Alexandros Vasmoulakis in Shenzhen and Ljubljana

I’m looking forward to what Alexandros Vasmoulakis does at Nuart, so in the meantime it’s nice to be able to share some of the other things he’s being doing lately. The piece above was commissioned by an historic concert hall in Ljubljana and painted in collaboration with Paris Koutsikos. Here they are at work:

I’ll need to ask him for a close up because I can’t see the rhinestones he mentions are on the paper. That’s a nice touch.

This second piece is located in the Dafen Painting Village and was commissioned by the Dafen Art Museum. It’s a funny place for it to be, but it’s a nice piece. Faith47, Hitnes, Sonik, Run and others also took part in this project. I’ll have to look out photos of what they did.

- Elisa

Poster Boy Does London

After the international book launch of Poster Boy’s The War of Art in NYC, LA, and London last weekend, one of the members of the collective got up in London and put up a few pieces that veer away from the NY based artist’s usual work. The Mary Poppins, and Nick Walker tribute, is right below the Banksy car on Brick Lane which a found the day after it was posted, and the second is on the corner of Whiston and Kingswood roads. in the Leake Street Tunnel. More photos can be seen at No Lions in England.

Photos by Steph Keller and No Lions in England

A Love Letter to… Syracuse?

That’s right. Steve Powers’ latest project is a continuation of his A Love Letter For You project. This time, he’s painting in Syracuse. It looks like A Love Letter to Syracuse has just begun in the few days, and Steve’s crew will be painting a total of three train bridges with messages similar to those in A Love Letter For You. Unurth has more info and more photos of the bridges so far.

More from TOSAT

Imminent Disaster

The other day, Gaia posted about Toronto Street Advertising Takever (TOSAT). Because this is such a cool project and I have a lot of respect for PublicAdCampaign, the event organizer, I wanted to just post a view more photos from TOSAT. For more about what exact TOSAT is, check Gaia’s post.

These pieces by Imminent Disaster, Ox and Sean Martindale were some of my favorite billboards from the event.

Ox

Sean Martindale. Photo by the artist

Photos courtesy of TOSAT and by Sean Martindale

So many tags… Twist in NYC

UPDATE: TheArtCollectors was there when the wall was being painted, so they’ve got the full story of all the crazy things that went down.

Twist aka Barry Mcgee has just completed this crazy wall of tags at the Bowery and Houston spot in NY previously painted by Shepard Fairey, Os Gêmeos and Keith Haring. It’s looking pretty awesome right now, but McGee tried this back in San Diego and the wall had to be buffed after residents complained! This is a legal spot, but still, expect complaints.

If you look closely, you’ll see a huge variety of tags including classics like Twister, Iz the Wiz, Amaze (McGee’s longtime assistant) and Revok as well as shout outs to McGee’s friends (Todd) and other McGee pseudonyms (R. Fong, DFW).

Photos by sabeth718

Da Mental Vaporz at London’s Meeting of Styles

Photo by unusualimage

Meeting of Styles London (organized once again by End of The Line and Probs) 2010 just took place. While there were plenty of amazing walls painted, the most impressive is definitely this one by Da Mental Vaporz (Bom.k, Jaw, Sowat, Brusk, Blo, Dran and Kan). Not much to say here besides “Damn that’s good!”

Photo by RomanyWG

Photo by RomanyWG

Photo by RomanyWG

To see more from Meeting of Styles, check out the official flickr group, unusualimage’s set, and RomanyWG’s set.

Photos by unusualimage and RomanyWG

Toronto Street Advertising Takeover Project

Jordan Seiler, organizer of the infamous NYSAT and bane to the advertising world, has just released the site to TOSAT, the Toronto Street Advertising Takeover Project. Attacking both street level back lit sites and elevated billboards, the project included more than 60 international artists whose work replaced over 90 ads. As always, these projects that Jordan has conducted are an important marriage between formal aspects of street art and activism. To learn more check out the website: http://www.publicadcampaign.com/tosat/

The Project description is as follows “With over half the worlds population now living in cities, our public spaces are playing an ever important role in the construction of our collective social identity. Outdoor advertising, with an interest in widely disseminating commercial ideals is finding its way deeper and deeper into these environments. While it is understood that commercial messages do not share our collective interests, we still do not question its use of our shared environments. In an effort to invigorate debate about how commercial interests are using public space and raise questions about how our communities desire to use those same spaces, non-violent civil disobedience projects like TOSAT engage the public in a dialogue of participation.”
“The TOSAT project is the most recent street advertising takeover project executed by PublicAdCampaign in Toronto. With over 60 artists and an international roster of contributors, this project provides a model for continued takeovers around the world. With each new city, a new set of on the ground collaborators will be necessary and many thanks must go out to PosterChild, Sean Martindale, and the DuSpa collective in Toronto for their unwavering support. As well these projects could not take place without the continued support of all the artists involved and we extend our deepest gratitude to all of those participants.”

Photos courtesy of TOSAT

Dotmasters at Nuart

I love this wall Dotmasters recently painted at Nuart. It’s not easy to be cute without getting lame and cutesy.

- Elisa

PS If you haven’t seen the tower Blu and Ericailcane painted for the festival, check out the photos on Unurth. Then keep an eye out for updates on the Nuart twitter and blog – there are a lot of great artists still to come. I also did an interview with Martyn (the festival’s curator) for the next issue of The Art Street Journal. It was great to listen to his thoughts on the festival and its swift growth. The media has a tendency to throw the spotlight on the artists, but I believe it’s also very important to recognize the people who work tirelessly behind the scenes to make things happen. Martyn is one of those people and if you’re a reader of the journal, I hope you find our conversation as interesting as I did.

Banksy in Hastings not considered “graffiti” by city officials

I wasn’t planning to make much mention of Banksy‘s latest work (the above stencil which can be found at a beach in Hastings). As usual though, it seems the story surrounding the art is more interesting than the piece itself: The Hastings graffiti removal squad will be leaving Banksy’s work alone. Not something entirely new from town councils. What I really love about Hastings though is what councilor Jay Kramer has said about the situation:

I think this is great.

I know that we have a zero tolerance policy on graffiti, and that is absolutely right. However, we have to be flexible so on this occasion I have agreed that Banksy can be an exception to our rule and can stay.

So, the town has a zero-tolerance policy on graffiti (and presumably street art too) except in cases where the work is an instant tourist attraction. In those cases, the policy is not so zero-tolerance. That’s a “Banksy-tolerance” policy, and that’s a pretty short-sighted way of doing things.

Via Banksy Prints

Photo by world of emma

Brad Downey’s latest: The prank of an evil genius and/or brilliant art

What is there to say about this latest piece from Brad Downey? I figure this is either something devised by an evil genius or a brilliant urban interventionist, or a bit of both. This might make me a bad person, but I’m definitely laughing. What do you think? The first image is a “before” and below is the “after.”

This was done in Essen, Germany and was paid for by Hacking the City.

Photos courtesy of Brad Downey