Year: 2013

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Ripo for The L.I.S.A. Project

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Max “Ripo” Rippon is the latest artist to visit Little Italy for The L.I.S.A. Project NYC, a mural project curated by Wayne Rada and I. When I heard that Ripo was going to be in town from Barcelona, I knew we had to take advantage of the opportunity. As I’ve said before, one thing that really excites me about The L.I.S.A. Project is when we can mix the old and the new, Little Italy’s history with contemporary art. With his love of handpainted signs and typography, I suspected that Ripo would fit perfectly with that combination. I suggested something site-specific about Little Italy and he immediately got the idea and improved upon it. For his piece on Mulberry between Hester and Grand streets, Ripo drew on neighborhood archives to create a collage-like portrait of the neighborhood.

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Ripo says, “The fragmented texts come from research of New York Times news headlines relating to the history of Little Italy. Included are also a few treasures found in the archives at the Italian American Museum with headlines in Italian such as: “Gli Italiani Non Piu Considerati ‘Enemy Aliens'” (Italians no longer considered ‘Enemy Aliens’), and an extortion letter sent from the mafia, finishing with the line: ‘Our vendetta is about to begin.'”

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That’s, that’s just too much surveillance = ART

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I love this new piece in Madrid by SpY. Look at it come together…

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All told, that’s 150 dummy CCTV cameras installed on one wall. SpY says they were installed “with the intention of not watching over anything.”

And yes, dummy CCTV cameras are a real thing that people install on their buildings. The fake cameras are just empty boxes and don’t actually record anything of course, but most people would never take the time to figure out the difference between an active camera and a dummy. If you like this piece by SpY, definitely check out Brad Downey‘s classic CCTV Takedown video where he goes around London looking for buildings where these dummy CCTV cameras have been installed and removing them.

PS, if you missed the reference in the headline of this post, see here.

Photos from SpY’s website

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Art for a condemned building

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Bisser for Last Breath

I love the idea of Last Breath, a new project out of the UK. The idea is to send one artist into an abandoned due for demolition shortly before the building is knocked down and to document each “last breath” on video. The interventions are done without permission. The idea isn’t completely unheard of, but this first video with Bisser turned out really well, so I’m excited to see what’s next from Last Breath.

Here’s a little something from Tom, Last Breath’s founder, about Last Breath’s work with Bisser:

In December 2013, Bisser gave Blackfriars Cafe in Southwark what it deserved: a one-off beautification before its materiality will be replaced by a residential construction on the back of regeneration plans in the area. Blackfriars Cafe closes its eyes after a brief lifetime of 35 years; half the expected lifetime of a human being. When Bisser finished, we gathered, photographed the work, admired the building and waved Blackfriars Cafe a final “good bye”. With the first beautification and exhibition behind us, we are currently preparing for the next episode.

Photo courtesy of Last Breath

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Mujeres Creando’s feminist graffiti in Bolivia

This video from MOCAtv is a must-see. Mujeres Creando are a Bolivian collective who have been promoting anarcho-feminist messages through protests, street interventions, graffiti and much more for over twenty years. Very powerful and inspiring stuff.

It seems worth noting the similarities between Mujeres Creando’s graffiti and Situationist International’s graffiti, if only to point out that there is a history of political graffiti as art, but of course it’s also an interesting connection because so much contemporary street art can be traced back to the ideas of Guy Debord and Situationist International.

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Icy and Sot respond to tragedy with a new mural

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Last month, the Brooklyn music scene was shaken by the murder of three Iranian musicians in an East Williamsburg apartment by a gunman who then committed suicide. The gunman, who used an assault rifle, was also an Iranian musician who had immigrated to NYC. The New York Times’ article on the whole tragedy is worth reading for the full story.

Iranian street artists and brothers Icy and Sot lived in the apartment where the murders took place. While they both survived, Sot was shot. Now, just a few weeks later, it appears Icy and Sot have taken to the streets to respond to the tragedy with the above mural, located on Allen Street near the corner of Allen and Stanton in NYC. While the artists have not made any explicit reference to the shooting in their posts online about the mural, the connection is clear.

Photo from Icy and Sot’s Facebook page

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Turning newspaper bins into parties

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Josh Gordon and Danny Gonzalez have a mission. They say, “We take gross newspaper boxes and turn them into parties.” Check out the video below to see what they mean:

I don’t think anyone has ever truly been excited to open up a newspaper bin to grab their daily paper, but party boxes make that activity fun. I would love to randomly open up a Party Box. So much street art today is just decoration, but Gordon and Gonzalez are bringing back that element of surprise that is essential to the best street art. Sure, the party boxes are labeled so they might not be a complete surprise to everyone, but I doubt most people opening up the boxes will recognize the purple lightening bolt and think, “This is a Party Box.”

Finally, yes, I’ll acknowledge that party boxes are a bit silly, but they’re also kind of awesome, and the idea makes me smile.

Photo courtesy of Party Box

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Alleged slumlord Stanley Rochkind fights back against Wall Hunters

LNY install at 539 N. Longwood Street. Photo courtesy of Wall Hunters.
LNY install at 539 N. Longwood Street.

