Interview – Page 23 – Vandalog

December 11, 2008December 11, 2008

Great In ‘08: Grafter Says…

This is part of Vandalog’s “Great in ’08” series, which will be running every day for the rest of the month. Check out previous posts here. Street artists from across the world have been offered one post to “gift” to one artist that they feel has been doing great work recently. Today it’s Grafter‘s turn (on a completely unrelated note, I hope to see some of you at the opening of Urban Angel‘s Art Lounge tonight, where Grafter will have some work for sale).

Who is one artist doing really great work right now?

There is a lot of great work going on at the moment and some fantastic shows being produced on a regular basis. The recent Eelus show at Electric Sheep was outstanding and some of the work displayed showed, I felt, a real change in direction for a well established artist who could easily have stayed within the comfort zone of his previous work but was brave and confident enough to explore new avenues within his work and show us all a much darker approach to his art.

An artist I have kept a close eye on and have been impressed by his recent efforts is K-Guy. The “Love Hate” print was of outstanding quality and showed a massive step up from “Lislam” which I felt was rather weak. The installations he left around the City of London after that were very nearly a stroke of genius.

The artist I feel that is busting everyone out of sight at the moment though has got to be Vhils. The piece he did at the 1st Cans festival, where he chiseled the image out of the brickwork of the wall, was innovative, fresh and helped to breathe new life into the portrait genre. In amongst the real big hitters of the scene he managed to completely steal the show and I couldn’t wait to see how these works would translate to paper/canvas. The 2 paper releases he issued through POW were simply stunning and the technique of forcing bleach through the screen to the image was again an innovation that helped to make it a whole lot more than just a simple screen print.

The 2nd time at Cans he showed us another new technique were he peeled layers of posters off of a billboard to reveal the layer underneath and produce an image from the different colors of the revealed posters. A truly innovative and creative artist who obviously enjoys exploring various mediums and techniques in order to produce class imagery.

See more photos after the jump…

Continue reading “Great In ‘08: Grafter Says…”

December 10, 2008July 3, 2010

Great in ’08: Poster Boy Says…

Who is one artist doing really great work right now?

Poster Boy: I think lately it has been Ellis G.

See more of Ellis G’s work after the jump… Continue reading “Great in ’08: Poster Boy Says…”

December 9, 2008December 9, 2008

Great In ’08: Klone Says…

This is part of Vandalog’s “Great in ’08” series, which will be running every day for the rest of the month. Check out previous posts here. Street artists from across the world have been given one post to give away to an artist (or two) who they feel has been doing great work recently. Today it’s Klone‘s turn (you can check out Vandalog’s recent Q&A with Klone here).

Who is one artist doing really great work right now?

Klone: Anthony Lister comes to my mind immediately. He is a great artist, one to follow for sure, that’s all agreed, but there’s more to my appreciation of Lister. It’s the fact he came from Australia, disconnected from the rest of the world and having to put more into getting himself out, I know the feeling exactly as Israel is like an island, sea on one side and rival countries on the others; now how you get yourself recognized outside of the island?

See more photos of Anthony Lister’s work after the jump… Continue reading “Great In ’08: Klone Says…”

December 8, 2008December 9, 2008

Great in ’08: Veng of RWK Says…

Here’s the first post in Vandalog’s “Great in ’08” series, which will be running every day for (nearly) the rest of the month. You can check out the other parts of the series here (once they are posted). Street artists from across the world have been given one post to give away to one artist who they feel has been doing great work recently. Today it’s Veng‘s turn.

Who is one artist doing really great work right now?

Veng: The artist that is doing some really good work now, I feel is Elbowtoe. Looking at his work, you can see the level of detail he puts into each brush stroke or each cut into a piece of linoleum, however beyond the details on the surface it’s the level of attention that goes into each piece’s story that makes them great works.

See photos of Elbowtoe’s work after the jump… Continue reading “Great in ’08: Veng of RWK Says…”

December 4, 2008July 4, 2010

BBC Street Art Videos

So BBC’s show Blast has a bunch of videos up with street artists like Faile and Pure Evil. My favorite of them is the Matt Small interview, which is below. Check out the rest of the interviews here.

via Wooster Collective

December 3, 2008December 9, 2008

Q’s For Klone. Q’s For Klone. Q’s For Klone.

Klone is one of Tel Aviv’s most prolific street artists, and lately he’s been making waves on the internet was well. Klone’s recent work has involved a series of “predator” characters that he’s painted and wheatpasted throughout Tel Aviv.

I’ve mentioned Klone before, but I didn’t really know anything about him besides what I found on his flickr. Luckily, I was about to get in touch with him to do a little Q&A session that I’m very excited to share with you.

RJ: When did you start doing work on the street, and do you have an art background?
Klone: My story with the street started in 1999 when I somehow stumbled upon graffiti, I went on trying this thing and got really into since the first time out, back then doing graffiti in Israel meant pioneering it, learning it all by yourself from internet and books since there was practically nothing out there, both writing and street art scenes started to develop only in last few years and still in their beginnings.
I don’t have any art education background but as a kid I was always drawing, building and inventing worlds for myself and the friends I used to play with.

RJ: Where did you get the name Klone?
Klone: 5 years ago I was still into writing my name which was MAKE back then, and through sketching I came upon my first characters, that looked almost the same, really simple ones, same but different, I called them klones – same clones but different, thus the ‘K’, and since then it became my name. I rarely do letter pieces nowadays, concentrating more on image work.

RJ: In addition to your work in the street, you’ve done work for galleries/charity events. What’s different about working on the street versus working in a “gallery friendly” medium like canvas?
Klone: Hmm, I still think that the only friendly thing about canvas is the fact that I can roll it up when I finish painting it so I don’t have to see it or stumble into. But seriously now I see gallery as just another place to express myself with its own terms, It wasn’t an easy thing for me to put my work on white walls, took me awhile to get used to it and be able to really handle it. I still see the street as the ultimate gallery, with the best critics, and the galleries serve as a platform to show the stuff I’m fuckin’ around with in my studio.

Read the rest and see more photos after the jump… Continue reading “Q’s For Klone. Q’s For Klone. Q’s For Klone.”

November 29, 2008

Know Hope Updates

Couple of bits about Know Hope today. First, he’s got an interview over at Artasty, so check that out here. Second, he’s just posted a new piece on his flickr which is very timely.

"put your money where your mouth is" by Know Hope. Photo by Know Hope

The building is a bank. Photo by Know Hope

November 28, 2008November 28, 2008

Concrete Canvas’ The Krah Interview

Concrete Canvas has just posted a great interview with The Krah. Among other topics, The Krah’s recent project of locking pieces to the street is discussed:

We featured your ‘locked up’ work on Concrete Canvas last week, what inspired you to do this and do you reckon those pieces will avoid the buff?
I got inspired by Revs from New York, he never used pad locks but what he did was welded sculptures of graff letters in the streets. I got fed up of people stealing my work, I found that whatever I put up was gone a day later. So I locked them to fuck with people.The thing that I don’t like is that they don’t take it because they like it they take it to sell it on. The good thing is that it confuses the authorities they just don’t understand it, is it graffiti? Is it DIY gone mad? What is it? Its quick to put up and the scavengers find it harder to steal so it stays up the longest. I will be making sculptures that will get locked up and I also have lots of other tricks that you will see soon.

Check out the rest of the interview here.

November 25, 2008

Cake and The Community

The Mongrel has an interesting interview up with Cake. Cake is a New York wheatpaster, and she was recently in Prescription Art‘s Outside In show. Regardless of whether you’re a fan of Cake or not, the interview has some interesting stuff about the etiquette of pasting.

Cake and Peru Anna Anna Peru. Photo by Ω ohm Ω

Here’s a short excerpt

“It is strange for me to see long time pasters still go out and paste blindly- with no regard to what lives on the surface before they get to it. Its complete disrespect. It also says something important about the paster- that they are unaware of the environment in which they are adding to/ working with. Which is also strange- I once put a sticker over Naks and then posted a photo of myself doing it. It wasn’t until the community pointed it out that I realized it. I hadn’t even noticed the tag when I was there. My practice changed immediately after that. Now I am hyper aware of where I place my work. I go out with respect.”

Cake isn’t the first artist that I’ve heard say something like that. Maybe it’s a pattern. Wheatpaste artists start out just pasting anywhere, and then, after a big mistake or two, they get conscientious of the rest of the scene and learn to respect it even more.

November 19, 2008July 3, 2010

Andrew From Ad Hoc

When art fans in New York are looking for cutting edge art, they need look no further than Ad Hoc Art in Brooklyn. Ad Hoc Art shows some of the best new street art and “low brow” art for not too much money. Their upcoming show, The Brooklyn Block Party, has work from 11 lino-block cutting artists including Swoon, Imminent Disaster, Elbowtoe, Judith Supine, and Gaia, and their new project room has upcoming shows from some of my favorite artists, C215 and Know Hope.

Ad Hoc Art is also the home of Peripheral Media Projects, probably two the most anti-authoritarian street artists working today.

Andrew Michael Ford is the director at Ad Hoc Art, and he’s been kind enough to answer a few questions about the gallery. Continue reading “Andrew From Ad Hoc”