Close-up of Zero Cents in Bushwick, Brooklyn

Zero Cents‘ distinctly disfigured – often disturbing — characters have been part of Israel’s visual landscape for years. It was quite a thrill to see his work this past week in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Zero Cents with Know Hope in Haifa, Israel, fall, 2010

Photos of Zero Cents in Bushwick by Tara Murray; photo with Know Hope in Haifa by Lois Stavsky

The gritty walls of  Tel Aviv are among my favorite anywhere. I’m so glad that some of Tel Aviv’s most talented artists will be featured in an exhibit opening this Friday, August 26, at the Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Participating artists include: AME72, Adi Sened, Broken Fingaz, Foma, Klone, Know Hope, Yochai Matos and Zero Cents. Among the images curator Tal Lanir shared with me of these artists’ works on the street are the following:

Seven internationally recognised Israeli street artists are showing at the Inoperable gallery in Vienna.

The show features work by Know Hope, Zero Cents, Ame 72, Klone, Broken Fingaz, DoverD, Foma <3.

Most of the artists are from, Tel Aviv (‘the bubble’). Know Hope calls the city the “most secular, dynamic and fast-paced city in Israel”. Broken Fingaz are from Haifa, in the north, which also has a surfing community for what it’s worth.

Tel Aviv is a great graffiti destination. Not without police, but just far more laid back than most other big cities. You can read more about the Tel Aviv street art scene in an article I wrote for the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz last year.

Take a look at Zero Cents blog (maybe NSFW)- I was moved by the post, ‘R.I.P. Whoresy’.

Broken Fingaz

Broken Fingaz

Photos courtesy of Inoperable Gallery and Broken Fingaz

Fame Festival isn’t the only place artists are taking over abandoned buildings. The leaders of Israel’s street art scene recently painted a building in Tel Aviv for their show Kindred Times and Future Goodbyes. Know Hope, Klone, Foma and Zero Cents all participated. Here are some pics that Know Hope sent me:

Zero Cents

Know Hope

Klone

Foma and Know Hope

More after the jump… Read the rest of this article »

So a week or two ago Know Hope says to me that he has a secret project in the works. Something about taking over an abandoned house. Sounded like a great idea, but I wasn’t sure if anything would actually come of it. Turns out, Know Hope and his friends were further along than I realized. The project, now called Kindred Times and Future Goodbyes, was well underway. In fact, it’s going to be opening at a secret location in Tel Aviv on Saturday. This is what street art is about.

KINDRED TIMES AND FUTURE GOODBYES

This Saturday
12.9.2009, 17:30-20:30

An Exhibition in abandoned house in the form of a collaborative effort between : Foma <3, Klone, Know Hope, Zero Cents.

This exhibition came to life as a natural extension of the constant collaborative creation of the group.

The location is secret on account of legality issues and therefore will be announced at noon time, on the day of the opening.

The exhibition is located in a derelict building that has been abandoned for many years,and was once used for residence. The building remained texture-ridden and saturated with old memories, memories which the artists translate into present time through their artistic interpretation.
The wall paintings are a new periodic layer of paint that add on to the already existing peeled layers of time. The artists use these longstanding layers, which represent remains of personal stories and traces of memories, absorbing the existing textures and inhabiting the building with their artistic and contemporary interpretation.

Although the new layer of paint created for this exhibition is soon to become covered with new layers of a renovated building, it is added to a pool of memories which can’t be evaded and enriches it, when it is bound to be preserved between layers of past and future times.

The location and further details to be announced on www.kindredtimes.blogspot.com

The artists have been prepping the building recently. Here’s a couple pics (plus the Zero Cents piece above is part of the show):

Found this wall yesterday across from The Art Lounge. It features work from Mike Marcus, Klone, Foma, and Zero Cents. Mike Marcus lives in London now, but he started out working in Tel Aviv. And Klone, Foma and Zero Cents and some of Tel Aviv’s best known street artists. The only one who seems to be missing here is Know Hope (who, coincidentally, pointed out that Zero Cents and Foma have work in this photo).