How have I not seen this before? Am I the only one?
Rainworks is a series of street art pieces by Seattle-based artist Peregrine Church that will only appear when the ground is wet. Using a commercially available “superhydrophobic coating” (basically a spray-on sealant that repels water), Church stencils Roadsworth-esque artworks onto concrete surfaces. On a sunny day, the artworks are invisible, but when it rains, as is known to happen from time to time in Seattle, the stencils appear. The rain soaks into the surrounding concrete, making it appear darker, and rolls right off the sections that Church has coated so that those areas stay bone dry and remain lighter.
Very cool idea. I hope this takes off. It shouldn’t be too hard for works like these to start appearing in other cities. The material Church uses is pretty pricey, but Rust-Oleum makes a similar product.
I was going to wait for my Jan/Feb post which is coming very soon, but this can’t wait and deserves its own post.
A few months ago SOFLES came to Melbourne to paint this EPIC piece. Selina Miles and the guys from Juddy Roller were also hanging around, so there bound to something special going on… Special is not the word to describe what came next.
The piece itself was spectacular in black on a all white background – reminding me of a raw sketch straight outa Sofs’ black book. I also love how he left all the raw throws and tags around the piece. The piece was painted over 3/4 days using a massive crane and a fuck load of paint. Note the cheeky PORK roller that just popped up recently..
After the painting was completed – that’s when the projection mapping started. You can tell by the video that’s it’s an excruciatingly detailed process – which is also evident in the final production.
The production was a part of Melbourne’s annual ‘White Night’ Projection festival. This year was the first time graffiti and projection were combined. Clearly a great idea as the project attracted hundreds of spectators.
Shaun Hossack, creative director for the project (who also runs Juddy Roller studios and runs one hell of a party) did a fantastic job bringing all the parties together and providing overall direction.
From the Press Release: “Over 5 stories high, Sofles’ inner city mural is his biggest work to date. Add to that Grant Osborne’s incredibly detailed motion design and a musical score by New Zealand music producer Opiuo, and you have a truly innovative work of art. Visible for one night only, but destined to leave an impression on the city’s skyline Sofles – Graffiti Mapped was one of the most exciting events of the entire White Night Melbourne festival”.
Check out the full length video below to show the full projection sequence – it goes for about 7 minutes in total.
Also make sure you check out the incredible video below by Selina Miles (director of the famous/viral Sofles – Limitless video) of the end to end process. Selina’s videos not only show off Sofles’ amazing work – they also pay homage to the process and the context around the piece as well ad the scale. I love the movement of the lift with the music and the use of a drone camera (from UAV drones) also brought a great perspective to this piece.
I can see this graffiti mapping business has a big future – the possibilities are endless. Unlike other forms of moving art (e.g.: INSA’s gif-itti) this form has so much more flexibility (and while labour intensive for the projector – much less laborious than re-painting an entire wall).
Watch out for my January/February Melbourne post – coming soon..
This past fall, moderately anonymous street artist and pun extraordinaire Hanksy did something pretty surprising by launching a sort of online travel show on YouTube, sponsored for some reason by The Hundreds and Squarespace. The show’s original name was Trivial Pursuits, but even its final title of Surplus Candy (a nod to his last surprising project) is a nod to the equal parts awesome and patronizing theme of the show: Exploring the “trivial” cities of North America (read: Everything except New York City or Los Angeles) in search of what makes their art scenes amazing and unique.
With every episode, Hanksy gets to know a new city by meeting with local artists and art-supporters. By the end of each episode, Hanksy is so pumped on each city that it almost sounds like he’s going to move there. But alas, Hanksy remains a transplant in New York City, chasing his dreams in the Big Apple. And that’s my main frustration with Surplus Candy, an otherwise great series. It’s just a bit difficult to believe that any of the cities in Surplus Candy are quite as great as Hanksy says they are, or that it’s true that great art can thrive in a “surplus city,” when the show is hosted by a man who moved from Chicago to New York City. But okay, the host isn’t perfect, but damn he’s a lot better than you might expect…
I’m not ashamed to say that I’m a Hanksy fan, and Hanksy’s not ashamed to say that his art isn’t the most serious or sublime thing in the world. As the theme song to Surplus Candy goes, “From east to west he’s got the smarts, when jokes are dicks and laughs are farts.” So how can Hanksy host a travel show? Actually, quite well. Yes, there are silly puns and probably a few fart jokes, but Surplus Candy is no Borat. In each city, Hanksy talks to all the right people and gives them a real chance to celebrate their city, plus he slips in some serious commentary about issues like gentrification and the commodification of street art along the way. As someone who used a host a web series about street art (yes, really) and considered hosting a street art-centric travel show, I’m confident that Hanksy has done a better job than I did.
