One of the best things that street art can do, which doesn’t happen often, is that it can truly engage with people and inspire them. There are two whimsical projects potentially happening this summer which, while not traditional street art, come from that same place. And they need some support or else they might not happen.
First, there is Release the Wolves, a go-karting project by Gold Peg and Pelucas. These two artists are trying to build a go-kart track and go-karts with local kids in South London. They need another £6,500 to make the project a reality. When I was living in London, Gold Peg was one of my favorite local street artists/graffiti writers, and this project fits her to a T. I remember the opening night of The Thousands, a show that I curated back in 2009, where Gold Peg decided that, rather than put a painting in the show like the rest of the Burning Candy crew (in addition to the mural that they painted), she wanted to give out ice cream at an ice cream stand. And so she made a custom ice cream stand and had her friends serve everyone ice cream. It was probably the most popular part of the show, until the ice cream ran out. That was great fun and a bit whimsical, but it was for a crowd of Shoreditch hipsters like myself. With Release the Wolves, Gold Peg is taking that same spirit of fun and exuberance and bringing it to kids who probably didn’t show up for ice cream at The Thousands. I hope she can pull this project off. To help make Release the Wolves happen, you can pledge your support here.
And then there is the latest installment in the Swimming Cities project, which is probably best-known as that crazy series of junk boat projects that Swoon had a hand in. While Swoon is no longer at the helm, Swimming Cities has continued. This year, the group is hoping to float down the Ohio River. The Swimming Cities team is hoping to raise about $20,000 in the next 15 days. It’s a lot, but Swimming Cities is quite a project. I was fortunate enough to ride on one of the Swimming Cities vessels in Venice a few years back. It was the experience of a lifetime, and even just seeing the performance that took place on the boats was spectacular. I cannot say enough good things about this project. I hope that they reach their funding goal and send out some positive energy all along the Ohio River. You can help Swimming Cities here.
The team over at Living Walls in Atlanta has some exciting news this week. Possible Futures will match up to $10,000 of donations made to Living Walls between now and August 1st. Living Walls is, in my opinion, the best mural festival or conference in North America, but the conference relies on donations to make it happen. Thanks to Possible Futures, any donation you make now through August 1st will go twice as far, so even if you can only spare a few dollars, I hope you will consider donating to Living Walls.
SKL0 is a street artist in Singapore who may be facing up to 3 years in prison for allegedly putting up fantastic stickers and fake road signs. This petition was started to hopefully get the authorities in Singapore to lessen the charges against SKL0.
This post on Hyperallergic pretty much exactly echos my thoughts about a Kickstarter project that hopes to raise $1 million to temporarily cover New York’s water tanks in art by celebrities and celebrity artists (and a couple of cool artists too, admittedly).
Stay High 149, aka Wayne Roberts, has passed away this week at the age of 61. He was a pioneer and an innovator with his tags and pieces from 1971-1975. He resurfaced in 2000 and his newer tags can still be seen around New York City. You can see his work on flickr and in the book The Faith of Graffiti. Rest in peace.
Here are a few of the many obituaries and reactions to Stay High 149’s death from around the web:
Nina Pandolfo has a show coming up this week at Lazarides’ Rathbone Place location. Despite Nina’s talent, it’s unfortunately difficult to shake the knowledge that she is married to Otavio Pandolfo of Os Gemeos and make comparisons to Os Gemeos’ work.
Street Art Is Dead used to be a blog that mostly complained about the bullshit involved in street art. Now there’s a newish blog with that name that indiscriminately posts photos of street art despite quality.
Animal New York’s analysis of JR’s latest mural in New York seems pretty spot on… “Let’s agree that it is not an vicious affront to the eyes, but it’s not ‘absolutely genius’ either.”
Banksy updated his website. A couple of really nice new pieces, both indoors and outdoors.
The Duke Spirit used Kid Acne’s Stabby Women film series footage and used a version reedited by Dscreet (who also directed Stabby Women initially) for their latest music.
