The founder of creative powerhouses in Berlin and Brussels gets candid about the industry, his tattooing “mafia” and coming up in the world of ‘90s graffiti.

“I like it simple and complex. I like it to have an impact when you see it,” says Cleinow. “I like the fact that your parents can love it and also reveal some questions about it. I like that I can tattoo some norm people and I like that I can tattoo extreme hardcore, marginal, extravagant people,” he offered when I called him from his new studio, a 400 square-meter space for tattoo work but also fashion design, techno, hip-hop, visual art, talks and podcasts. “I like to let others define my style.”
More than a style, he is transforming the wider culture of contemporary tattooing and beyond.&nbsp;
Born in 1979 in Brussels and growing up in the ‘90s, Cleinow got into graffiti at just 12-years-old.
“It’s like one million people living there and the particularity here is that after New York, Brussels is the smallest mégapole [megacity] in the world, so you can find 140 cultures on a super small street, for example,” Cleinow related. “I came to graffiti for the simple reason that I had to change schools many times and I used to take the bus every morning to go to a school really far away from my apartment. Every day, I was passing these huge pieces and tags when things were really starting to explode [in the graffiti world].”
Brussels was in the midst of a cultural renaissance in this moment. “I think it really started in ’87 after the explosion of the Zulu Nation group with [seminal hip-hop DJ] Afrika Bambaataa,” he explained. “It really had a big impact on people in Belgium, and many kids from the hood and stuff started to find a really good exit through these pillars that were really fundamental for hip-hop back in the day. [Zulu Nation] had these <a href="http://www.zulunation.com/elements/">five pillars</a> about breakdancing, DJing, painting; you had the homies, you had all these organizations around hip-hop where everyone could really find someplace to express and become someone in a micro society. I think [I was] 12 years old. I had some guys that were skateboarding and we started to hang out together and graffitiing started like that.”

He transferred to an art school at 14. (“Actually, we were not really going to school but more like hanging out,” he admitted) and chance came into play. “I arrived at a classroom where the most important graffiti artists in this time were from Brussels, and most of them [were] in my classroom,” he said.&nbsp;
Cleinow started going out with the artists he met at school to tag and create work. “I started to adapt my style to those guys. I really started to do my shit with big names here in Brussels and I had to improve myself. To say, ‘Hey, I have to make it like them; I have to make it big; I have to make it clean; I have to make it fast; and I have to do it a lot. I have to make the best spot. I have to be seen. I want to exist,’” he said. “In the contexts of the ‘90s in Brussels, the streets were pretty violent. Graffiti and hip-hop, for me, was really a place where I started to move as a group outside of comfort zones. I found my place in the streets, in these things. If you are respected in this world, you are just respected. I really loved this moment. I started this adventure with my crew and that was a place where I got a lot of confidence.”
He speaks of this time as a period that made him feel safe. “Of course, you judge people, but on what they do. I believe [graffiti and hip-hop] is really the base of my culture,” related Cleinow.&nbsp;
The first tattoo Cleinow received was during this same early period at 13. “It was the girlfriend of a really good friend of mine. I was secretly in love with her,” he laughed. “It was completely a moment. I never visualized my body with tattoos. I think 99% of my tattoos have no meaning besides the moment I had with the tattoo artist.”
In the years that followed, he produced music videos and experimental music with circuit-bending, homemade instruments and file recordings. He met some dancers and began writing compositions for them, a collaboration that led him to move to Berlin. He painted on canvas, focusing on lettering and shapes with more abstraction.&nbsp;

