Swoon sums up street art for me:
From the film Bomb It (which you can watch online in full)
Aakash Nihalani takes a trip to Missouri
Roa visits London
Roa has spent the last week or so in London, and he’s been doing quite a bit of painting. He’s maybe the most prolific street artist I can think of. I went out this afternoon to take photos of the pieces I knew about and discovered 3 new ones walking around Brick Lane. These are most, but not all, of the pieces Roa has painted while in town.
Expect a time lapse of Roa painting plus video interview with him coming soon…
MuTate Britain: One Foot in the Grove
MuTate Britain: One Foot in the Grove is now open. It might not match last year‘s event, but it’s still a great party with cool art and something for everybody.
Put simply: MuTate has sculptures shooting fire into the air. ‘Nuf said.
In all seriousness though, the sculptures and paintings are very cool. Best Ever, Busk, Mode2, Sickboy and many many many others have contributed to make something special and unique.
I could say that I liked this painting or that painting, but half the time I didn’t know who painted my favorite pieces, they were just good, regardless of the name behind them.
But is it the absolute best art in the world? Not always. It’s just fun to see. Even a poorly painted stencil contributes to the atmosphere and makes MuTate a nice place to grab a beer or two.
This is the art show you can bring your friends to who would rather just go to the pub (see: my comment about fire).
MuTate Britain is located underneath Westway in London near Ladbroke Grove station. Who knows how long this party is going to continue (even the artists I spoke with said anywhere from a few weeks to indefinitely), so go check it out now.
case in LA
Just wanted to share these shots of case’s newly finished window installation.
His show, “The L.A. case”, runs from October 8th-29th. More pics of him getting ready for it here.
The street jewelry of Liesbeth Bussche
This is the artwork of Liesbeth Bussche, and I’m just going to let the pictures explain it. Very cool though.
Via urbanartcore
Herakut at ARTotale
I was hunting around a little while ago for pictures of Herakut’s new mural, painted for ARTotale in Luneburg, and, just when I stopped looking, my friend Sebastian put some up on Unurth!
We did a little preview of ARTotale back in August and were pretty impressed by the line up. Just, who took these photos of Herakut’s work, has documented the week long festival on Ekosystem. Check out his awesome photo stream.
The Thousands: Painting Outside, Breaking In
Well it’s official. You can now buy my book, The Thousands: Painting Outside, Breaking In, on Drago’s website.
I am ecstatic. This is a street art book with all the artists I’ve always wanted to see in a book together. Plus, it’s not just me writing standard bios for the artists (though there is a bit of that), a lot of the book was written by other contributors. Mike Snelle from Black Rat Press wrote the forward (did you know he is an amazing writer?), Panik ATG wrote about Burning Candy, Know Hope wrote about Chris Stain, Gaia wrote about Know Hope… the list goes on. Also, instead of just having photos of art on the street, many of the photos are of artwork that is now in people’s homes. That’s something I’ve always felt was lacking in street art books. In short, I think it’s a good book.
Until November, the only place you buy The Thousands: Painting Outside, Breaking In is on Drago’s website, but eventually it will be in stores and, of course, available for purchase at The Thousands the exhibition from November 18th to the 22nd.
For a little peak into how this book came to be and the panic of finishing it by deadline, check out this post I did for Drago’s blog.
Fame Festival wrap-up
An overdue post. Fame Festival opened almost 2 weeks ago now and I haven’t properly covered it. There were a few of us who traveled to see the festival (some from as far away as LA), and if you couldn’t make it for the opening, I have to recommend it for a weekend getaway or something. Everybody had a great time. There was good food, good company and good art.
The gallery component of the festival was nice, but the highlight of Fame isn’t the temporary gallery exhibition but all of the street work. Artists have painted all over the small town of Grottaglie, Italy. Here are some of my pictures:
While it is great to wander around the town and see so much street art almost wherever you look, the highlight of Fame Festival is the monastery. There is an abandoned monastery where I am told the local teenagers usually go to bunk off school, and it has been transformed by artwork. It also happens to be where the Blu/David Ellis film Combo was filmed.
To enter this monastery, you have to go down a road out of town, walk past what I think was a small vineyard, find the wall that surrounds the monastery and follow it until you see some red drips of paint. Then you climb over the wall by standing on a shaky pile of rocks. The other side of the wall looks like a park that has been left to grow for a few decades. There are a few paths where you can see that plenty of people have walked, and you have to find the correct one to follow. Eventually, you realize that you’re on the roof on the monastery and you have to find your way inside. Once you’re finally inside though, it is immediately worth the trouble of finding your way there. I spent maybe 1.5 hours there and still didn’t see all of the artwork. Here are a few of the pieces I did find though:
More photos from Fame in my flickr set
Kindred Times and Future Goodbyes
Fame Festival isn’t the only place artists are taking over abandoned buildings. The leaders of Israel’s street art scene recently painted a building in Tel Aviv for their show Kindred Times and Future Goodbyes. Know Hope, Klone, Foma and Zero Cents all participated. Here are some pics that Know Hope sent me:
More after the jump… Continue reading “Kindred Times and Future Goodbyes”