Category: Art News

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Bristol’s sensible new buffing policy

Most cities, when they have a graffiti “problem,” they bring out the buff squad and say “Go crazy. If it’s graffiti, buff it ASAP.” The most obvious problem with that strategy is that legal graffiti and street art gets buffed, as well as graffiti and street art that people like.

Although it’s been an informal policy in Bristol and parts of London for a while now, Bristol is officially modifying their graffiti buffing policy to accommodate art that people want to keep up. Soon, the council website will have a voting area where photos of graffiti and street art art published and the public will be able to vote for which pieces they like and which should be removed. That’s a lot of respect from the council for something that is still technically illegal.

From The Guardian:

For some it is simply an eyesore, but for others graffiti has as much worth as an old master. In Bristol, reputed home of Banksy, the street artist who has done more than any other to elevate graffiti off concrete walls and into galleries, the question is to be settled by the public.

Bristol city council is planning to let the public vote before murals on buildings, walls and fences are scrubbed clean or painted over. If citizens decide they like it, the work will remain.

The move comes as the “Banksy v Bristol Museum” exhibition in the city closedtoday having attracted more than 300,000 visitors since June. Queues for admission were up to six hours long over the Bank Holiday weekend.

As part of its formal street-art policy “to seek to define and support the display of public art”, the council is pledging “where people tell us that murals or artworks make a positive contribution to the local environment, and where the property owner has raised no objection” the graffiti will not be removed.

Photographs will be posted on the council’s website and the public asked to voice their opinions.

The policy was created after a Banksy work, showing a naked man hanging out of a window while his lover’s partner looks for him, appeared on a council-owned building in 2005, sparking debate over whether it should be removed.

The council set up an online poll, with 93% of those voting saying they wanted to keep it.

Read more…

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The next Swimming Cities project

Can’t believe I was lucky enough to randomly check out the Swimming Cities website tonight. On Sunday they announced that there is a new Swimming Cities project planned for March of 2010. The Swimming Cities of the Ocean of Blood will be a trip down the Ganges river. Here’s what is known so far:

The SWIMMING CITIES collective is planing a new project for mid march 2010 on the Ganges river in India to coincide with the Kumbh Mela festival, the largest human gathering on the planet. We plan to construct a large fleet of small sculptural rafts and travel from the Himalayan foothills city of Haridwar to the holy city of Varanasi. our journey will culminate with a performance on a floating island theater comprised of the interlocking rafts.

These rafts will be designed and built by a number of the members of the Serenissima crew as well as members from past and future projects; this is not a ‘Swoon’ project, though she may be involved in some small way, or at least in spirit.

For more information, you can go to weareswimmingcities.org.

Swimming Cities

Kind of interesting that Swoon isn’t involved so much in this iteration of the Swimming Cities. As much as I love her art and the Swimming Cities project, I think that even in Venice this summer the Swimming Cities were much more of a team effort with Swoon’s artwork included than a Swoon project. This new direction might allow the idea to grow in new ways that weren’t possible when it was more focused on one person.

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Hear No Evil, See No Evil

erica-il-cane-ceramics

blog-scimmie

These are very cool. They are the ceramic sculptures Ericailcane has made specially for FAME Fest. (Check out his cool prints here.)

erica-wallf1

And this is very uncool. The people who control the wall above had given Ericailcane permission to paint a mural on it. Soon after he began, they changed their minds. As Angelo so eloquently puts it, “We were pissed as never before.” Me too.

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New from Banksy: Zorro

Banksy Zorro

Looks like this could be the latest Banksy piece, captured by Romanywg in Westbourne Park, London. It hasn’t been confirmed as a Banksy yet by his own website or anything, but street art authorities are calling a Banksy, the style fits and there is a similar sketch in his show at The Bristol Museum, so I think it’s a safe bet.

Zorro is an interesting subject for Banksy to paint, as NoLionsInEngland has noted on WallKandy: “Zorro defended peasants from the tyrannical authority of officials and aristocrats, as ‘does’ Banksy; Zorro was the alter-ego of a knight or some kind of aristocrat, and certain newspapers seem convinced that Banksy is/was a mild-mannered public school poshie.”

