Steve Powers, Malarky, Word to Mother, Dabs and Myla, and Best Ever exhibit on The Wall.

Little over a week ago I was watching Word to Mother painting his outdoor piece for Moniker Art Fair. Allocated one of the 3 by 4 metre recesses he took to the piece with gusto. Layer after layer of tag and dub was laid down and a day later, a final coat of white was rollered onto the wall.

Appropriately dubbed, “The Wall”, the expanse of brick along Great Eastern Street has played host to a variety of artists, both local and international. Dabs & Myla, Best Ever and Malarky followed Word to Mother, but I could also name drop Steve Powers, Herakut, Nychos, SheOne, Shep Fairey and Know Hope among others. However soon after an artist completes a piece it is buffed or covered by another artist, pretty much like any wall I suppose.

But Village Underground hope this will all change following a Kickstarter fundraising project. Their aim is to raise enough funds to design, build and install bullet proof metal and glass frames over the recesses to protect the art work from theft and vandalism. In essence this will allow for artists to produce work in a variety of methods and on a mix of mediums. And with the addition of a digital wall and 10 million passing cars a year, “The Wall” will become London’s most public art gallery.

In a way I feel its a bit of a shame that the wall will be covered, but I’m sure you will agree that the project will certainly be interesting. Plus Village Underground, despite indicating that the artists will now obviously be able to sell their work, maintain they are working on a not-for-profit basis. It’s good to see that this project isn’t just about making money for them then!

For more info, including a nice little video, and to donate head here.

Photo by AdversMedia

Back again this year at Village Underground in London, the Moniker Art Fair is opening today and will be open through Sunday. In contrast to the Frieze art fair (also on this weekend in London), Moniker is free and focuses on work by street artists and low-brow artists. This year, galleries exhibiting at Moniker include Stolenspace, Scream, LeBasse Projects, Shea & Ziegler (Frankie Shea of Moniker/CampBarbossa teaming up with Tina Ziegler) and Andenken Gallery.

The program at this year’s fair is packed, so make sure to check it out before heading over, as there are a number of special events like print releases and artist talks going on. Hooked Blog is running tours of the fair and the surrounding street art on the weekend, something I had a lot of fun doing on a more informal basis last year.

In addition to gallery booths, the fair includes project spaces for individual artists. This year, Matt Small, Beejoir, Best Ever, Peeta, Dabs and Myla will be showing work in the project spaces.

Photo courtesy of Moniker Projects

Freddy Sam

Last year, the Wide Open Walls project brought a number of street artists to The Gambia to paint in local villages. Subsequently, the project was criticized as a sort of “slum tourism” for artists as well as anyone who viewed photos of the project, with the artists taking advantage of the communities they were painting in. This year, Wide Open Walls brought more artists to The Gambia and made a point of examining the issue of responsible tourism. After all, part of the goal of Wide Open Walls is to encourage tourism to these villages.

For this round of Wide Open Walls,  the artist line-up was curated by Write on Africa and include Bushdwellers, Roa, Know Hope, Remed, TIKA, Freddy Sam, Selah, and Best Ever. The artists spent two weeks painting in The Gambia.

Remed

While the people involved directly in Wide Open Walls seem happy that they were responsible, made a connection to the communities they were in and made a difference or are in the process of doing so, it’s more difficult for me to post these photos without feeling that I’m participating in the sort of voyeurism that Wide Open Walls is trying to avoid. I wasn’t there, so I don’t have a personal connection to these villages or the people there (although some of the artists and other people on the trip have posted their reactions on the WOW website, which is something). Instead, I’m looking at the photographs and part of me is smugly thinking, “See, street art can make a difference. Yep. Smiling kids. People having fun in front of art. A building that looks cool now. Here’s proof that street art is a good thing.” And that makes me pretty damn uncomfortable.

