Always amazed by stikman’s endless variations, I love these images — depicting stikman in various time periods — that have recently surfaced in Chelsea.
Here are a few more:
Photos by Dani Mozeson and Lois Stavsky
Francisco de Pájaro trashes art
Francisco de Pájaro got down with this little sculpture in London. As Dave showed earlier this month, Francisco does a lot of these sort of found-object street sculptures. I particularly like this one because it’s art trashing art, made of trash. His work is really funny and quite genius at times. Check it out here.
Photo by tiptoeSOMA
Weekend link-o-rama
Caroline and I are headed to Chicago today. We’ll have a few days to explore, so any suggestions are appreciated. Here’s your links:
- El Toro, Dave The Chimp, Invader, Flying Fortress, Mr. Penfold and others sent in stickers and other small artworks to This must be for you, who put all the work together into little folders and lift them as free gifts around London. Giving out free gifts unexpectedly to random people with no expectation of anything in return, sounds like fun to me (although of course very similar to Papergirl). Check out the video here.
- I love this intervention by Plastic Jesus. He went into Best Buy stores in LA and left them with some special new products.
- TrustoCorp put up a sign in Bushwick last week.
- Luzinterruptus put up this fantastic sculptural intervention in Madrid in response to accusations of corruption and money laundering in the Spanish government.
- Anyone know who did this? It’s so cute.
Photo by pareto8020
Riding the trains with veteran graff writer Nic 707
Back in 1976, Nic 707 founded the Bronx-based crew OTB, and, along with his crew, regularly hit the trains. These days Nic 707 is back on the trains. But his interventions, this time around, are eliciting mostly curiosity and expressions of gratitude form subway riders. I accompanied him last night on his Instafame Phantom Art Project. Here’s a bit of what I witnessed:
Photos by Lois Stavsky
Bast and Paul Insect, somewhere between animation and timelapse
Paul Insect and Bast made this video in NYC recently, showing a few pieces they painted collaboratively in New York. Like this recent piece by Paul and Sweet Toof, this piece isn’t quite a straight up timelapse of the pieces coming together and it isn’t quite a straight up stop motion animation like one of Blu’s videos. Instead, there’s a bit of timelapse and a bit of stop motion animation.
I like that each piece Paul Insect and Bast painted together for this project can be looked at on its own as a finished product, and the animation that we see is just a bonus. Animations like Blu’s Muto on the other hand create a lot of “waste” where there’s just a white blob of paint left after the animation progresses.
Here is Paul’s description of their film:
Bast and Pins spend a few days painting and pressing the button on an iphone in New Yorks abandoned buildings, trains lines and bridges to bring a short stop motion film.
Thanks to Home Depot & Lowes DIY Centre for there support. Paint used, Rustoleum & Home Depots $1 spray paint range. iphone 4 for the pictures.
Check it out:
BAST NY and Paul Insect in New York from PAUL INSECT on Vimeo.
Exhibiting in an abandoned building in Israel
Tonight at Brooklyn Street Art‘s movie night at the Living Walls Conference in Atlanta, BSA’s Steve and Jaime showed a bunch of interesting films, but one really stood out for me. I think I saw the first few seconds of this video months ago and wasn’t drawn in, so I ignored it. But, watching the whole thing, I see I clearly made a mistake. Nearly a dozen artists took over this abandoned building in Jaffa, Israel earlier this year and covered it in art. Then, they invited their friends to come and see what they had done. The installation was called Feel in the Cracks. The project reminds me of FAME Festival’s abandoned monastery, where much of the best work of the festival is hidden away, only available for those willing to explore.
I’ve got to hand it to Wonky Monky, Untay, Slamer, Signor Gi, Ross Plazma, Nitzan Mintz, Natalie Mandel, Latzi, Kipi, Dioz and Dede for going out and taking over this building, but then being pretty public about it. Plenty of abandoned buildings get painted, but then to host a public party pointing out that fact seems pretty exciting and ballsy to me. It’s a very loud and very blatant call for people to take space and improve it, whether they have the legal right to do so or not because perhaps there is a morality about the use of space that overrules legality.
Anyway, the video is cool…
Feel in the Cracks from Daniel Wechsler on Vimeo.
“Without Permission” in DC: Astrotwitch, Yote, Coffee Head Duck, HK, Rose Jaffe, Pear & iwillnot
Despite Washington DC’s zero tolerance policy, its public spaces continue to boast a range of “illegal” works from stickers and paste-ups to out-of-the-way graff pieces. On my recent visit, DC’s prolific sticker artist iwillnot gave me a tour of some works – all done, as he explained, “without permission.” Here is a sampling:
Photos by Lois Stavsky
A living museum, evolving walls in Montreal, Canada.
When I started to hunt Montreal illegal street art, it appeared to me that a city is not static as usual people can think it. When you look closer, you can observe the walls change by the art that sticks on them. I was able to see the evolution of the streets and in the same time I saw ordinary places becoming amazing spots. When an artist, or a group of artists take over a wall, a door, and make it themselves, they give a soul to the city. Below you will see the transformation of some pieces whether completed or fixed. Interestingly, from a collective action or an individual one, it results that the urban environment is likely to be changed and magnified. The walls are for everyone but some of them exclusively belong to some artists. Hope they stay like this!
Photos by Aline Mairet
The diversity of You Go Girl
Until I was looking through Carnage NYC‘s photos, it never really dawn on my just how much variety You Go Girl has in their work. You Go Girl is one of those rare artists somewhere between a street artist and a graffiti writer who really has no boundaries for how they get up. It could be stickers, rollers, posters, spraypaint… It could be a character, tag, a throw-up… You Go Girl doesn’t fit comfortably any boxes. That sets them apart from a lot of street artists and graffiti writers who seem to find one thing and stick to doing that well until they get recognition for it (and then they keep going but at least by that point they might be getting paid).
Here’s just a small sampling of the different styles of work that You Go Girl produces on the street:
Photos by Carnage NYC
BAMN!
Although Bamn‘s works are often iconic pieces of the New York street art and graffiti landscape, he doesn’t seem to get too much attention online. We’ve only mentioned him twice, for his portraits of Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning. There aren’t too many street artists making such prominent and political artwork. I think a lot of artists could take a cue from Bamn and use the streets to get the truth out there. Here are a few pieces he’s done, both recent and a bit older:
