Seacreative and Vine recently painted this large wall in Varese, Italy. Beautiful stuff. Great color choice, taking a grey wall and making it fit with the rest of the building.
Photos courtesy of Seacreative
Ozmo and Jeremy Fish in Turin
Jeremy Fish and Ozmo are showing together starting later this week at Galo Art Gallery in Turin, Italy with their two-man show From Lines To Shadows. Despite their work being quite different, when the two met back in Milan about 7 years ago, they clicked and gained a mutual admiration for each other’s work. From Lines To Shadows opens November 24th from 5:30-9pm.
Photos courtesy of Galo Art Gallery
Wrap up: The Art of Comedy
Last weekend we finished up The Art of Comedy with The New York Comedy Festival, Little Italy, Ron English, Hanksy, and gilf! with a tour around New York’s Little Italy to see all the new work that Ron, Hanksy and gilf! have painted there. We were even joined by comedian Jim Gaffigan and Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez. For those who couldn’t make it, here’s what’s new on Mulberry Street:
Jim Gaffigan was so taken with Hanksy’s piece staring that the two had been tweeting back and forth and Jim took his kids to see the wall. Hanksy knew that Jim would also be coming by the art crawl, and so he came prepared with a painting to give to Jim…
Photos by Tali Blankfeld, Luna Park, and Jake Dobkin
Lush’s likes and dislikes
The more we get to know about Lush, the more it seems he is just a typical redblooded guy: He loves bacon and wants to blow up babies.
Photos by Lush
Two new walls from DALeast
DALeast sent over his two latest murals in Johannesburg and they are some of my favorites from him. Crashing Ego depicts a car crash in progress, and Counterattack Company shows a hunter becoming the hunted and turns the corner of a building so that the mural is split over two walls. The mural over two walls seems like an effective but simple way to switch things up.
Photos by DALeast
Weekend link-o-rama
Had a fantastic time in New York last weekend finishing up The Art of Comedy, but that meant missing out on a lot of news, so some of this week’s link-o-rama is a bit more dated than usual:
- The Wall Therapy mural project in Rochester, NY is working on a short documentary about this year’s event, and they’ve recently released a trailer for that film.
- Station 16 recently released Hanksy’s latest print.
- I absolutely love this collaboration in London between Stinkfish, Cranio, Aeon Fly, and Dscreet.
- Vitche’s latest mural in Sao Paulo has some interesting elements that pop off the wall a bit.
- If you’re a fan of Horfe, you’ve got to check out this video of the Peace And Love crew, of which Horfe is a member.
- How and Nosm are the latest artists to paint the wall at Bowery and Houston.
- KAWS has work on the outside of a NYC subway car, but not in the way you might be hoping, just the way you’d expect.
- Erica il Cane and Blu have collaborated once again, this time on a mural in Bari, Italy.
- Hell yes: Two trucks painted by Aryz.
- A zoo in Turin, Italy closed down. This is what happened when artists were given access.
Photo by Luna Park
Zoer’s beautiful graffiti
Zoer CSX is difficult to describe because the only way I can find to describe the work is that it is beautiful graffiti. I’d like to say that it’s graffiti that the everyday person would walk by without fainting in disgust (or whatever happens when people see standard tags and pieces these days), but I usually hate that sort of work. Usually, it seems that even the cleanest graffiti or pieces at halls of fame can still easily look like “bad graffiti” to the everyday viewer (take Amuse as an example), while graffiti that’s completely boring-person-friendly comes across as lame (for a street art example of this, read Caroline’s recent article on yarn bombing). And suggesting that boring-person-friendly graffiti is superior to traditional and in-your-face straight-up-vandalism graffiti is something I don’t agree with and hate to do. But Zoer seems paint work that is generally completely unobjectionable and might not come across as “graffiti” to the uneducated viewer, but is still about lettering and still very interesting. It’s friendly graffiti without the lameness. Maybe it’s the muted colors and the way the work doesn’t shout “HELLO LOOK AT ME MY NAME IS ZOER!” but rather suggest “Hey, thanks for checking me out. Maybe stop and stare a moment. Whatever you do, Zoer wishes you a nice day.” I don’t know. But I like Zoer’s work and calmly beautiful seems like the only fair way to describe it.
Photos by Zoer
Roti wall in Atlanta illegally buffed and then repaired
Update: Creative Loafing has done a more extensive article on what’s gone on and is going on with the mural as more facts have become more clear. This one is probably the article to read.
Last week, there was a petition started to save Roti‘s beautiful mural for Living Walls Atlanta. The petition got over 1500 signatures from around the world, but signatures don’t mean much against a paintbrush. Last week, a handful of upset Atlanta residents went to the wall and illegally buffed it (very poorly) in broad daylight. Later that day, volunteers and employees of the Georgia Department of Transportation (who own the wall) came to help remove the paint. Creative Loafing has the full stories.
Two things that I see as problematic interesting here:
- The mural was painted legally and buffed illegally. I think that sort of speaks for itself.
- The mural was buffed by some percentage of the local residents, and while other local residents support the mural, at least some of the signatures on the petition to save the mural are from people who don’t live nearby or even in the City of Atlanta. What right do we or Living Walls or GDOT have to say “We’re putting this mural here and you’d better like it.”? I think just going ahead and doing it is generally a much better way of putting up murals than months of community meetings. Once the mural is up though and if the community hates it, what should be done? I think it’s ridiculous to have a blank beige or grey wall in that spot rather than Roti’s beautiful figures, but I have never in my life had to drive by that wall on my way to work. Maybe that’s what people in the area want. That said, just because a few residents decided that they disliked the mural enough to go and paint over it does not mean that all the nearby residents or the residents of Atlanta hated the mural. And I haven’t heard any real reason why just going out and vandalising the mural was the step that had to be taken rather than holding some community forums to see what the general consensus was. I’m not saying that this mural should have been buffed (I signed the petition to save it) or that the angry activists who buffed the wall went about things the right way, but I think it’s worth thinking about, particularly, in this era of new muralism coming out of street art, how we can best balance the interests of the arts community and the local community. Thoughts?
Photo by Dustin Chambers
Bring Back the Boadwalks benefit auction
This weekend Bring Back The Boadwalks is holding a benefit art auction to raise money to help rebuild the Rockaways and Coney Island, two communities were hit hard by Hurricane Sandy. The silent auction will have work from some major names including Futura, Swoon, Phil Frost, Faile, David Ellis, Shepard Fairey, and Dennis McNett, and 100% of the proceeds from the auction will go to recovery efforts.
The auction will take place this Saturday, November 17th, at Trais Gallery at 76 Wooster Street (between Broome and Spring) in Manhattan.
More info on the Bring Back The Boadwalks website, and they’ve been posting photos of artwork that will be at the auction to their tumblr.
Photo courtesy of Bring Back The Boardwalks
Two show in the UK from Anthony Lister and lots of walls
Anthony Lister has a show opening this week with Lazarides / The Outsiders spanning both of The Outsiders’ locations (London and Newcastle). While in the UK for the show, titled Unslung Heroes, he’s stayed busy by painting a bunch of walls. They can all be seen, along with a few older Lister pieces, on Ian Cox’s fickr. Unslung Heroes opens on Thursday in both London and Newcastle.
Photo by AdversMedia