Best Ever

What Wide Open Walls is doing can probably be compared in some ways to what JR has done working in the slums of Brazil and Kenya. Except that with JR, he makes a point of telling the stories of the people he is photographing, and he helps to improve their situations (like how in Kenya he fixed up people’s homes by printing his photos on water-resistant material and putting those prints on roofs). Wide Open Walls hasn’t really done anything like that yet beyond painting murals. I don’t know the stories of these villages and there isn’t much of a way to support the project or the people in these villages. Eventually though, that will change. There are plans for a book and an exhibition of photographs to help raise money for the villages. In the mean time, many more photos from this year’s Wide Open Walls can be found on Facebook.

Photos by Jonx Pillimer

Sticker by Hieronymus

Wow. It’s actually Friday night already? This week went by really fast. I think I’ve been sleeping too much. Well, while I was sleeping, these things nearly slipped me by:

• A film is being made about The Underbelly Project, and they are looking for reactions from the public. This Sunday, New Yorkers get have their reactions (positive or negative) on film. More info on the film’s website. I’ve been interviewed for this a couple of times, and I can’t wait to see the finished film.
• Shepard Fairey is guest-editing the latest issue of PAPER Magazine. Great price for an art/culture magazine by the way: I just realized that a two-year subscription to PAPER Magazine is $15! Juxtapoz costs more than that per year just for a digital subscription (more issues per year though)!
• Graffoto are raving about Mantis‘ solo show in Hackney Wick. Honestly, I saw a few photos in the preview and thought something along the lines of “What? These are paintings and they aren’t funny or clever and they aren’t amazing. This isn’t what I love about Mantis at all!” Well I stand corrected. While I still think a lot of the paintings are pretty unappealing, there are some great drawings and even a nice painting or two. The man can draw!
• Jordan Seiler is playing a game with outdoor advertising companies in NYC and Philadelphia.
• Kid Acne has a solo show in London open now.
• A Basquiat was defaced in Paris. Kyle Chayka asks if it really even matters?
• Political graffiti in Afghanistan is pretty interesting.
• People have been tagging up Barry McGee’s wall of tags in New York. Not writers, but just regular people. As beautiful as that wall was when it was first painted, I love that more people are writing on it. I guess the existence of the tags and a while background is sort of inviting average people to interact.
• I really enjoyed this interview with Phlegm.
• Arrested Motion has photos from Best Ever’s London solo show.
• Swoon is building at musical house in New Orleans.
• This street art/graffiti film festival event in Spain looks pretty interesting.
• There’s a new interview with me online at $200 Art Collecting, a blog with one of the best concepts I’ve heard in a long time: buy great art for $200 or less.

The week’s not up yet though, and I’ve committed to doing at least one useful thing before it is: Tomorrow I’m going to try using my kitchen for the first time since going to university. Wish me luck…

Photo by LoisInWonderland

Unknown artist

Just got back from Jordan Seiler’s show at Vincent Michael Gallery. I’ll have more on that in the next few days, but I found an awesome store in the same area as the gallery: Jinxed. It sells cool toys and the like. Here’s what I didn’t write about this week while I was busy procrastinating and thinking about The Underbelly Project.

• Os Gêmeos and other artists are selling posters for a penny each (plus shipping)! I bought some.
• HowAboutNo! and Nolionsinengland found a bunch of new pieces by Burning Candy in London.
• Romanywg has compiled a book for photographs of abandoned buildings.
• Jace paints some nice walls.
• Askew’s essay on the economics of graffiti and graffiti removal needs to be read. I think it’s exaggerated some of his estimates, but his point remains valid.
• Michael Aaron Williams understands placement.
• Best Ever have a solo show opening next week in London.
• JR’s artwork in Shanghai might be some of his best yet.
• Apparently Banksy went to Mexico a decade ago and pictures are just coming to light now.
• Ron English and Chris Brown? Umm…
• Elisa and maybe other Vandalog writers are going to disagree with me on this, but I’m not really digging Aakash Nihalani’s new work at his solo show in New York. I guess I just prefer Aakash outdoors.
• Okay, this is just annoying. When you give people freedom to say anything, of course some asshole is going to be racist once in a while, but that doesn’t mean free speech should stop. These are college students, they should be able to think this through beyond the immediate things going on around them. Or just paint the damn tunnel in murals of people of all races and creeds holding hands?
• Hrag on Hyperallergic points out that in Vegas there are miles of storm tunnels where people live, and parts of the tunnels are covered in really nice graffiti. That’s awesome! He goes on to say that this is much more interesting than The Underbelly Project. I would disagree. Those tunnels are important and interesting, but they aren’t as unique as The Underbelly Project. New York’s own Freedom Tunnel was once a very similar space until it was reopened for trains and I’m guessing that there are similar sites in other cities around the world.

Photo by nolionsinengland

Here are two pieces that Best Ever painted for the Stroke.03 fair in Berlin earlier this month. The above piece was outside, and I believe this second piece was inside the fair  (click on the image to see a larger sized photo):

Arrested Motion has more photos from Stroke.03 including walls by Roa and Alexandros Vasmoulakis.

Photos by Best Ever

BEST EVER X Deadleg in London

It’s been a crazy week in London. Moniker and all that. But here’s what has been going on with street art elsewhere:

• Okay, so I will mention one thing about Moniker: Graffoto seems to be the first to post a review, and what a review it is. Doubtless, Vandalog will be posting something in the coming days, but in the mean time, check out Graffoto to see all that Moniker goodness.
• Mudwig is part of the Meta Snout show opening today at High Roller Society in London.
• NYC graffiti legend Cost collaborated with the folks at Supreme on some t-shirts. They are available online now.
• Erica il Cane and Lucy McLauchlan painted a huge wall in Lisbon.
• JR is getting up at the Shanghai Biennale.
• Bumblebee’s first solo show looks really great. Way better than I had expected.
• I’ve tried twice to see Word To Mother’s solo show at Stolenspace, but they always seem to be closed when I am near the gallery. Photos look great though and I’ve only heard good things.
• Microbo is part of a two-man 2-person show at Galo Art Gallery.
• Old-school graffiti writer Duster UA has a solo show coming up in December at London Miles Gallery. Tickets are on sale now for a special event at the gallery during the show.

Photo by unusualimage

Opening today and running until August 28 is a new group show at 941Geary (White Walls, Shooting Gallery, Gallery Three) entitled from the Street Art to the Cube. There are some pieces that I am really loving for this show, especially the following pieces by Greg Gossel, Dan Witz and Best Ever.

Dan Witz

Greg Gossel

Best Ever

Yet, and this is my real issue with many group shows, there is not one cohesive theme to the exhibit at all. Street art is not really a theme anymore, when there are so many facets. This particular show just jumps around so much with the works, that I do not think it works at all. Plus, within the past few months other galleries exhibited many similar pieces (or other editions) from this particular show by Miss Van, Blek la Rat and Best Ever. When you are constantly seeing the same artists name mentioned every month, the work starts to blend and is not fresh anymore. Even worse, as RJ kindly pointed out to me, that most of the artists in this show are not even street artists, not even “once upon a time.”

I guess my point is exactly that- there is not really an interesting angle that catches my interest, which is a shame because group exhibitions either showcase high profile talent really well or brings to light a batch of new artists. This show does neither.

All images by 941Geary

Last week, Best Ever had a 1-night mini-show at London’s 55DSL store. Unfortunately, it was closed by the time I arrived, but the photos look amazing. Best Ever brought new canvases to hang and painted the store’s walls. The show was a teaser for a larger solo show that Best Ever are putting together for later this year.

Photos by s.butterfly and Ian Cox

Last week, Aaron posted about VSP, a street art festival in Portugal. After seeing all the work that Best Ever did there, I just had to give it another mention. These might be some of the best pieces that this duo have painted so far. I remember when I first heard about Best Ever and thought, “Okay, that’s cool, but they’re going to need to do something so that they don’t seem like they’re playing 2nd fiddle to Herakut.” Now I’m more than convinced that they have differentiated themselves and are doing something completely their own. And they’re doing it damn well.

Collaboration between Best Ever, Mar and Ram

Photos by Best Ever