Earlier this year, a group of artists (led by Nether) working under the Wall Hunters banner teamed up Carol Ott of Baltimore Slumlord Watch for the Slumlord Project, an effort to draw attention to “dilapidated vacant houses” in Baltimore that the project organizers determined were owned by peopled they considered “negligent property owners.” One of those property owners, Stanley Rochkind, is now suing Ott through two of the shell companies through which Rochkind owns property. The lawsuits demand that Ott remove two murals from buildings that were painted by the Wall Hunters artists. The lawsuits are particularly ironic because Rochkind initially claimed not to own these buildings and the Wall Hunters artists painted these buildings specifically because Rochkind has not bothered to maintain them.

So… Rochkind is suing for “repairs,” on dilapidated buildings that he has not bothered to actually repair in any way and which, in an effort to discredit the Wall Hunters, he initially claimed not to own. Sounds like a stand-up guy.

Check out the full story over at Balitmore’s City Paper.

Photo courtesy of Wall Hunters

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MOMO at May

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MOMO‘s latest show, Butt Joints, opened earlier this month at May in New Orleans. I really love what MOMO has done with this show. It’s almost like there are two shows trying to coexist simultaneously in the same space: An installation and a series of paintings and drawings. Okay, I realize that sounds terrible, but from the photos I’ve seen, I think it actually works. The different components of Butt Joints complement each other since it’s clear how the paintings and the drawings are connected to the installation. Still, as you can see in the above photo, the sculptural pieces of the installation are placed seemingly without concern for the drawings or paintings, forcing visitors to make decisions as they walk through the space. This doesn’t seem like the kind of show you can just view with your brain turned off.

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One skill that the best street artists really hone by working outdoors is an understanding of how to utilize spaces in interesting ways. They learn to highlight nooks and crannies that the rest of us might ignore and reactivate long-forgotten spaces. Butt Joints looks to be a prime example of how that knowledge can be taken into a gallery setting.

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But hey, these are just some thoughts I had from looking at photos of Butt Joints, and it really seems like the sort of show that should be experienced in person. Still, for those of us who won’t be in New Orleans anytime soon, here are a couple more photos, and you can find even more on Graffuturism.

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Photos courtesy of MOMO

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Viral Art is now available at ViralArt.net

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Two weeks ago, I announced that Viral Art: How the internet has shaped street art and graffiti, my new ebook, was set to launch on December 16th. Excerpts have appeared on Hyperallergic, Complex.com and Brooklyn Street Art, I was interviewed over at Graffuturism and the book even got a shout-out from Shepard Fairey. Well, today’s the day. Viral Art is live and you can read it now at ViralArt.net and download it as a PDF or find it in the iBooks Store now.

I want to thank everyone who has been sharing the news about Viral Art these last two weeks, especially everyone who supported the Thunderclap campaign. Just this afternoon, there have been over 200 posts about Viral Art across Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. So, a big thank you to everyone who participated in that. Promoting this book is an entirely grassroots effort, and I’ll be forever grateful for your help.

In case you didn’t catch that last post or you’ve forgotten, here’s a reminder of what Viral Art is all about…

What is Viral Art?

It’s an ebook that you can read online or download to your computer or ereader. It’s full of text, hyperlinks, photos, animated GIFs and embedded videos.

What is Viral Art about?

Viral Art traces how the histories of street art and graffiti have been shaped by communication technologies, from trading photos by hand to publishing books to sharing videos online. It’s the most comprehensive look to date at how the internet has affected street art and graffiti. Conceptualizing the internet as a public space, I conclude the book by arguing that the future of street art and graffiti may lie in digital interventions rather than physical ones.

Why does Viral Art matter?

If you want to understand street art and graffiti, you have to understand how books, movies, magazines, photographs and the internet have affected artists and fans. Viral Art gets into all of that.

Today we live on our laptops and smartphones, so I argue that the best way for street art and graffiti to stay relevant is for artists to take over the public space of the internet. It’s a claim sure to cause controversy in the street art, graffiti and internet art communities.

Viral Art isn’t just another street art book cheer-leading the movement on. It’s history and theory with a critical stance, and my plea to keep the core values of street art and graffiti alive in a digital world.

What else is inside?

In researching for this project, I interviewed over 50 members of the street art and graffiti communities. In Viral Art, you’ll find brand new interviews, quotes and anecdotes from Banksy, Shepard Fairey, KATSU, Poster Boy, Ron English, Martha Cooper and many more.

Another cool touch is the cover, which you can see at the top of this post. It’s an animated GIF designed by General Howe, featuring artwork by Diego Bergia, General Howe and Jay Edlin, as well as photographs by Martha Cooper and myself.

What does this “book” cost?

Nothing. You can read Viral Art for free at ViralArt.net. There are also PDF and EPUB versions available for download.

How can fans support the book?

This book is the result of two and a half years of mostly-unpaid labor. It’s being self-published. My marketing budget consists of a few bucks for ads on Facebook. Major publishers spend thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars marketing everything they produce, but this project has no book tour or publicist or anything like that. There’s only your support. If Viral Art sounds interesting, or you read it and you think it is interesting, please tell your friends.

Where can people read Viral Art?

Just go here to read it online, or you can also download it to your computer or ereader.