Cleinow did his first tattoo on a whim. One day, he watched a YouTube video on prison tattoos. He got inspired and watched a tutorial on how to build a machine. “In 30 minutes, I built my machine and I started to tattoo super spontaneously on my leg. And a friend of mine was there and he said, ‘Let’s do one on me, too,’” mused the artist. “Then I ran to a tattoo shop, asked for some needles because the first one I did was really with the guitar [string]. The adventure started like that.”
His first job in a studio came about organically. Not yet confident in his own work but knowing he had the strong desire and potential, he borrowed a sketch from a friend for his first interview; his trial session was with his weed dealer from the park who posed as a client. He bought a cheap machine for 50 euros, just in time for the session. “Everything was a big fake,” said Cleinow. “Just, I wanted to do it, I knew I could do it well, and I was really ready to go for it.”
At this point, it is probably worth emphasizing just how influential Cleinow and Future Berlin have become. He’s broken so many of the unspoken rules of tattoo aesthetics and culture—some you can see by looking at the style, others are less visible and more visceral. He has no problem tattooing something like an infinity sign or a Tamagotchi in his own style (“Most of the tattoo artists don’t want to make it, but most clients come to get an infinity sign”); he transformed the environment of the studio to make the artists and clients feel special, at home; he even threw away the emphasis on skill at one point (he can tattoo completely freehand very precisely in the end).&nbsp;

If you step into the studio, there may be people smoking weed, playing music. The first time I visited, there was a young guy chilling with his laptop, telling another artist about the set he had just played at Berghain; others were sketching. The artists of Future Berlin (currently shuttered as Berlin is in lockdown) have included talents like <a href="http://instagram.com/goldenboy.tattoo">Careem Salazar</a> and <a href="http://instagram.com/ruda_alina">Alina Ruda</a>.&nbsp;
Perhaps the best indication that the culture and movement that is Future Berlin is resonating is found if you search the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/futureberlin/">hashtag</a>—you’ll see not just work at the studio or by the collective, but people all over the world tagging it for something original, for tattoos done at home.&nbsp;
The first Future Berlin space was behind a bar. Cleinow reached out to artists who weren’t embraced by the scene. “So, the people working at home, who started by themselves, people who had big Instagram accounts, because this is not always well seen in the tattoo scene,” he explained. They would come in, get a drink and try out some work. Eventually the bar wanted a more commercially driven enterprise and Future Berlin moved into an empty squat with the okay of the landlord.&nbsp;

“Because of the problem we had with these guys from the bar, who were kind of like mafia shit, we wanted not to put the address anywhere,” explained Cleinow. “So, people had to pay a deposit to get the address. It became super exclusive and at the same time, people started to talk a lot about it. It became bigger and bigger online. The whole thing went from 0 to 100 super fast. I had beautiful experiences with artists there. And also, super hardcore experiences, disappointing experiences, but this is life. I think everyone joined Future Berlin for a personal reason. I believed in the beginning, that no one would put 5 euros on the table to invest in a project like Future Berlin. Everyone was like, ‘Who the fuck are those guys?’ And that’s my pleasure.”
For now, Cleinow is back in Brussels and the artists of Future Berlin are dispersed. His new project is Under Score Brussels, which hopes to encompass much more than tattoos as a movement for young people. “I believe we as humans, we are alive until we are 17 years old,” he reflected. “We are dreaming, dreaming, dreaming, and adults and society do the best to try to kill those dreams and to make us become good workers and kill our creativity. The maximum. We have some people who escaped this system. We have survivors. We have strong people passing through this.”
“I sold my Rolex to pay my rent, to pay my shit,” Cleinow said of the lockdowns. “I am not making 20,000 euros a month anymore. I’m making money as I can. I’m hustling. But I love this. This is the reality today.”
“I know it sounds a bit cheesy, but I like to insist on the fact that, for almost all my life, I believed that I could have an impact on the culture,” he said. “I believed strongly that I could do that, and I faced all my life, people smiling at me about this. [My story] is a reminder that sometimes you do things and you are the only one believing in them, but it will engage a huge [response]. For a long time, I believed I was the only one truly believing in it, and it became something that is today, really incarnated by many people who I don’t even know, and this is, for me, really beautiful. I’m so thankful for that. I’m really, really thankful for that.”&nbsp;

WRITER: Ashley Simpson
PHOTOS: Courtesy of Future Berlin

The Rise of Berlin's Most Exciting Tattoo Collective

Tremaine Emory connects with the streetwear veteran to discuss post-algorithm brands, insights from Virgil Abloh and writing a New York narrative with ASICS.

Featured Brands

Collections

Categories

New Releases

Upcoming Releases

The Rise of Berlin's Most Exciting Tattoo Collective