Takeshi Miyakawa tried to hang a series of lit plastic bags, like the one shown above, around Greenpoint, Brooklyn recently. Now he is being held without bail; essentially because these bags were perceived to be a bomb threat. A judge had determined that he should be detained for 30 days for a mental heath evaluation. As Jillian Steinhauer wrote at Hyperallergic, “Sure, hanging a plastic bag with wires coming out of it in a city as terrorism-obsessed as ours may not be the best idea — but no bail and a mental health evaluation? Really?” Hyperallergic has more on the ridiculous, scary and unfortunate story.
I’d like to point out two fake Banksy social media accounts that I’ve been enjoying late. The first is the @BanksyIdeas Twitter account. It’s full of ideas for future Banksy pieces that will hopefully never be made. The other is The Real Banksy, a tumblr account made by Cardinal Burns. They are a comedy duo with a new show on E4 in the UK, and the guys behind this video. Their suburban Banksy character will feature in every episode of the Cardinal Burns show on E4. Here’s one of their new Banksy sketches.
Shepard Fairey has worked with Neil Young to make paintings inspired by Young’s latest album. The work will premiere at Perry Rubenstein Gallery’s brand new LA space in June during a one-day private event. Of the one piece previewed so far, the work looks distinctly Shepard Fairey, but also distinctly un-OBEY. I like it.
Saber is upset and taking to Twitter because this fantastic mural was buffed. While Saber seems to think that the wall was buffed for something related to the show Sons of Anarchy, The LA Weekly has the least biased overview of what’s gone down. Whatever reason though, it’s a real shame that that mural was destroyed. I must note that I find it interesting how, in the past, Saber has been all about the rights of property owners to do whatever they want with their walls, but now he has suddenly changed his tone and begun speaking out against public advertisements now that work by his friends has been destroyed. Glad to see the change of heart, but I’m disappointed that it took such an unfortunate incident for Saber to see some of the downsides to public advertisements.
Galerie F, possibly Chicago’s next art gallery focusing on street art, has taken to Kickstarter to help fund the repairs to their space that will make it usable a gallery.
Jordan Seiler’s latest endeavor is something quite different from PublicAdCampaign… It’s an augmented reality app for Android phones that will insert 3d murals onto potentially any building. Right now, it’s in the beta stages, but this could be huge. Sort of like what FriendWithYou did with Becks, but with even more potential.
Word To Mother’s show at White Walls looks great. That said, Word To Mother still seems to be finding his voice. He, as usual, experiments with some styles that are little-more than his own riffs on ideas by Barry McGee, Phil Frost and possibly Saber. In the past, he’s fiddled with things very reminiscent of Swoon and Monica Canilao. But the funny thing is that Word To Mother already has a style that is distinctly his own and almost all of his best work is in that style. While yes, the baseball bats inspired by Phil Frost are cool, it’s the original works on wood featuring characters and bits of text that are the stand-outs and the pieces that are most unique to Word To Mother. I understand not wanting to be boxed in and the urge to experiment, but this piece which clearly developed by spending a lot of time looking at Barry McGee/Phil Frost/maybe Saber is not the way to experiment. Still, overall looks like another cracker of a show from Word To Mother.
Two bits of Kaws news this week: He has a show in Hong Kong that his fans are going ga-ga for. I love the red Chum painting, but otherwise I’m not really bothered, although I think Kaws is, surprisingly, someone whose work is best appreciated in person so maybe I’m just plain wrong for being unimpressed by the jpegs. The big news for Kaws though is that there will be a balloon of one of his Companions in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade this November.
Caroline and I were in Baltimore this week checking out Open Walls Baltimore. If you have the chance, definitely make a trip over there. Full posts about Baltimore coming soon. Point is, between Baltimore and moving this weekend, I’ve been lax this week. Things should return to normal on Wednesday or Thursday, but in the mean time, here’s what I’ve been meaning to post about:
