HUGO KAAGMAN STENCIL KING
From the vaults (1980)
Hugo Kaagman and Punk Stencils in Amsterdam
British Punk fanzines inspired the punk scene in Amsterdam.
One of their main protagonists, punk stencil pioneer Hugo Kaagman (*1955)
cited the UK zine Sniffin’ Glue (1976–77) as inspiration to start his own punkzine, KoeCrandt in 1977.
Maybe the most known Dutch punk graffiti writer, Dr. Rat (born Ivar Vičs ,†1981), was inspired by punk
graffiti he had seen in London during a school trip. As a teenager, he also saw black gothic-style German
WWII inscriptions in bunkers near Ijmuiden, which he copied later. Kaagman stencil-spray-painted on the wall
of the Amsterdam punk location Gallery Anus.
Between 1978 and 1982, punk graffiti had a strong presence in Amsterdam. Kaagman cut his first stencil in
1977. Together with Diana Ozon, Lulu Zulu and Dr. Rat, Kaagman founded the squat punk club DDT666 in
1978. From 1979 onwards, psychedelic zebra patterns, inspired by a trip to Africa, became Kaagman’s
trademark. DDT666 was renamed Gallery Anus (1979), then Gallery Ozon (1980), and Gallery Zebra (1981).
Kaagman, Ozon, Dr. Rat, and other punks painted the walls, including with stencils, sold zines and stenciled
T-shirts. Already in 1979, “Subway graffiti” was an inscription on the squat Gallery Anus later painted by
Kaagman.
Kaagman, alias Amarillo, alias Stencil King, became the most influential stencil graffiti pioneer in 1980s
Netherlands. He seems to have been the only one in the usual documented photo material who worked with
more than two colors and who made stencils bigger than A3 size, although Kaagman’s single stencil tools
were not huge or life-size on their own—only in combination. Most Amsterdam punk stencils were the usual
one-layer text tag stencils or used icon symbols like a raised fist, a riot policeman or a cannabis leaf.
Tristan Manco saw Kaagman’s role as a stencil pioneer in Amsterdam. Already in 1986, Manco was
impressed by Kaagman’s huge legal stenciled fence mural on Amsterdam’s street Waterlooplein from 1983 or
1984, “made up of hundreds of different stencils.” It was Kaagman’s opus magnum and best known work of
that period: “I 1983 I made a legalised fence mural on Water looplein, a KoeCrant on panels, sixty meters of
political and social commentary, Arabic patterns, zebra motifs.”
Kaagman proclaimed an “electronic revolution” combined with exotic animals in a concrete jungle, fragments
from comics, punk, 1968, music, pop and resistance culture on this ephemeral though legal wall. Kaagman
was the first stencil virtuoso combining hundreds of multicolor pop art stencils in his wallpaper, pattern-like all-
over composition stencil compositions in punk collage tradition.
Kaagman did tell a story and created large stencil compositions from mostly rather small stencils, His
stencils were often playful, full of humor and political criticism and/or echoed his degree in social geography.
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