Loving this video from the folks at MuTate Britain of Best Ever and Dead Leg painting a piece. It even includes a bit of animation.
And I’m thinking that the MuTate guys would like me to mention their new shop which is now online.
ukadapta have organized a group show in Tokyo that opens this week. Should be good. The line up is a varied of British urban art with Best Ever, D*face, Word to Mother, Luc Price/Cyclops, Matt Small and more.
Sickboy
More info from ukadapta:
Adapta Gallery’s third curated project will be held on November 12th – November 29th 2009, with a show in Tokyo called Close Encounters. The show consists of 8 British-based artists, including Best Ever, Cyclops, D*Face, David Bray, Matt Small, Sickboy, Word To Mother and Vesna Parchet.
The variety of work on show is eclectic, and that is precisely the reason why we chose them in the first place. From D*Face’s two-dimensional graphic art to the rich textures of emerging artist Vesna Parchet’s styled character-based paintings, a plethora of mediums, emotions and messages are employed for the viewer to digest.
This particular show is very close to our hearts as we are finally able to put together an amazing line up of artists to produce works for our Tokyo readers and Japanese collectors to see in person. We have been interviewing and working on projects with so many talented British creatives over the years and to finally curate our own show in Tokyo for our main audience is a true honour.
On the opening night, we will also have special guests: Usugrow, Jeff Soto, Shohei Takasaki, Yoshiki & Nagayama also showing their works.
Close Encounters
Exhibition venue : Time Out Gallery, Liquidroom 2/F, 3-16-6, Higashi, Shibuya-ku,Tokyo
Opening Date : 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm, 12 November, 2009
Exhibition runs : 13 November 2009 – 3 December, 2009
In case you happen to be in Tokyo, there is a map on the show’s website.
Vensa Parchet
D*face
Best Ever
Photos courtesy of ukadapta
MuTate Britain: One Foot in the Grove is now open. It might not match last year’s event, but it’s still a great party with cool art and something for everybody.
Put simply: MuTate has sculptures shooting fire into the air. ‘Nuf said.
In all seriousness though, the sculptures and paintings are very cool. Best Ever, Busk, Mode2, Sickboy and many many many others have contributed to make something special and unique.
Sickboy
I could say that I liked this painting or that painting, but half the time I didn’t know who painted my favorite pieces, they were just good, regardless of the name behind them.
Bleach, Busk and Zadok
But is it the absolute best art in the world? Not always. It’s just fun to see. Even a poorly painted stencil contributes to the atmosphere and makes MuTate a nice place to grab a beer or two.
Best Ever
This is the art show you can bring your friends to who would rather just go to the pub (see: my comment about fire).
Part2ism
MuTate Britain is located underneath Westway in London near Ladbroke Grove station. Who knows how long this party is going to continue (even the artists I spoke with said anywhere from a few weeks to indefinitely), so go check it out now.
If I weren’t at Fame Festival this weekend, I would have been in Brighton enjoying Prescription Art’s latest show which is a 3 person show with duo Best Ever and Belgian Roa. Best Ever have only been around as a street art duo for about a year and have already made a strong impression on the London scene, and without Roa I can’t imagine that Ghent, Belgium would even have a street art scene (no offense to other painters in Ghent, but Roa just seem to paint something new every day).
Here are some pics:
Best Ever
Roa
Roa
Best Ever
All photos by Prescription Art, and you can see more on their flickr
Been waiting for this video to be released for a while now. Matt Small, Part2ism and Best Ever painting at Cordy House in London. Loving the in-progress shots of Matt painting.
Via Dr LoMAX
Yesterday I had the chance to see Urban Angel’s latest group show, The Show Must Go On.
There are a bunch of artists involved in the show, but I’ve just picked a few high (and low) lights to cover here.
As usual, Best Ever is coming out with even better work. These guys have continued to develop their style into something distinctive and just plain cool to look at.
Best Ever
Also some cool work from Remi. Just when I think I’m going to get tired of his stuff, he paints something to get me interested again. The sketch in particular caught my eye.
Remi
Remi
Ok and now for that lowlight (is that a word?) I mentioned. Mantis. Mantis has done some work that I like. His work at Hackney Wick is not to be missed and I’m sure that if this stencil had been by Banksy, it would be worth a couple hundred grand. But his latest piece by Old Street just doesn’t cut it for me. I get the message, but it’s about 10 months too late and not that great to begin with. And why does he have to turn that image into a print release and an original work after being on the street for less than a month?
Surely, the message is now completely gone. The way I saw this piece on the street, it is about how people paid absurd amounts of money for Banksy’s work, which is often meant to make a poltical statement about poverty, when instead they could spend that money actually helping some starving African kids. And now I’m expected to buy that image from Mantis. No thank you.
