And here’s the latest in the saga of Banksy’s IEAK Punk piece in Croydon… The owners of the wall have removed it. They are saying that the removal to prevent more tagging because the piece has been severely tagged over. I hope that’s true. I give the owners a pretty good chance of trying to sell the wall tomorrow (hopefully not on eBay). The Sutton Guardian has the full story.
Why hasn’t this new piece by Eine been making it around the blogosphere already? It was painted in WEST London and not EAST London. Anyway, that’s a discussion for another day. This is a cool piece and it’s good to see Eine painting outside.
Photo courtesy of Eine
Speaking of fire extinguisher tags… Song is wack but the fill is too dope
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.
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.
Photos courtesy of ukadapta
This show looks pretty interesting. Eine and Zeus together at Ink_d Gallery in Brighton. November 27 through December 24th (I feel really bad whoever is dismantling this show on Christmas).
For our next show at Ink_d Gallery we bring together two urban art heavyweights; Eine & Zeus.
Both are prolific street artists and innovators in typography and both have pushed the boundaries in a way that has redefined how we see graffiti as an art form.
Eine is best known for his alphabets and letters on shutters and Zeus for his three dimensional images and sculptures based around his writing style.
They come together at Ink_d for ‘Crimes and Punishments’ where their collaboration has produced a heavy hitting alphabet in Pen & Ink.The show will feature beautifully framed original work on paper combining illustrations of crimes and punishments with Eine’s inimitable fonts and drawings of Eine’s hands by Zeus.
There will also be our usual affordable screen printed show poster and an exclusive low edition print release available during the show.
Fire extinguisher tags are great. In fact, they can be amazing. Gaia put together a series of photos fire extinguisher pieces a few months ago on Vandalog which is well worth checking out. But it’s not easy to get fire extinguishers to spray paint properly, and they aren’t that cheap. Now, there’s a away to get that same effect (though maybe on a slightly small scale) for a lot less money and with a very simple design. This video from Just Straight Photos has the solution:
Via urbanartcore
This piece, The Fool by Dale Grimshaw, appeared recently in Shoreditch. First of all, it’s a cool piece. But it is part of a larger point I’d like to make/question I’d like to ask. It seems like woodblock and lino-blocks are pretty popular in the USA, particularly NYC, but almost unheard of here in the UK. On the other hand, stencils seem much more popular in London than elsewhere. Why is this?
I think it has to do with Banksy and Swoon. Swoon is an American artist and she’s probably more popular in New York than London. She’s been wheatpasting for a long time now, and a lot of artists have been influenced by her. And in the UK, Banksy is a household name, and a lot of street artists picked up stencils after seeing Banksy’s work. But that’s just my take.
Any other thoughts?
Above‘s latest video is pretty sick. It’s called Reverse Psychology, and I’m still confused with what exactly is going on:
REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY from ABOVE on Vimeo.
Above says:
There are two sides to every coin, and we all know two wrongs don’t make a right but somehow when it comes to filming a video in reverse then reversing it, it makes total sense? Confused? Watch the video to get a better idea. If you still don’t understand, I can only suggest to try and watch it in reverse?!
The reverse side also has a reverse side. -Japanese proverb.
And it’s also time for another print release from Above. Today 4 new prints went on sale, all screenprinted and signed by Above himself. Each print is $45, or the set of 4 arrows together is $150. They are an edition of 100 each. The prints are for sale on Above’s website.
The last time I mentioned the Represent show was towards the start of October, so if you happened to forget about Thursday’s opening, I’ll forgive you. But if you’re in London and you don’t make it to Represent before the show closes November 11th update: the show has been extended and now closes November 20th, well I’m just not so sure.
Represent has been curated by Matt Small and it’s a show of portraiture. Matt is one of the artists and people that I most respect, so I was curious to see what this show would bring. You figure that a talented painter should be able to identify other talented artists. Well Matt definitely can.
The line up includes some names that I’m familiar with like Swoon, Best Ever, Elbow-toe and Case, but there were plenty of people I was either less familiar with or whose names I had never heard before like Peter Michael and Yuko Nasu.
While I can’t say that every painting was a winner, it the most refreshing show I’ve seen in London all year and maybe the best group show.
Of course, there were two original paintings from Matt Small in the show, including this one which is the first time I’ve seen him paint glasses.
I like this piece by David Walker just enough to not call him on for using paint drips to look “street.” Sometimes drips make a painting look better. I would be curious though to see what this painting would be like without the drips, the girl could have more of that really cool metallic look which is sort of hinted at in this piece but overshadowe by drips.
This is one my all time favorite pieces by Swoon. It’s certainly in the top 5 pieces on wood that I’ve seen. I don’t have the cash or wall space for this, but I hope it finds a good home.
Okay so the name might be a bit presumptuous, but the duo Best Ever get better with every painting.
Sometimes it feels like I’m the only person in the world who realizes how amazing Case can be. This painting, Rosemary, is even better in the flesh. So many photo-realistic graffiti writers just end up making portraits of dead hip hop stars or doing commissions for Nike, but Case actually has an artistic mind behind his talents.
Represent is at Blackall Studios on Leonard Street, London and closes on November 11th update: the show has been extended and now closes November 20th. Get there while it’s still open! I may even go back for a second look.
All photos by Ian Cox
