I’ve seen LEDs used in street art before, but never quite like how the Spanish collective Ojo Señor is doing it: A combo of wheatpasted posters and LED lights. Here’s some of what they’ve been getting up to:
Photos by Ojo Señor
Brad Downey verus(?) Banksy – “What Lies Beneath”
While some lazier blogs have been misreporting things (as the media notoriously does), here’s what really going on at a gallery in Germany where an artwork by Banksy has been “rediscovered” and uncovered beneath layers of paint. While one might initially suspect that this is a publicity stunt by a gallery (my first thoughts were: the piece could be a fake, or even if it’s real, it’s most likely a ploy by a crass gallery owner to get people in the door, and the wall will quickly be sold like so many Banksy street pieces and the gallery had just been waiting for the right time to do this), it’s not that simple. In fact, the room is installation by Brad Downey, titled What Lies Beneath.
Here’s what is known about the artwork: The Banksy piece seen the above photo is real and was painted in 2003 for the Backjumps Live show, Brad instructed art restorers to uncover the piece which was hidden beneath years of paint, Brad got the rest of the walls painted red, Brad got sections of the other walls in the room removed, Brad lists the materials as “restored/extracted ‘Banksy’ Installation (originally painted in 2003 for the exhibition Backjumps- Volume:1), red paint,” the piece is part of a show curated by Adrian Nabi called Do Not Think! and Adrian Nabi curated the Backjumps show.
That said, Brad Downey is a clever artist. In fact, one of the only street artists that I suspect might be more clever than Brad would have to be Banksy. For that reason, I suspect that there is some mystery yet to be uncovered about this installation. Especially given Brad’s use of the word “extracted” in the description of What Lies Beneath and also the text on Banksy’s piece, “Every picture tells a lie!”, I’m curious to know more about those segments that Brad has removed from the room. I’d say there’s definitely more to this story than meets the eye (maybe Brad has extracted a few Banksy’s to throw up on eBay), but maybe the installation is telling a lie. While of course many blogs and newspapers seem to be excited about the new (to them) Banksy, according to one German newspaper, “[Brad’s] work was not primarily about Banksy’s work, but to criticize the art market.”
You can see What Lies Beneath for yourself at the Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien gallery in Berlin through October 29th.
Photos courtesy of Brad Downey
WK Interact’s Project Brave mural
The other day, I mentioned that WK Interact was collaborating with New York firefighters on a mural in Brooklyn. The Project Brave mural has been installed at 149 Kent Ave and North 5th St in Brooklyn and is scheduled to stay through October 11th. Matthew Kraus made this video of the mural:
WK Interact. Project Brave. 2011. from Matthew Kraus on Vimeo.
Matthew also has an extensive set of photos of the mural on his flickr.
Photo by Matthew Kraus
Anonymous Gallery at Wooster Street Social Club
Anonymous Gallery, the mostly New York-based pop up gallery, has put together a show that will open later this week at the Wooster Street Social Club, aka the site of the show NY Ink. Flash includes original artwork as well as designs by those same artists that people can get put on them by the tattoo artists at Wooster Street Social Club. Flash opens on September 17th, runs through October 29th, and includes Anthony Lister, Curtis Kulig (aka Love Me), Dan Witz, Eric White, Greg Lamarche, Kenji Hirata, Kenzo Minami, James Jean, Logan Hicks, Nick Walker, Ron English, Shelter Serra and Tristan Eaton.
Photo by RJ Rushmore
Dave the Chimp on the Berlin Wall
Recently, a number of artists have been painting segments of The Berlin Wall as part of an installation in Berlin’s Freedom Park. I was particularly struck by Dave the Chimp‘s pieces. Here’s how Dave explained his work to his mailing list:
For me, involving the word “freedom” with a barrier built around one half of a city, a barrier involving not just a wall but barbed wire, guard dogs, machine gun implacements, search lights, and soldiers with the instructions “shoot to kill”, doesn’t make sense, and I wanted to use this opportunity to remind people of just how disgusting it is to divide a city and it’s people. The barrier built between the Russian sector and the British, American and French sectors of Berlin was, in many cases, built down the middle of streets, dividing friends, families, and whole communities. Over night on August 12th 1961 relationships were destroyed and freedom, a natural human right, was viciously snatched away from millions of German citizens, people just like you and me. I tried, in my simple way, to show this with one of my “one line” drawings. I hope it will stand as a reminder of the reality of the Berlin Wall, and of the walls dividing people in other parts of the world.