So as to not end on such a sour note, let me say that there is also new work from Mikael Alacoque in the show, and though I could never have one of those dogs in my house all the time, they sure are fun to go and have a look at.
Photos by WallKandy
Circleculture Gallery’s next show is “Self-Portraits.”15 artists including D*face, Best Ever, JR, Jaybo, Charlie Isoe, Judith Supine, and Word To Mother will be exhibiting their self-portraits from June 5th.
Here’s the PR:
SELF-PORTRAITS
by contemporary urban artists from five continentsD-FACE / ANTON UNAI / JR / JAYBO AKA MONK / JUDITH SUPINE / XOOOOX / KILLPIXIE / DTAGNO / :PHUNK / STEFAN HIRSIG / AARON ROSE / MAROK / DALE GRIMSHAW / OSKAR / BEST EVER / NOMAD / WORD TO MOTHER / MYMO / STEFAN STRUMBEL / SOPHIE REINHOLD / CHARLIE ISOE / RUTGER TERMOHLEN
The idea of this exhibition is to approach the historical theme of self-portraits and to bring it into a contemporary art context. A self-portrait is a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist. Although self-portraits have been made by artists since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid 1400s that artists can be frequently identified depicting themselves as either the main subject, or as important characters in their work. With better and cheaper mirrors, and the advent of the panel portrait, many painters, sculptors and printmakers tried some form of self-portraiture… In this respect it will be an interesting and new experience to show the vision of the “self-portrait” by contemporary urban artists from all over the world.
Opening reception: friday june 5th, 7-10 pm
until july 4th 2009 / tue-sat 2-6 pmCircleculture Gallery
Gipsstrasse 11
Berlin Mitte / Germany
Circleculture Gallery has a history of doing shows with the best street artists before they are known as the great street artists. Examples? JR, Shepard Fairey, and Steve Powers to name a few. Okay, Shep and Powers were probably already known as great, but they are definitely much more popular today.
That’s what I was presently suprised to see Best Ever on this lineup for this show. Apparently, some people over on the Banksyforum have been dissing Best Ever for looking too much like Herakut. I think this is some evidence that Best Ever isn’t just some Herakut rip off. A German gallery is asking them, a UK duo, to exhibit alongside artists like Shepard Fairey and JR (Herakut is from Germany).
Update 2: A sort-of update to this post: 3 Things We Can Learn From 10 Foot
Update: Looks like 10 Foot isn’t the only writer who doesn’t like Banksy’s latest work. The Daily Mail has photos showing Banksy’s “Last Graffiti Before Motorway” piece being painted over. (via Hurt You Bad)
There seems to be a pattern emerging recently in the London street art scene. 10 Foot, a prolific London graffiti writer who I used to have a lot of respect for, has been going over high profile work by street artists, or in his words “art fags.”
First, he went over a piece by Part2ism at The Art Lounge:
Photo by mermaid99
It seemed like a relatively small deal. Maybe 10 Foot just doesn’t like Part2ism.
Then 10 Foot and Tox went over Banksy’s tribute to Ozone, a graffiti artist who died in early 2007:
Photo by Benoît Rivard
Banksy fans were up in arms, but the piece had been up for about two years, so many people just say it as part of the natural cycle of graffiti. A piece can’t stay up forever. This was however, the first major piece 10 Foot went over which proclaims “Say no to art fags.”
Next to go was Best Ever’s piece at The Art Lounge. I’m told the guys went out to lunch on Friday, and when they came back, the piece had been tagged over:
Once again, 10 Foot tags the wall and paints the messages “say no to art fags” and “RIP Ozone.”
And most recently, 10 Foot went over the already slighty painted over Banksy in Gillett Square with the same message:
Photo by CarolineW1
I honestly don’t understand why writers like 10 Foot feel the need to paint over these guys with obvious malice. There is plenty of wall space out there for anybody who wants to paint. There used to be a hierarchy of what could go over what, and 10 Foot just scrawling a message over something that took Part2ism or Best Ever hours to paint is certainly not following that hierarchy. Maybe 10 Foot’s just lashing out because nobody is putting his work in their gallery. I wonder if he’ll start going after Panik and ATG now that they have work at Pure Evil’s gallery.
Via Hooked Blog
Yesterday I met up with Best Ever while they were painting at The Art Lounge. Their work on the walls of MuTATE was impressive, but this was the first time I’ve seen them working outside. I think it turned out well. I wonder how 10 foot will react when it sees this…
Check out some shots of Best Ever painting after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »
Remember that piece last Halloween by Best Ever? It was on Leake Street, and a picture went around on the street art blogs because everybody loved it? Well, Best Ever (a collaboration between Hadley Newman and Neil Edward) has been doing some more work, and it’s just as impressive as that first piece we saw on Leake Street.
They also started a website for their work recently, which is worth bookmarking.
At MuTATE Britain
More images after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »
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