Jonathan “Odnokn” Djob Nkondo is a Paris based illustrator and animator whose street pieces are playful and original. His drawings are silly and show his technical ability. You can check out more of Odnokn’s work on his Flickr and on his Tumblr.
Photos by Odnokn
After three successful years and over a hundred murals curated, Ad Hoc Art is kicking off this summer’s Welling Court Mural Project with a block party! The event’s food, music, dancing and live painting will open to the public on June 15th from 2pm til 8pm at 11-98 Welling Court (@ 30th Ave & 12th Street) in Astoria, Queens. In order to make such a cool thing happen (and free for the public, at that) there is a need for volunteers, so if you’d like to lend a hand contact info@adhocart.org.
The line up is amazing, bringing back some favorites and honing in some new and foreign talent. This year artists include (I tried to limit this to just a few…) Aiko, Beau Stanton, Billy Mode, Celso, Chris RWK, Clown Soldier, Dan Witz, Dennis McNett, Don Leicht, Ellis Gallagher, Feral, Fumero, Gaia, Gilf!, Hellbent, Ian Kuali’I, Icy & Sot, Joe Iurato, John Fekner, Kenny Scharf, Lady Pink, M-City, Mare139, Maya Hayuk, Never, ND’A, Roa, Royce Bannon, SeeOne, Sheryo, The Yok, Skewville, Veng RWK and many, many more.
Details and directions are on the event’s Facebook page. Hope to see you there!
Photos by Lois Stavsky
Hooked Blog recently spotted Tant and Unga of the Broken Fingaz crew, painting this “SuperSex” mural in London. The two were briefly in London en route back to Tel Aviv after painting a large mural in Germany and a commissioned piece in London, and decided to reclaim these wooden gates in East London which they had painted previously.
Photos by Hooked Blog
As a precursor to the release of a book on hand styles, entitled Flip the Script, LA graffiti writer Mike Giant gives us a brief history lesson on his introduction to Cholo graffiti. He cites the importance of understanding this history, not just in the graffiti world, but now in the graphic design world and art world, and says, “To me, it’s getting too derivative of things that were already derivative of other derivatives. It continues to just pile on.” Mike comments on the fact that graffiti writers today are picking up hand styles from the internet, as opposed to getting alphabets from their mentors.
Recently, Toofly and Meres collaborated on this piece at the Queens graffiti mecca 5Pointz. These New York City natives were introduced to graffiti at young ages from growing up around it, and both gained experience transitioning their graffiti work to gallery pieces after attending two of New York’s prestigious art schools (Toofly attended SVA and Meres attended FIT). Both have since gone on to have successful art careers which incorporate their love of graffiti; Meres is the curator of all the murals at 5Pointz and Toofly has been involved in projects such as starting her own fashion collection.
Photos courtesy of Toofly
July is a technically competent artist, creating stencils using 2 to 4 colors that generally include some sort of social or political commentary. For the same reason people are amused by Dolk, Icy & Sot, Blek le Rat and so on and so forth, people might have similar reactions to July as they do with those other artists. For more works by Banksy July check out their facebook page. For some more direct similarities to other artists, see here and here.
Wouldn’t it be great if artists moved beyond being technically competent and actually came up with interesting ideas too?
Photos by July
It’s not my intention to shame artists who collaborate with labels and “big brands” to support themselves, however I feel that there is a distinct line between using a brand’s notoriety to proliferate one’s own art and “selling out”. D*Face is an example of good corpo-collaboration as he seemed to have a lot of freedom when he worked with Smirnoff on a project which allowed him to do things he would have never been able to do on his own. By definition, selling out is what happens when an artist is willing to compromise their personal goals (i.e. propagating a message, promoting a distinct style, nurturing certain ideas/reactions, etc.) because of cash cash cash cash cash.
Louis Vuitton has invited Aiko, Os Gemeos and Retna to help design a series of scarves. Aiko refers to her work as having a graffiti influence and says ,”We break the law with wildstyle”, which seemed a bit ironic given that she is the only artist involved who does not come from a graffiti background and yet was the only artist to mention such things. As one commenter says, “Just waiting for Kidult to hear about this…” 12ozProphet has an interesting little read on some more examples of graffiti in couture, including a previous line from Louis Vuitton. Similarly, Krink and Coach will be releasing a collaborative line of bags this spring. That might just be coincidental timing or it maybe it was some Devil Wears Prada-esque trend carefully planned by the cigar smoking board members of some fashion-world back room.
Who do you think will buy these products?
Do you think they will know the significance or want to learn more about the artists?
Opening this Friday, Australian paint-roller connoisseurs “Rawhide” (aka Ankles and Smile) have decided to display their craftsmanship through collage in their show • C R E W / C U T S •. The video echos a few themes of the show, which Ankles describes best: “the visual equivalent of sample-heavy scratch DJs such as Cut Chemist, Kid Koala and The Avalanches. It is a time-consuming process digging through crates of pre-1970s magazines and books, removing type and image from their original context and rearranging it to form some self-referential narrative.”
If you’re in the Adelaide, South Australia area on Friday, March 19th, stop by Magazine Gallery to check out the work!
Photo by Ankles
A three-person team in Italy, working under the alias “Canemorto“, recently painted this 230 foot (70 meter) mural in North Italy. This is the first work I’ve seen by the trio but I’m excited to see more and after checking out their website they definitely seem promising. We’ll have to keep our eyes out for Canemorto.
Photos provided by Canemorto