The other side of my wall is a little lighter, showing the words “Every Wall Is A Challenge”. This is both intended as a reminder of the many people from the East that escaped, and of the teams of West Berliners who dug tunnels and found other ways to rescue and reunite families, and as a cheeky nod to the graffiti writers of the city today.
Photos by Dave the Chimp
Shine on NY
Photo by Martha Cooper. It’s from her new book, Remembering 9/11. Today only, Remembering 9/11 is available for free on iTunes.
More from Draw the Line
A while back, I posted about some murals at Draw the Line Festival in Campobasso, Italy. Well that was just the start. Here’s some more from the long lineup of artists painting at the festival. These murals are by Etnik, Truly, Dado and Sera.
Photos courtesy of Draw the Line
2 of Amerikas Most Wanted
New Image Art has a two-man show opening on September 18th with Neckface and Weirdo Dave/Fuck This Life. 2 of Amerikas Most Wanted sounds like the perfect name for a show including Neckface. Neckface is one of my favorite writers and sticker artists and a great artist indoors as well. He makes things that appeal perfectly to the misbehaving 12-year-old boy inside all of us and disgust our mothers. Also, he was just on the cover of Juxtapoz. Fuck This Life is a zine that I frankly don’t know much about, but now I’m curious. Vice did an interview with Dave about it a couple of years ago, which is worth checking out.
Photo by Lord Jim
Weekend link-o-rama
You know what’s really nice? Sleep. Hence, this weekend is a blessing. For now, life is school school school and more school. Hopefully there’s still a trip to NYC in my near future though… Here’s what has been going on around the internet and on the street:
- OverUnder and Chris Stain have gotten things started at Living Walls Albany. OverUnder’s portrait looks kinda like an Ethos piece, but it still looks cool. And Chris’ tribute to the 9/11 first responders was painted on wood and has just been moved to the New York State Museum.
- WK Interact collaborated with NY firefighters on a mural in Brooklyn.
- This 9/11 related piece by Zevs has caused a bit of a stir. Definitely one of most controversial 9/11 related artworks I’ve seen.
- JR’s Inside Out project has made it to Israel and Palestine.
- Some promising new for Leon Reid IV‘s latest project.
- Amanda Marie, the latest artist to show at Andenken in Amsterdam, isn’t a street artist, but she does stencils that I’m loving. (heads up, the link is a pdf)
- Ema has a solo show that opened tonight at Glasgow’s Redcoat Gallery.
- Banksy has donated a sculpture to The Bristol Museum.
- A few years ago, there was a castled painted in Scotland by some of Brazil’s best street artists: Nina, Nunca and Os Gêmeos. It was supposed to be temporary, but the owners of the castle want to keep it.
- Maybe my favorite thing I’ve ever seen from Jaybo.
- Risk and Retna painted a mural in Santa Monica, CA, but now the city wants to fine the building owners $5,000 a day until the mural is removed.
- Brad Downey and Akay collaborate at FAME Festival.
- Jim Carrey and Shia LaBeouf are both trying to do some street art. Yep, the guy from Ace Ventura and a Disney Channel star are now technically street artists. Melrse&Fairfax says, “Interesting how street art seems to be more and more an exciting ‘escape’ for celebrities.” I’d like to replace interesting with some other word or words…
Photo by Snyder
This week: Flying Fortress at Galo Art Gallery
Galo’s Galo Art Gallery in Torino, Italy has a solo show opening this week with Flying Fortress from Germany. The show opens on Saturday and runs through October 29th.
Photo by RJ Rushmore