There’s one point that comes up again and again in Surplus Candy that I particularly loved. As you watch each episode, you’ll begin to notice how Hanksy embraces the notion that every city has a unique kind of street art because of its unique architecture and design or regulations governing art outdoors. As much as people complain that graffiti and street art styles have become globalized, and they have to a large extent, Hanksy shows how every city has a unique environment, lending itself to different kinds of interventions. That’s something that a lot of people don’t realize, and it comes across beautifully in Surplus Candy as Hanksy celebrates the unique opportunities and pitfalls of each city he visits.
Plus, in a few episodes, Hanksy touches on points that relate to my recent post about “open walls.” Yes, Montreal has a street art festival, Chicago has Pawn Works organizing murals, and in Portland there is an official process permitting murals, but Montreal criminalizes the work of the same artists being celebrated at its festival, it’s illegal to purchase spraypaint in Chicago, and the mural permitting process in Portland seems ineffective and slow. So I enjoyed that.
I’ll say it again: Surplus Candy is not Borat. It’s a genuine guy trying to highlight other genuine people in North American cities that don’t always get enough shine, and he happens to be doing it through a character known for dick jokes.
The final episode of Surplus Candy‘s first season was posted in early December, so I’m a bit late at getting around to these, but tonight I rewatched each episode, and now I want to take a road trip… Check them out for yourself below… Continue reading “A second look at Hanksy’s “Surplus Candy” webseries”
One of the great things about Nuart is the content that gets created around the festival. Participants in Nuart Plus conference write critical essays (something all too rare in the street art and graffiti worlds), the artists are interviewed for professionally-produced videos, and parts of Nuart Plus are posted on the web. It’s a bit late as these materials have now been online for a while, but I’d still like to share them.
Brooklyn Street Art‘s Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo have always been champions of the little guy, the artist getting up because they love it. In their Nuart essay, the duo reminds us not to get too caught up in celebrating the global abundance of street art festivals and mural programs, because such murals always come with strings attached, namely censorship and the risk that grassroots street art is silenced among the mega-murals.
I wrote a brief essay titled Art Ignites Change, which is our slogan/mission at the Mural Arts Program (I was attending Nuart as a representative of Mural Arts). In the essay, I try to take a new approach to looking at the perceived divide between muralism and street art. In contrast to Steven and Jaime, I tried to show how some legal murals can be even more powerful than street art when it comes to bringing about social change. As I say in the essay, I’ve never felt more like an agent for positive change than now that I am working for “The Man.”
In his essay, Peter Bengtsen writes about how unsanctioned street art can turn cities into sites for exploration, which is harder to do with mega-murals.
Juxtapoz editor-in-chief Evan Pricco’s essay is on some level the most honest of all. Evan declares that it’s inevitable that corporate interests would embrace street art, and suggests that maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
And there’s my favorite part of Nuart Plus: Fight Club, a no-holds-barred 2 on 2 debate on the local pub, surrounded half by Nuart fans and half by random patrons who are generally confused as to what all the fuss is about. This year, Evan Pricco and I teamed up against ±maismenos± and Mathieu Tremblin on the topic of illegal street art versus legal murals. It was a fun debate. Here’s what happened:
Nuart also conducted video interviews with a few of the artists.
I love the ±maismenos± interview in part because he echos my thoughts in Viral Art, that the internet is like a virtual street:
Mathieu Tremblin’s interview is interesting because I’ll watch anything where a street artist brings up Situationist philosophy, and because it shows a hint of the true final product of Temblin’s indoor installation at Nuart:
Similarly, Fra.Biancoshock’s interview includes video footage of a few of his Nuart street interventions that didn’t get much photographic coverage:
This new piece from Pøbel was painted on what I can only assume was Halloween on Tokyo. I’m sure he’s not the first to use this particular strategy (hell, it’s pretty well established that Banksy uses a tarp set up), but still, I love watching how this piece goes up: Quickly, calmly and easily, with the simplest camouflage.
Sorry if some of these links are a bit dated, but hopefully they’re still interesting:
Don Leicht, the original Space Invader, has a exhibition of his work on now at Mary Colby Studio & Gallery on City Island in the Bronx. Leicht has been making space invader characters for the street and for galleries since 1982, often in collaboration with John Fekner. Both Leicht and Fekner have never really embraced the spotlight in the way that others from their generation have (particularly in recent years), and so Leicht’s place in early New York street art often goes unacknowledged. Whereas Space Invader’s characters are generally lighthearted and fun and more about interesting placement than interesting content, Leicht’s content is political. His invaders, painted in camo, serve as a reminder/warning that war is real and of the relationship between videos games and the military.
Speaking of public advertising, this crazy thing happened in Hong Kong.
And over on Hyperallergic, Julia Friedman addresses the major discrepancy in how New York City enforces laws relating to public advertising. Essentially, the current enforcement strategy seems to punish artists and activists while leaving corporate interests to do whatever they please.
Speaking of water companies, street art and hashtags… The folks being the for-profit bottled water company WAT-AAH (aka Let Water be Water LLC, or as I like to call them “Evian for Kids”) sent The L.I.S.A. Project NYC a cease and desist letter for using a hashtag that they claimed to own the trademark for (they don’t). Animal has more on that ridiculous story.
Conor Harrington had a great show in NYC, at a pop up space with Lazarides Gallery from the UK. I went up for the opening, and despite the space being lit like a haunted house and seemingly pumped full of mist from a fog machine, the work looked even better than I had anticipated. Plenty of artists can paint traditionally beautiful paintings, and plenty of artists can use drips and tags and half finished elements and things like that to make their paintings look “street” or to make it look like they are saying “screw you traditional notions of beauty and fine art painting!” Few artists can do what Conor does, which is to utilize all of those styles and techniques, from beautifully staged scenes painted with perfection to all the different ways to make a painting look rough and cool, but utilize those things in the right balance and with respect. To Conor, it looks like a drip is no different than the a detailed brush stroke. The “disruptive” elements look like they belong. He isn’t trying to destroy painting. He’s trying to bring it to new heights, and he’s much better at it than most.
This fall I’ve seen (online) two interesting pieces of endurance art, both of them by female artists in New York City who took to endurance art to address what they see as crises.
gilf and Natalie Renee Fasano walked 15 miles barefoot around the city. 60 million or more people worldwide live every day without shoes. Interestingly, Gilf’s project was not so much an awareness campaign as an opportunity for self-reflection that she documented and publicized. None of her Instagram posts on the performance provide information about what can be done about this problem, and the video documenting the work provides no context except the text “A day in the Shoes of the Shoeless with gilf!” On some level, I find that frustrating. But of course the work wasn’t about raising national awareness for this issue. gilf’s own description of the project makes that clear. It was more a project for herself. And that’s great and useful too, but on some level I can’t get over the missed opportunity here to make the project more than personal suffering/meditation and self-promotion. Why not simply say, “And if this project is bringing the issue of people without shoes to your attention and you want to help, here’s something you can do.”? Yes, it’s a personal project for self-reflection, but it’s also an artwork that was promoted all over the web. So, I’ll close by saying that if you do want to help provide shoes for people in need, Soles4Souls seems to be the place to go (thanks to Animal for that tip).
Emma Sulkowicz has to be one of the bravest, most impressive people I’ve read about in a long time, and I almost hesitate to call what she’s doing an art piece, lest it devalue her actions in an age when so much art is devoid of the kind soul this particular performance/way of living requires. For nearly two months, Sulkowicz has been carrying her dorm room mattress with her to every class, every lunch break, every party, and everywhere else she goes, constantly, and she says she will continue to carry her mattress with her “for as long as I attend the same school as my rapist.” More about this piece, and the reaction she’s received from her fellow students at Columbia University, atHyperallergic.
DEGA Films consistently does an outstanding job in their documentation of New York street artists. Their series Wild In the Streets covered NDA, Enzo & Nio, Jilly Balistic and Mr. Toll. The series comes to a close with two new episodes featuring ELLE and Royce. In conjunction with The LISA Project, these two episodes will be screening at 8:30pm Sunday, September 28 in Little Italy under Ron English’s Temper Tot mural (on Mulberry St between Canal and Hester).
What impresses me about DEGA’s work is the production quality and the creativity that goes into their shots and cuts. When it comes to capturing illegal work, the videos I’m used to seeing tend to look like this, with quick cuts and a shaky camera. Or the standard time lapse video with a dub-step song in the background. Legally speaking, perhaps it is more comfortable to shoot someone putting up illegal street art versus graffiti and that’s definitely a discussion worth having. But for now we’re just going to focus on the quality of DEGA’s product.
Elle’s episode really highlights the diversity of her street art methods, showing ad busts, rollers, extinguishers, marker tags, wheat pastes, stickers, and so on. The creative direction was interesting, by showing Elle transform through various “looks”, and thus breaking the stereotypical hip hop characterization of graffiti writers.
I’m really into the fact that Royce’s episode begins with a butt crack about 15 seconds in. I’d like to think of it as a statement: street artists are assholes and DEGA isn’t here to dress up that reality for you. It is a testament to DEGA’s commitment to the honest portrayal of street artists. Revealing the butt is an attempt to reveal the humanity behind these anonymous artists, how they are just regular people, carrying out their days with no time for petty concerns like the height of their pants.
Royce’s video is a cool look at his approach to interacting with his visual environment. He takes it in stride, without having to creep around at dusk. Whether this is how he always works is not clear, but the episode inspires a feeling of ‘second nature’ to Royce’s tactics.
Though the Wild in the Streets series has come to a close, Vandalog is excited to see and share with you what DEGA has in store for the future.
Later this month, the new DUBL TRUBL collective is going to be having their first exhibition. It will be at Urban Spree in Berlin, and it opens on September 18th. A bunch of great artists are involved, brought together by Dscreet who is curating the show, and all of the work will be done collaboratively in pairs. You can learn more about the show here.
That all sounds great. Except that Skewville didn’t make any paintings or sculptures for the show. So instead, Skewville and Dscreet made a video. I’m not totally sure how people are going to react to this video, but I imagine there will be a lot of love, a lot of hate, and some viewers just left feeling a bit queasy. Anyway, enjoy…
Speaking of the Mural Arts Program, I am really pleased to say that we now have a major Shepard Fairey mural in Philadelphia. Find me some day and ask me the whole story of this mural, but let’s just say it’s complicated and thank goodness for Roland at Domani Developers for getting us a wall at the last minute.
We also have a new much more politically-charged mural from Shepard Fairey through The L.I.S.A. Project NYC, and while I’m sure the process for that was also quite complicated, my friend Wayne took care of that and all I had to do was pitch Shepard on the idea of a big wall in NYC and the property owner on the idea of a Shepard Fairey mural on his building (neither of which were too difficult). I’m absolutely honored to have played even my small role in each of these murals. It was my first time working with Shepard, and it was a pleasure.
Two real kings of NYC graffiti, Blade and Freedom, have shows open now at the Seventh Letter flagship store in LA. Blade is an undisputed subway king who also pushed graffiti forward as an art-form, a rare combination. Freedom is a personal favorite of mine (his piece in my black book is a real prized possession) for combining pop art, an ability to paint very well, comics, and graffiti in an intelligent way without too much of an ego. I’m sad to be missing both of these shows, but I hope LA will give them the love they deserve.
Hi-Fructose posted some interesting GIFs by Zolloc, but the best part of the post is the first sentence: “While GIFs have yet to find an established place in the art world, they’re fascinating because they have the potential to go beyond the frozen image in two dimensions.” Of course, Hi-Fructose is part of the art world, so just having them post Zolloc’s GIFs counts for something. Hi-Fructose seems to be saying (albeit hesitantly) that GIFs being in their corner of the art world, which is great. That’s not a bad corner to be in, and it’s a hell of a lot better than nowhere. So, why be hesitant? If the work is fascinating, embrace it.
Oh Olek, always the best of intentions, but the results are not so great…
Smart Crew have teamed up with Beriah Wall on a series of cool collaborations. Does anyone else see this as further evidence of Smart Crew growing up, aka transitioning from a crew producing illegal graffiti into a brand or collective that does legal (and sometimes commercial) work referencing illegal graffiti? Nothing wrong with that. I’m just noting the transition.
Hyperallergic has been covering artist reactions to the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson. Public performances in Philadelphia (by Keith Wallace) and New York City (by Whitney V. Hunter) exemplify to the unsurprising obliviousness to the situation or at least lack of caring that so many people openly display (for more, see Kara Walker at Domino). It’s amazing to see these two striking performances go widely ignored while it’s mostly prettybutemptymurals that go viral. Is that the state of street art and muralism today? I hope not. And of course, maybe what makes those performances so jarring online is that they were ignored on the street.
I have tried to resit the allure of Pejac’s work for a while, but no more. Yes, some of the jokes are cheap and feel twice-told, exactly the sort of easy made-to-go-viral work that I am complaining about in the previous paragraph, but Pejac is painting them really well, and they consistently catch my attention. As much as I would like to write him off as a Banksy-ripoff who even came to that idea a few years too late, I can’t do so any longer. The work is actually quite good. Have a look for yourself.
Last week I was in Atlanta for the Living Walls Conference. A great time was had by all. I was there to speak with Living Walls co-founder Monica Campana and Juxtapoz editor Austin McManus about the evolution of street art and graffiti over the past five or so year, and Vandalog contributing writer Caroline Caldwell was there to paint a mural. Atlanta got some real gems this year, including new work by Moneyless, Troy Lovegates and Xuan Alyfe in collaboration with Trek Matthews. Juxtapoz hasextensivecoverage. Congratulations to Living Walls on a truly impressive 5th anniversary event.
This coming week I’ll be in Norway for Nuart and Nuart Plus. The artist lineup features some of my personal favorites, including John Fekner, SpY and Fra.Biancoshock. I love Nuart because it’s a festival that always strikes a balance between the best of the best artists painting epic murals on the “street art festival circuit,” and the oft-under-publicized but highly-political activist artists intervening in public space. Putting these artists in the same festival strengthens the work of everyone there, and reminds us that murals can serve many different purposes. I’ll be speaking at Nuart Plus on behalf of the Mural Arts Program in a few capacities. I’ll be moderating a panel about activism in art, presenting couple of short films during Brooklyn Street Art’s film night, sitting on a panel about contemporary muralism and giving a talk about how government-sanctioned art and muralism can be used to promote positive social change. There will be a lot of great speakers at Nuart Plus this year though. Brooklyn Street Art has the whole line up for the festival and the conference.
I’m back after a brief blogging hiatus. I’ve been meaning to post my review for this great event that happened back in April over in Western Australia for a while now…
Leaving a cold wet 17 degrees in Melbourne, I was pretty damn excited to fly to Perth on the 10th of April, right in time for the grand finale of PUBLIC by Form Gallery in Perth, Western Australia, which I posted a preview of a while ago.
I arrived to a perfect sunny 30 degrees and soon as I hit the ground, I had a good feeling about Perth, I hadn’t been before, but something felt right. I went straight to the hotel and dropped off my bags, and went for an explore. Within a few hundred metres of my hotel, I could see the amazing Phlegm and ROA murals in progress. I made a beeline straight for them. Upon entering the car park I also saw the work of many other great artists. The works were spread throughout the CBD and inner city suburbs. Here’s a selection of some of my favourite pieces from the event.
ROA. Photo by Bewley Shaylor.Pixel Pancho. Photo by Dean Sunshine.Pixel Pancho. Photo by Pixel Pancho.Pixel Pancho. Photo by Pixel Pancho.Phibs. Photo by Luke Shirlaw.Hyuro. Photo by Luke Shirlaw.Hyuro. Photo by Luke Shirlaw.Phlegm. Photo by David Dare Parker.Alexis Diaz. Photo by Alexis Diaz.Alexis Diaz (detail). Photo by Alexis Diaz.Amok Island. Photo by Amok Island.Ever. Photo by Ever.GAIA. Photo by Dean Sunshine.GAIA and Ever. Photo by Brendan Hutchens.Lucas Grogan. Photo by Dean Sunshine.Lucas Grogan. Photo by Jean-Pierre Horre.2501. Photo by Luke Shirlaw.Maya Hayuk. Photo by Jean-Pierre Horre.2501 vs Maya Hayuk. Photo by 2501.Beastman and Vans the Omega. Photo by Dean Sunshine.HEAVY Projects. Photo by Dean Sunshine.HEAVY Project. Photo by Dean Sunshine.HEAVY Projects. Photo by Dean Sunshine.HEAVY Projects. Photo by HEAVY Projects.
While the event spanned over ~30 days, the main event was the painting of Perth’s 1st ever giant murals over the last 3/4 days of the event. In total there were around 30 murals painted for the event, spanning across the City of Perth. I was very impressed by the organization of the event by the FORM Gallery crew. With a logistical nightmare trying to coordinate over 45 artists, paint and equipment, all in 35 degree heat, the FORM Crew did an amazing job, Well done guys!!! A very friendly and hospitable crew. Thanks very much for taking such great care of us while we visited.
There was a great selection of artists from ac cross the globe representing all different styles and genres. Unfortunately there was no graffiti, but I suppose street art was a big stretch for conservative Perth, so graffiti may have been avoided for this reason. For a city not really known for street art, the public reaction was encouraging. People of all ages and walks of life filled the city over the weekend. I love walking around randomly and listening to some of the conversations and questions people ask each other. In particular I was really impressed by the public’s reactions to the HEAVY PROJECTS installations (interactive works of art that use Augmented Reality on smart phones and tablets). Here’s a short video the guys out together to document the event (plus some footage from a previous project).
On the Friday night there was also a great show at FORM Gallery – PUBLIC SALON showing off canvases from the contributing artists, some great work on display, check out some shots here.
And finally. This great video by Chad Peacock is a really accurate representation of the event and well put together. Damn it takes me back!!!
The FORM guys also took a number of artists to visit the Pilbara, a very special part of top end of Australia with breathtaking views and incredible nature (also sadly known for mining – the 2 don’t really go hand in hand). A few of the artists had a paint while there, I particularly like the piece by Remed.
Remed. Photo by Ben Fulton-Gillon.2501 and Remed. Photo by 2501.2501 and ROA. Photo by 2501.2501 and Alexis Diaz. Photo by 2501.
After all of the above, any street art fan in Perth would have to be pretty happy, but it didn’t stop there. FORM has continued putting up murals in Perth, with Creepy (aka Kyle Hughes-Odgers) painting at Perth Airport (a sponsor of PUBLIC) and also Vans the Omega and Beastman’s new piece that went up last week.
Kyle Hughes-Odgers. Photo by Kyle Hughes-Odgers.Kyle Hughes-Odgers. Photo by Kyle Hughes-Odgers.Vans the Omega & Beastman. Photo by Jarrad Seng.Vans the Omega & Beastman (detail). Photo by Jarrad Seng.
What I loved most about the event wasn’t just the art, and was not unique to PUBLIC; is the sense of community I felt. This is something I really love about the street art scene. I got to catch up with some great old friends, and made some new ones who I will undoubtedly randomly catch up with again somewhere around the globe.
Fingers crossed that this event is on again next year. I will be there with bells on!
If you are in Perth, check out the full list of artists and the mural map. FORM has also put together this short book called PUBLICation available for Purchase at the Gallery and viewable online for free here. FORM have also started “PUBLIC Urban Art Walks” to give fans a guided tour of the city, well worth checking out.
Ok, so that’s enough, right? Actually no, there’s more. And it’s massive. Due to some logistical 😉 issues SANER was unable to make it over for the original dates. I was gutted to hear this when I found out, but when I found out FORM are still bringing him over in August to paint in Perth and also the Pilbara, I was pretty damn excited! I’ll make sure to cover this later in the month.
