.
When I arrived at the gallery, the others had already made an under-painting. Part of it was a bridge so I painted a car running over it. Because I am a (boring) person of technology I paint my machines very detailed, which is very time-consuming. The second thing I painted was a helicopter. Because of this I could only paint two elements on this mural.Michiel Walrave: Working as a group has two sides, good and bad. The good side is that it’s always a tremendous amount of fun and excitement. We crack jokes, we brainstorm, we see what the others come up with and eventually, we see this amazing image appear before our eyes. You just stand there and ask yourself, “Did we just do that?” There’s not much else that’s as fulfilling as that sense of accomplishment. The way Antistrot works is actually quite simple. We bring a stack of books, magazines, and Internet printouts, and derive our inspiration from those images. We do our own take on this material and change it around a bit. I’m just breaking it down in a very basic manner.
But the “bad” part of working as a group? Ego and taste. Let’s address the ego thing first. Surprisingly enough, ego trips are very uncommon within our collective, but every once in a while, one individual might feel as though their drawing or painting has been wronged, so to speak, by another member. “Why did you have to put that image right next to mine?” or “Why put that lettering on top of my work?” Sometimes this is understandable, but for the most part, you have to let it go because the action/reaction/interaction is precisely what drives Antistrot.
Taste: you might not like another member’s efforts, bad coloring, too cluttered, etc. Oddly enough, taste—the one thing we, as members of the collective, cannot “control” in each other—is the one thing that may lead to a bit of bickering or unhappy faces. Unnecessary? Yes. Understandable? Yes. But that’s where it ends. And we all know it. Which is the reason why our magic won’t go wrong.
Charlie Dronkers: Drawing without boundaries. It’s hard to be in a team, certainly when you think about the fact that we’re existing since 1997. This strange mix of different personalities couldn’t be set without Antistrot. It almost seems like a real-life soap opera, waiting to be documented. All the stories, all the funny parts, all the mistakes, and all the achievements we’ve made so far. Concerning our goals, we just cannot think short term anymore. The way we react to each other is so visible within the work. Everybody has such a significant signature, a certain style. It’s like playing a match on canvas, where each member is a “withdrawn striker.” Within our work, we are a reflection of contemporary society: re-sampling and mixing all the elements into a new composition. Humor, sex, and violence are displayed within various technical skills. The visual impact is being realized when the clash occurs within a balanced scenery of different styles, various interacting elements and colors. The “gig” we did at Sara Tecchia Roma New York is most certainly a great opportunity for us to show other people our perspectives.