Banksy Zorro

Banksy Zorro

Photos by Romanywg

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Street Spot is up

Street Spot, which is run by the omnipresent street photographers Rebecca Fuller and Luna Park, is finally up and running!

http://www.robotswillkill.com/streetspot/

Look, this is fantastic news, but also really bad at the same time. Because now that the Street Spot Blog is here, there is no real reason why you would have to check on any of my own posts about what is going on in the New York street scene! If you’ve followed their extensive flickr photostreams, you know that they are always consistent and on point with their documentation. This is such a tremendous problem though since you may have noticed almost every time I’ve posted new street work from the City, I cite the photo credits to these two lovely individuals. So I’m basically screwed, or I’ll just be linking the blog more often!

But in all seriousness, I am so glad that they have a site now because it will serve as THE comprehensive resource for what’s happening on the streets of New York.

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Shepard Fairey cleans up

Last Monday, The Eastsider LA posted about how Shepard Fairey has buffed some tags off the outside of his studio and put an anti-graffiti coating on it. Here’s a bit of what they said:

After pleading guilty to vandalism charges in Boston over his guerrilla art tactics, artist Shepard Fairey had to deal with acts of vandalism closer to home. A few days ago workers sandblasted the brick exterior of his Echo Park studio, gallery and ad agency – called Studio Number One – and applied a shiny layer of anti-graffiti coating to the walls.

And Fairey responded to their emails by explaining his reasoning:

“When graff seeped into the raw brick it was very difficult to clean,” said Fairey, creator of the Obama “Hope” poster, in an email forwarded by one of his employees. “The building is historic and I love and want to protect the brick. The city was never any help with removal. Graffiti is par for the course.”

“Obviously I have experience with graff,” said Fairey, “and there is not much point hitting a spot that will be cleaned immediately.”

Interesting story, makes you think, but that’s not the end of it. Fairey then responded to that post with a longer email which you can read in full on The Eastsider LA.

Besides attempting to blast the blog for not being objective (Surely not even the “best” blogs are objective. That’s what makes them so interesting and it comes with the territory), Fairey ends up making a number of good points. As he says:

I’m not mad at the graff artists who have hit our building, I just like the brick unadorned. I’ve always been a champion of street art and graffiti in the same way I’m a champion of free speech. I think it is important for people to be able to speak freely, but if I’m watching a channel whose content is not my cup of tea I may choose to change the channel. It does not make me an opponent of free speech. Preferring my brick unadorned does not make me anti-graffiti. Every time I put a piece of art on the street I know it may be cleaned. That is the nature of the art form.

While I’ve occasionally been critical of Fairey on Vandalog, I think this time he is making some valid points. For one thing, I’ve never met a graffiti writer or a street artist who expects their work to be there forever, and as much of a fan of street art as I am, I’d rather commission some artist to paint the walls of my house than leave it free for anybody to bomb (PS, my address is *****) and I’m sure most people would say the same thing.

If writers still want to paint on Fairey’s building they might as well, they just need to be aware that what they paint is going to get cleared away instantly. And Fairey’s got every right to do that. At least, that’s my take, but I’d love to see some comments from other people.

Via LA Daily

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Magkinetic Drawing with Aakash Nihalani… and Us

Aakash

Aakash Nihalani just released a project website in which some of the shapes and motifs that he employs in his gallery and street work can be altered and transformed. He has entitled this piece Magkinetic Drawings, and here is the explanation provided:

“One of the key elements of my physical street-level art is that it engages the viewer, making them more than just a viewer but rather an active agent in the artwork itself. The photo documentation of my work shows how the installations transform with each individual’s reaction and interaction with them, so it’s not just one piece of art but infinite. In an effort to translate that very personal unique interaction of human and art, I have begun to explore interactive digital artwork that can be experienced via the internet, from anywhere in the world. Integrating the visual and experiential concepts present in my tape installations into this digital medium, I present Magkinetic Drawings.”

Check out the website at http://www.magkinetic.com/

– Gaia