MURAL Festival in Montreal, Canada: Work in progress

DSC_0662_01
Pixel Pancho – work in progress

For the last few days, the first MURAL Festival edition has taken over more than 20 walls in Montreal, Canada, located around the oldest boulevard of the city called “the main”, namely Boulevard Saint-Laurent. Running from June 13 to 16, MURAL offers to the public the opportunity to see some of the big masters of street art at work. Street artists, graffiti artists and muralists have been bringing all their energy and their incredible talent to refresh the streets. Among amazing international artists are the best Canadian ones. The list is long, but impressive: Pixel Pancho, ROA, Phlegm, Escif, Reka One, Gaia, LNY, Ricardo Cavolo, FinDAC & Angelina Christina, Labrona, Troy Lovegates (aka Other), Omen, Jason Botkin, Chris Dyer, EnMasse, Stare, Squid called Sebastian, Le Bonnard, Paria Crew, A’shop, Wzrds gng.

Continue reading “MURAL Festival in Montreal, Canada: Work in progress”

Cash, Cans and Candy brings street art to Vienna in a big way

GALERIE_HILGER_NEXT_Wien10_Shepard_Fairey_09

This event sounds amazing. Between the hype in New York, London, Los Angeles and Paris, Vienna has enthusiastically been trying to put itself on the map in the global street art scene. The history of the city is one that has shown support of international street art for years but all that suddenly seems fairly small-scale in comparison to this festival. Cash, Cans & Candy has invited some of the big names of street artists (Shepard Fairey, Faile, Retna, Roa, Robbie Conal, Jaz, Dan Witz, etc) as well as some newer or lesser known talent to paint 800 meters (a half mile) of wall space around Vienna.

Shepard finished his wall at the end of May. Kicking the festival off with Shepard was probably a smart move in setting the tone for the rest of the events. The space he was given to work with definitely suited his style and the image is beautiful but I don’t think he incorporated the existing architecture as much as he could have. You can catch Faile painting their wall on June 20th.

The gallery exhibition of the same name at Galerie Hilger Next looks worth seeing. They’ve posted photos of a number of the exhibited works here.

The festival closes September 13th. To keep up with the ongoing events, including talks, tours, workshops, performances and block parties, check out the Cash, Cans & Candy Facebook page.

GALERIE_HILGER_NEXT_Wien10_Shepard_Fairey_02

GALERIE_HILGER_NEXT_Wien10_Shepard_Fairey_08

GALERIE_HILGER_NEXT_Wien10_Shepard_Fairey_14

Photos courtesy of Cash, Cans & Candy

Weekend link-o-rama

PAL Crew wall in NYC
PAL Crew wall in NYC

I’m in London this week, and next, so come and find me wandering around Shoreditch. Just a few links today.

Photo by Luna Park

Weekend link-o-rama

Roa in London
Roa in London

Happy weekend. Hope you’ve had a less busy week than me.

Photo by Unusualimage

Roa and Colin M. Day in Brussels

Colin M. Day made this video at Roa’s recent show in Brussels, Belgium. It’s not your typical show teaser or post-show wrap up video. Dolin is doing his own thing with what he is passionate about. And I guess I’m not the only one who thinks so, because Brussels TV did a piece about Colin filming Roa. It’s a great little insight into the mind of an art fan. If you’ve ever wondered why people like Colin do what they do or people like me run blogs in our spare time, this should give you some idea:

Roa skate decks from TheSK8room

-2

Roa is the first artist to produce a series of skate decks with TheSK8room, an online shop featuring a bunch of artist-designed skate decks and classic decks produced for other brands. The Roa decks are a series of three images of a decaying rat. 20% of the proceeds from the sale of these decks goes to Skateistan. The decks are each printed in an edition of 150 plus 15 APs, with 25 of each of those decks being available signed by Roa. The pieces are available now at 450€ for unsigned decks and 950€ for signed decks.

Here’s a video of Roa visiting a Skateistan project in Cambodia:

And here are some close-ups of the decks…

rotated_jpg_ROA0001.1

rotated_jpg_ROA0002.1

rotated_jpg_ROA0003.1

Photos courtesy of TheSk8room

Ever and Roa in Buenos Aires

foto2

Roa was staying with Ever in Buenos Aires recently and during that time they collaborated on this mural. As Ever explains, the mural is entitled “The people feed communism to the beast”. Ever says that the mural is a metaphor to be deciphered which he jokes that Roa explains as “the Chinese eat weird animals”.

detalle2

Roa Ever (1 of 3)

Photos by Ever

SMoA brings guerilla curating to the streets of London

Screen shot 2012-12-26 at 5.15.31 AM

The Street Museum of Art has launched its second venture in “guerilla curating” in London’s artsy district of Shoreditch. Like their first exhibition, it’s basically a self-guided street art tour with museum-like wall labels. The exhibition’s title, “Beyond Banksy: Not another gift shop“, is likely a tongue and cheek reference to the commercial attention that street art has received in London these past few years, with Banksy at the forefront of the movement. In all fairness, Banksy has become enough of a household name that he and Exit Through the Gift Shop are frequently my reference points when speaking about street art to people outside this niche community. For that, I am thankful that I get to SMoA advises that the name is not meant to undermine the work of the beloved stencil artist, rather it is to encourage those who have Banksy as their token understanding of street art to the diversity of the other talented artists on the streets. This exhibition highlights works by artists such as C215, Christiaan Nagel, Eine, Mobstr, Pablo Delgado, Phlegm, Roa, Run, Skewville, Space Invader, Stik and Swoon.

snia

The map of the exhibited works are available here and the hours are… well, unlimited.

Photo by Street Museum of Art