How & Nosm

For the third edition of our exhibition series “On Platform” we were able to win over How & Nosm, Rage and Roger. What they have in common is that they belong to the second generation of German writers and have preferred to paint trains since their first days. In this way, they have firmly inscribed themselves in the national and international history of style writing.

But it is not just their perseverance, but rather their consistent actions with the associated development of a specific style and a distinctive quality, that leads them to this exhibition.

As in our first two shows, the participating artists of “On Platform 3: The Next Generation” paint the model of a “Silberling”, a classic German steel train. Since this train car with its memorable appearance was increasingly phased out in the 1990s, How & Nosm, Rage and Roger have another opportunity to paint this model, at least in its small version.

How & Nosm

Growing up in a small town near Düsseldorf, the twin brothers How & Nosm discovered style writing for themselves in 1988. In the early 1990s, they painted their first trains, still following the example of the painted New York subways of the 1970s and 1980s.

Over the decades, their style has changed enormously. The colour palette in their pieces of art is greatly reduced, as is the usage of letters; the latter is very often no longer present at all. In their new works, How & Nosm show a complex abstract­expressionist imagery that is characterized by a dynamic image structure in which the gestural and physical are combined and thus evade direct legibility.