24
NOVEMBER 2012
•
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
DISPATCHES
||
GLOBETROTTING
LOUIE PSIHOYOS/CORBIS
Sollich is a graduate of the Senior
Street Art project, an ongoing series
of workshops aimed at a demo-
graphic not generally known for
edgy, risk-taking artistic impulses.
In his 70s, he is one of the program’s
more junior alums—there are artists
up to age 85 tagging Berlin’s public
spaces (so far, no senior street
artist has been observed doing this
anywhere other than in what
Sollich calls “prearranged
designated areas”).
The project was founded in
2005
by local artist Stephanie
Hanna, who saw it as a way to
express the idea that graffiti “is
an accepted genre now.” Also, she
says, “the courses are a kind of
regressive therapy, reinvigorat-
ing these older people and
getting them in touch with
their primal creativity.”
For Sollich, whose work will be
part of an upcoming exhibit, the main
benefit of the six-week course is
that it got him out of the house. “I’ve
met more people in the past three
months than in the past three years,”
he says. “These are an entirely dif-
ferent world of people I would never
have met before.”
—
CRAIG STEPHENS
OLDMASTERS
THE NEXT BIG NAME IN GERMAN
STREET ART COULD BE
SOMEONE’S GRANDDAD
In a dingy pedestrian
tunnel in central Berlin, a
graffiti artist is hurriedly
adding the finishing touches
to a large, stylized tag:
“
Tschüss
,”
the informal German
word for “goodbye.” As he paints,
a 70-year-old woman named Ger-
trude Baum enters the tunnel on her
way home from the grocery store.
“
Guten tag
,”
says Baum cheerily,
apparently unfazed that her neigh-
bor and fellow senior citizen Klaus
Sollich is lurking in the dim light with
a can of spray paint in his hand. But
then, elderly graffiti artists have
become a relatively common sight in
Berlin over the past few years.
BERLIN
PRICE PAID FOR
THE TRUNKS
MUHAMMAD ALI
WORE IN HIS 1971
“
FIGHT OF THE
CENTURY” WITH
JOE FRAZIER (A
RECORD FOR BOXING
MEMORABILIA):
$173,102
AMOUNT THAT
A NEWYORK
COMMODITIES
TRADER IS
ESTIMATED TO
HAVE PAID FOR
THE LOBE:
$18,000–
$30,000
NUMBER OF TIMES
IN A LIFETIME
THAT A SALE LIKE
THIS COMES UP
(
ACCORDING TO
PROMOTIONAL
MATERIAL):
1
YEAR THAT
HOLYFIELDWON
THE OLYMPIC
BRONZE
MEDAL BEING
AUCTIONED:
1984
PRICE OF A
LIMITED-EDITION
HOLYFIELD
AUCTION
CATALOG:
$75
PRICE OF THE
SAME CATALOG
IF SIGNED BY
HOLYFIELD:
$250
RECENT ASKING
PRICE ON EBAY
FOR A GLOVE
SIGNED BY
HOLYFIELD:
$65
AMOUNT THAT
MIKE TYSON
WAS FINED
FOR BITING
HOLYFIELD’S
EAR:
$3MILLION
WEIGHT,
IN POUNDS,
OF A 1984
OLYMPIC BRONZE
MEDAL:
.26
VALUE OF
THAT SAME
MEDAL
AS SCRAP
METAL:
≈
$1
AMOUNT THAT
HOLYFIELD IS
ESTIMATED TO
HAVE EARNED
DURING HIS
CAREER:
$250
MILLION
LOS ANGELES •
Poor Evander Holyfield. Having lost part of
his ear during the 1997 “Bite Fight” with Mike Tyson, the
former WBA heavyweight champion has since lost the
bulk of his personal fortune, too. On Nov. 30, Holyfield
will put 500 items up for sale at L.A.-based auction house
Julien’s. “We’re estimating $2 million to $3 million, but
it could do a lot more,” says president and CEO Darren
Julien. “This is every significant item from his career.”
The sale lots will range from the banal (hand wraps) to
the irreplaceable (title rings)—with the only important
artifact not on offer being one slightly nibbled ear lobe.
“
Yeah, somebody picked that up out of the ring,” says
Julien. “It’s one of the few things that are in private hands.”
—
CHRIS WRIGHT
THE GLOVES ARE OFF
FORMER BOXING CHAMP EVANDER HOLYFIELD DOWNSIZES HIS COLLECTION OF PERSONAL MEMORABILIA
