Well, somebody had to make the worst looking advertisement of the year, I just didn’t expect it to be Hounslow:
More info on the campaign at the press release.
Via Animal New York
An Assortment of Links
I’ve been away from my computer for a few days, and though I’m still on vacation, I’m trying to get caught up on the news of the street art world. Here are a few of the things I’ve been looking at:
- The Carmichael Gallery has some cool exhibitions on right now and the work is now online:
– Boxi, one of stencil art’s greatest talents, has a solo show titled “Grey Area”
– Zeus and the Neo-Cons (PosterBoy, Aakash Nihilani, and Ellis G.) in their surprise show “Hollowood.” Yes, PosterBoy is selling prints here, but they are unsigned. I’m really liking Aakash’s prints, Zeus’ installation, the PosterBoy prints if you’re not in it for investment (good for you), and the Ellis G. work on linen. - “Justice” is in Bristol with C215, Bruno Leyval, Dan23, Least Wanted, and MC1984. Great use of an old police station. Arrested Motion has images.
- David Choe’s work is looking great in Beijing. As always, Arrested Motion has images.
- Aiko has a show, Love Monster, opening next Saturday at Joshua Liner Gallery. I’ll be there.
- ABOVE‘s latest street piece is the “Easter AIG Hunt.” Keep an eye out for his upcoming print release which looks like his best in a while.
- Five Pointz, the graffiti mecca in New York City, has been temporarily closed after a stairway collapsed. A woman was on the staircase at the time. She fell 100 feet and survived, but was injured.
- Delete08’s show at Shunt has been painted and it looks great. He’s got some really cool artists working down there.
- ESPO has answered 20 questions for Juxtapoz
- Street Art Dealer is a new concept meant to avoid the gallery system. Participating artists (such as Dotmasters and Graffiti Research Labs) tag their street work with a QR code, and by photographing the code, people can buy a piece they see on the street. So is this an innovation that will take galleries out of the art selling equation, or the logical conclusion of street art becoming nothing more than advertising for print releases?
- The Chinese contemporary art market bubble seems to have burst. Luckily it wasn’t this bad in the world of street art. Maybe it is time for street art to move in to fill the hole in the market that may be left by the Chinese market (though hopefully we won’t create the same bubble). Phillips de Pury is selling a good number of street art works in their April Saturday sale in New York City by artists such as Keith Haring, Barry McGee, KAWS, and Date Farmers.
Faith47 and Keeping Graffiti in Cape Town
Faith47 has been getting the word out recently about a potential change in anti-graffiti laws in Cape Town. The new law would prohibit property owners from even giving permission for graffiti on their buildings. Here are Faith47’s two main concerns with the proposed law:
1. The definition of ‘graffiti’ under the by-law is too broad. It classifies ‘graffiti’ as any inscription, word, figure, letter, sign, symbol, sketch, picture or drawing. There should be a clear differentiation between ‘graffiti vandalism’ [e.g. gang tags, scratchings] and public art that is done with permission from the owner [murals, colourful characters and positive, inspiring messages].2. The by- law removes the legal right of the private property owner to paint anything other than a house number on his/her wall. We strongly believe that the private property owner should maintain the right to determine what to paint on to his/her property without permission from the City.
Read the rest of her email here.
Public Ad Campaign has a short interview up with Faith47 about how her work might be effected by the proposed law, which you can read here.
Finally, there is a petition that anybody can sign to show their opposition to this proposed law. I signed, and you can too. Just go here.
Swoon on “The Swimming Cities of Serenissima”
Arrested Motion has an interview with Swoon about her latest boat project, “The Swimming Cities of Serenissima”, which will launch this May. Swoon and her team will launch their homemade crafts from Slovenia and travel all the way to Venice just in time for The Venice Biennale. With any luck, I’ll be in Venice for their arrival, so I’ll be blogging and twitter that, but in the mean time, Arrested Motion is where it is at. Here’s a short excerpt from their interview with Swoon:
AM: Are there any particular themes or issues that you’re looking to explore with this journey?
Swoon: There are many, but just to pull out a thread, I have always felt that these boats are an expression of joy and wonder, while at the same time being a map of anxiety.
We are making a cabinet of wonders by collecting things we find along the way: seeds, bones, flowers, stories – all manner of things. This impulse is about observing, collecting and sharing beautiful things in the world around us, but there is also an element of the impulse to preserve these things and to pack your whole life onto a couple of hand-made rafts and set sail, which is about the feeling that the way we are living is coming apart at the seams, is destroying the world around us and will not last. These boats are not to be taken as a literal solution, but in the way that art distills a language from our imaginations and creates images that speak to us above and below the level of our spoken language, we are addressing these issues in our form.
Read the rest at Arrested Motion.
Le Tag in Paris (this show includes Taki 183)
My French is pretty terrible (just got back from France, realized I couldn’t say much more than ‘merci’ after 9 months not taking the language at school), but what this video is still pretty cool, and I Love Graffiti was able to help sort out with the details about Le Tag.
Le Tag is an exhibit in Paris of graffti by 150 writers. It is currated by French architect Alain-Dominique Gallizia.
Artists in the exhibit include (and I can’t believe this first one) Taki 183, Seen, Doze Green, Phase2, and L’Atlas.
I know that in some ways Taki 183 is just one guy that the New York Times picked up on as an early tagger, but the article featuring him inspired so many people to start tagging, and he was one of the first to really get their name throughout New York City. I didn’t even realize he was still writing his name. The last I’d seen of Taki 183 was in Bomb It the movie, and he didn’t seem too interested in graffiti. Even though it’s “just a tag” and I really like Seen and some of the other artists in this show, Taki 183’s stuff is my personal highlight of Le Tag.
Le Tag runs until April 26. More at the official website.
New KRINK Fire Extinguishers
KRINK, probably best known for their markers designed for tagging, have a new product which may hit the market soon: Fire extinguishers. Writers like Katsu have used fire extinguishers to write huge, and soon any writer or random kid with some money to spare will be able to do the same.
As HYB points out though, these are already pretty easy for anybody to make.
Also, if you’re a fan of KRINK and KR (the artist behind KRINK), he’s got a show at Don’t Come Gallery in Australia.
New Banksy Original on Ebay
A pretty large and cool Banksy original has just been put up on eBay. The piece entitled “Pants” is part of a charity project to raise awareness for the needs of asylum seekers currently living on the streets of London. It’s a really worthy cause, so Banksy has made this semi-new image based on his “Tesco Flag” stencil. So, if you’ve got £30,000 to spare (the opening bid), looks like this might be the place to do it.
Check out the auction on eBay or if you are so inclined, you can just donate directly to the NNLS here
OBEY Rips Off Restitution Press
UPDATE: I was misinformed, the Bandit image below is by Restitution Press, and the skull image is by Euthanasia.
Looks like it’s time to add Restitution Press to the list of artists that Shepard Fairey may have stolen imagery from without giving credit. Restitution Press has been wheatpasting in LA and other cities for years, and now it looks like two of their images have one of their images has been stolen and combined with an image by Euthanasia for use in a tshirt by OBEY Clothing.
Essentially, here’s what happened:
Those first two images are by Restitution Press. The first image is by Restitution Press, the second is by Euthanasia, and the last one is a close up of a tshirt by OBEY Clothing. They sure look pretty similar.
Here’s the full image of the shirt:
This looks to be one of OBEY’s classic “re-appropriations” where they have taken some images that they like, changed them slightly, and the stuck some OBEY logos around.
And it would be pretty hard for Shepard Fairey to play dumb about these images. He knows they exist. Last year he wrote to the head of Restitution Press complimenting him on their work.
I wonder what Shepard Fairey from last April would have to say about this…
Bortusk Leer’s Street Monsters on CBBC
Bortusk Leer‘s “street monsters” have brightened up the streets of London for a while now. Starting tomorrow, you’ll also be able to find them on your television. Street Monsters has transitioned into a series of animated shorts mixed with live action backgrounds. Just last week I posted the teaser video that turned into this show. For now, Street Monsters is a series of 20 shorts each 2-minutes long and you can catch them on CBBC weekdays at 2:15.
Banksy’s “CCTV Nation” Painted Over
Thanks to @hookedblog for this tip.
As of very recently, Banksy’s “One Nation Under CCTV” image in Westminister has been painted over with a single coat of very grey paint.
Photo by delete08