Our social media channelsThe British artist Darren Cullen provokes with his political art somewhere between street art and fake advertising.You can see them in Bethanien.According to Darren Cullen, visual artist and curator of the commercial break exhibition at Kunstraum Kreuzberg aka Bethanien, his works are like advertisements.For him, standard advertising shares a common message: Life is great, but yours isn't."We need to talk about advertising," he says."It's being done to us without consent.We should all be able to disagree.” Darren loves doing that.And is clever, political, but above all provocative.That's how one should describe Darren Cullen - also known as Spelling Mistakes Cost Lives.He could also be accused of being an internet troll who broke into the real world.Even if you haven't seen any of his work before, this art is very familiar.This is not an accident, but quite intentional.The British artist does little that is new, but everything is original.This is mainly due to the form: the so-called subvertising.As an art movement, it started in the '60s with the Billboard Liberation Front and later evolved with The Yes Men.Documenta 15 After new allegations: why these pictures are not anti-SemiticTheater Is there discrimination here?A company views productions at the Berliner EnsembleSubvertising, an amalgam of the terms "subversion" and "advertising", transforms well-known brand names.Results include an Action Man with war injuries and PTSD, a hallucinating Nesquik rabbit, or the Shell logo that says "Hell".With this latest provocation, Cullen almost crossed the line.He got a letter from the oil company's lawyer.A legal dispute almost flattened him at the time.He asked the group: "Does 'Hell' also belong to 'Shell'?" This makes sense.After all, they both wanted burning earth.Screenshots of the conversation between the artist and the company went viral.Shell ultimately did not respond.Without this humor his art would probably seem didactic.But Cullen has it in abundance.He smiles: One of his first victims was the Royal Navy, the British Navy."Become a suicide bomber," beams the poster that refers to the self-destructive power of submarine nuclear bombs.The Navy has since bought a copy of his poster for their museum.Earlier, colleagues from the Special Patrol Group illegally installed these posters in bus stops."That was the icing on the cake," Cullen grins.Raised in Leeds, Northern England, Cullen was politicized by the Chomsky documentary Manufacturing Consent while at Glasgow University.It was the time of anti-capitalist anti-globalization.No Logo and Naomi Klein were global names.Nevertheless, many of his fellow art students from back then later entered the marketing industry."The advertising industry is like a vacuum cleaner that sucks in creative talent and turns it into garbage," he says.Fortunately, he would never have had to do anything like this to earn his daily bread.Cullen worked as a musician after college.Then in the noughties as a drummer for the then well-known indie band Shitdisco.After our conversation, he makes his way to the Glastonbury Festival.Where he once performed as a musician, he is now invited as an anti-capitalist artist.How did he survive after his band collapsed?Apparently it wasn't easy to make money without selling your soul to the advertising industry."Unemployment benefits and squatting," he replies tersely, his wiry hair falling over his eyes.He's always been anarchic.He once lived in a former toilet factory in London.He still lives in the city today – right next to the Museum of Neoliberalism.Service You have to go there at the weekend: the culture tips from the editorsThe exhibition in Bethanien is not just about presenting art.With subverting fact sheets and DIY tools, Cullen also wants to teach others to disagree.He also shows a provocative children's game, a table football diorama in the West Bank called "Occupation".Describing something so small as an ambitious work of art seems like an exaggeration.Nevertheless, it is extremely detailed and provocative - including the wall around the soccer field."I'm a Berliner" is written on it as graffiti.The work is inspired by conversations with Palestinian soccer players.Cullen knows about German sensitivity towards Israel and Palestine.So he installed a CCTV camera on the ceiling to monitor vandals and protect his work.A bit ironic for a subvertiser.Part of Cullen's art draws from his British background, too, including a sign that reads "Don't believe everything you've been told by billionaires" written in the logos of Britain's notorious tabloids.The exhibition also includes messages from German and international artists.For example, a fake issue of Der Spiegel magazine, which is now called “Der Pimmel” here.Or an eye patch for Horst Seehofer's right eye with the sentence: "The simple solution to right-wing extremism.Recommended by Heimat-Horst.” In the Bethanien there is even a stolen Ströer advertising space by the Berlin street art collective Rocco and his Brothers.The embassy calls out RAF associations with a wink: "Prisoners of the RAHB for six days"Comment Ex-Knesset Speaker: Israel has turned anti-Semitism into a political toolArt attack in Biesenthal Violence against works of art: where does this anger come from?Placing his art in this exhibition is a little difficult, Cullen admits.He'd rather see them outside, next to actual billboards."Here you just know that it's not true." Outside, the reactions are different.Cullen was part of street art legend Banksy's Dismaland exhibition, showing his 'Children's Pocket Money' project - a satire on Britain's growing loan sharking industry.But only on the streets of poorer small towns did he get the desired reaction.People looked at him confused and begged him not to do that.Still, he says, “With art, at least, people can choose what to look at and what they like.When it comes to advertising, you have no choice.”“Werbepause – The Art of Subvertising” can be seen at Kunstraum Kreuzberg until August 21st.More information at: www.kunstraumkreuzberg.deOur author supports the freedom struggle of Ukraine.But then he thinks of the economic consequences and shrinks back.An inner reckoning.200 million sunk: Netflix's most expensive in-house production is as complex as it is boring.A charmless thriller with a wooden Ryan Gosling.His songs are always tasteful and solid - but Josh Rouse's melodic folk-pop hasn't been that exciting lately.Also the new album...