GHETTOBLASTER depicts an iconic 1980s boombox in bold blue—cassette deck, radio, knobs, and large speakers. A minimalist symbol of urban youth culture, rap, and breakdance.
GHETTOBLASTER depicts an iconic 1980s boombox in bold blue—cassette deck, radio, knobs, and large speakers. A minimalist symbol of urban youth culture, rap, and breakdance.

GHETTOBLASTER

“GHETTOBLASTER” With bold blue tones and clean lines, this work cap­tures the iconic ghet­to­blaster of the early 1980s, a symbol of urban youth cul­ture. The portable sound system was more than just tech­nol­o­gy: it stood for self-expres­sion, com­mu­ni­ty, and the pul­sat­ing sound of emerg­ing rap music. Close­ly tied to break­danc­ing, street life, and a way of living that made music vis­i­ble, this piece pre­serves a frag­ment of pop cul­ture in a time­less, min­i­mal­ist aes­thet­ic. “GHETTOBLASTER” is part of the art series “Blue in a Square”, which includes 300+ artworks.

Now, what you hear is not a test…

The ’80s were the birth hour of rap music and break­dance. This cre­at­ed a mix of surf­ing, skat­ing, graf­fi­ti, rap music, and break­dance. What’s inter­est­ing is that every­thing took place out­doors. To cel­e­brate rap music and break­dance, all you needed was a Ghet­to­blaster (boom­box). Every­thing hap­pened out­side. No one sat in front of a com­put­er, the TV, or any other screen. My gen­er­a­tion met on the cathe­dral square to skate. Free time took place under the open sky. Only at night did every­one gather in the night­club. The boom­box was loaded with a whole bat­tal­ion of large bat­ter­ies and fed with the cas­settes we had com­piled so you could listen straight through. The Ghet­to­blaster (boom­box), like skate­board­ing, was a public event. So were graf­fi­ti spray­ing and loud rap music. Night­clubs didn’t have a good rep­u­ta­tion either. Those were the ’80s—the time when youth did its own thing.

My memory of the Ghet­to­blaster (boom­box) era is a time of dis­cov­er­ies. A time of awak­en­ing. Then my gen­er­a­tion even got its own TV chan­nel: MTV. And the rebel­lion was com­plete. I have an immense number of pos­i­tive mem­o­ries of that whole time. Life played out like a movie—with its own sound­track: I said‑a hip, hop …
The art­work ‘Ghet­to­blaster’, like all art­works, can, of course, be pur­chased online in the desired size via my art store. All you need to do is fill out the online form or send me an email. You’ll then receive a prompt reply with a quote and a deliv­ery date.”

Canon Fine-Art inkjet print on pre­mi­um Hah­nemüh­le Photo Rag 308 gsm paper. Art­work size freely selec­table: from at least 20 × 20 cm up to 120 × 120 cm. Mount­ed on 2 mm alu­minum Dibond with a white wooden shadow-gap frame. Pricing/quote on request, depend­ing on size and quantity.

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