Semor and KKade at 5Pointz

German graffiti master Semor – who had painted at 5Pointz last year — returned to NYC earlier this month with three amazingly talented Swiss artists: Onur, Wes21 and Kkade. A standout is the mural — fusing elements of surrealism, photorealism and graffiti — that the four fashioned together.

Wes 21 and Onur at work

Posing with Meres (second to left), 5Pointz founder and curator

The completed mural

 Photos by Lois Stavsky

El Mac

First week of school down. Just a boatload more to go. Here’s what I’ve been checking out to procrastinate doing homework:

• A nice time lapse video of Kid Zoom.
• Very Nearly Almost’s latest issue (with Invader on the cover) launches on September 8th in London.
• TrustoCorp have been putting up some clever new work recently. Arrested Motion has the images, and they’re running a TrustoCorp-related contest.
• The NYTimes has an article about the potential demise of 5Pointz.
• Euth, a street artist, sued Green Day for appropriating one of his images in background graphics for their live show. That lawsuit has been dismissed. Melrose&Fairfax seems to lean towards agreeing with Euth on this one, but while Green Day might have been in an ethical grey area by not compensating Euth, they were undoubtedly legally in the right, and on the whole, that’s a good thing. No idea is 100% original and appropriation is appropriate. As M&F point out in this post, a lot of street artists base their work on appropriation.
• Something new from Morley.
• A guy in the Hamptons is selling a bunch of Banksy pieces that were ripped out of walls from around the world. Gawker has some explanation of what happened. Of course the work is all unauthenticated and the morals of the whole situation are pretty sketchy.

Photo by unusualimage

Long Island City’s renowned graffiti mecca 5Pointz is one-of-a-kind, as its devotees span cultural backgrounds, nationalities, social classes and ages with their love of expressive aerosol art. Visiting today, we would never know that the threat of closure looms. Writers from Australia, Poland, and Spain, as well as locals, were at work on new walls, and tourists and sightseers were everywhere.  It is difficult to imagine this city without 5Pointz. Instead of becoming the site of an apartment complex as its developer is planning, it could ideally evolve into a museum that would provide an outlet and a showcase for the talent and creative energy that continues to find its way there. And as it has in the past, it should continue to serve as a valuable resource for educators and students. When we asked Meres, the tireless force behind 5Pointz’ success, what we can do to help preserve 5Pointz, he urged us to sign the petition http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/support5pointz/. A sampling of what we saw today follows:

Ego Crew, Madrid; photo by Lenny Collado

Meres, Cortes, Zeso; NYC & Paris; photo by Lois Stavsky

Samp, NYC: photo by Lenny Collado

Monstrinho & FlyPelicanFly of the Get Vicious Collective; NYC, photo by Lois Stavsky

Although I haven’t yet made it to New Zealand or Australia, they’ve come to me — thanks to 5Pointz, Long Island City’s graffiti Mecca. Last year, it introduced me to the masterful photorealistic murals created by New Zealand’s Owen Dippie and, more recently, to Australia’s Beastman’s wondrous geometric designs.

Owen Dippie aka OD does Nas; completed in fall, 2010 and still up @ 5Pointz, photo by Lois Stavsky

Owen Dippie, Martha Cooper & Futura in Chelsea shoolyard, 2010, photo by Lois Stavsky

Beastman @ 5Pointz, spring 2011, photo by Naomi Shore

Beastman, close-up, photo by Dani Reyes Mozeson

In Chelsea

Meeting of Styles @ 5Pointz

New @ 5Pointz

With MTK in the East Village

Photos by Lois Stavsky

Although 5Pointz officially launches its 2011 season today, writers from abroad — as well as local ones — have been busy this past month.  The pieces don’t often last long, and we’ve been trying to document this Long Island City graffiti mecca weekly.  Here are three (of many) faves that have recently surfaced:

The Yok and Creepy from Australia, photo by Lois Stavsky

Never @ Work, photo by Yasmin Jones

Meres, et al, photo by Lois Stavsky