Josh Gordon and Danny Gonzalez have a mission. They say, “We take gross newspaper boxes and turn them into parties.” Check out the video below to see what they mean:
I don’t think anyone has ever truly been excited to open up a newspaper bin to grab their daily paper, but party boxes make that activity fun. I would love to randomly open up a Party Box. So much street art today is just decoration, but Gordon and Gonzalez are bringing back that element of surprise that is essential to the best street art. Sure, the party boxes are labeled so they might not be a complete surprise to everyone, but I doubt most people opening up the boxes will recognize the purple lightening bolt and think, “This is a Party Box.”
Finally, yes, I’ll acknowledge that party boxes are a bit silly, but they’re also kind of awesome, and the idea makes me smile.
This new film by Peter Drew is a great example of how street artists can continue to mess with authority even as they are embraced by it. Rather than saying, “Awesome, thank you! Guess it’s time for me to go legit,” when the Adelaide city council began to support his street art, Peter very publicly asked, “Why me?” and looked at larger questions of how and why institutions and governments respond to street art and graffiti.
The questions that Peter brings up in this video are close to my heart. I used to give tours of London street art and graffiti, and I tried to start each tour by pointing at a tag and saying, “Everything else I’m going to show you today, all the stuff that you want in your neighborhood or maybe even on your own house, began with and is forever linked to tags like this.”
This post is super late but definitely worth sharing with you all. I have been flat out working on the 2nd and final installment of ALL YOUR WALLS (last Wednesday through Friday – which was a HUGE success, I’ll be doing a full post on that soon). October’s post is short and sweet with some amazing content. Take some time to watch the videos and check out some of the awesome pics below.
This interview from Upstart Magazine with Australian stencil artist Damien Mitchell is a great way to start (Damien now lives in Brooklyn NYC). Damien gives a good insight into Melbourne’s scene and some great shots of some of the city’s best spots for street art and graff. Being a dog lover I’m a huge fan of the story behind the dog stencil.
This great short doco reappeared on vimeo after a long time in hiding. Melbourne Ink was filmed back in 2008 by Julien Sena and Romain Levrault while visiting from France. The video features the work of and interviews with some of Melbourne’s best artists; right in the midst of the massive explosion of street art in our city. Big ups to Fletch for the link!
Seeing this music video was a great surprise. Australian band Spiderbait recently released the music video for the track ‘It’s Beautiful’ (from their self titled album). A great video showing off some of Melbourne’s best lane ways and featuring the work of many Melbourne street artists and some music by a rad band.
Miso’s latest show ‘Bright Night Sky’ at Backwoods Gallery was amazing to say the least! Each piece created with a series of intricate pin pricks that come together to form beautiful pieces. Sold out before it opened, nice! These great shots show off some of her work and the awesome installation (in particular the fish eye shot).
Miso. Photo by Dreaded Cat Studios.Miso. Photo by David Russell.Miso – Photo by David Russell
My friend Lou Chamberlin launched her new book “Street Art Melbourne” in Hosier lane. Lou has been collecting shots of Melbourne’s amazing street art in our streets and lanes for the last 6 years or so, and the result is this great new book, showcasing some of Melbourne’s best artists alongside interstate and international visitors. Lou also invited a bunch of artists down and provided some paint to help colour the lane. I was asked to write the forward for the book which I was happy to do. Check out some of the work painted on the day here. You can preview the book and grab a copy here.
Street Art Melbourne Launch. Photo by David Russell.
Kirpypainted his iconic Metcard stencil at Revolver. A common sight around Melbourne a few years ago, before it was replaced by the latest ticketing system. If you don’t get why it’s ripped then you probably won’t appreciate the stencil as much 😉 I love the crispness of the stencil against the texture of the wall, it sort of looks like it’s floating.
Kirpy’s Metcard at Revolver
Reka painted this awesome mural in San Francisco – a mad piece. He also did a great interview on the local news.
Reka – San Francisco. Photo by Reka.Reka – San Francisco. Photo by Reka.
He also painted in Portland this Autumn themed wall, titled “The Fall”. I’m really loving the direction James is taking with his work, to me it seems like he is incorporating more traditional shapes and objects meshed with his awesome style that we know and love!
Reka – The Fall – Portland. Photo by Reka.Reka – The Fall – Portland. Photo by Reka.
This recap of Project 5 in Sydney, featuring Rone and Adnate from Melbourne. A great little project with Rone, Adnate, Numskull and Jodee Knowles. All proceeds from the works went towards supporting a great charity (ICE). A good close up of the live work and interviews with the artists.
David Russell’s “Through the Lens” for October brings the goods from around town, as usual. Here’s some of my faves.
RESUME. Photo By David Russell.Facter. Photo By David Russell.Slicer. Photo By David Russell.
And to finish up a couple of rippers from Dean Sunshine’s Top Ten.
Taylor White. Photo by Dean Sunshine.Two One and Senekt. Photo by Dean Sunshine.Adnate. Photo by Dean Sunshine.
Photos courtesy of Dean Sunshine, David Russell, Dreaded Cat Studios and Reka.
Re+Public, a new app from The Heavy Projects and Jordan Seiler’s PublicAdCampaign, offers a glimpse of a future where the everyday is augmented by digital readouts and signage, and Re+Public makes sure that art has a place in that future. Basically, Re+Public is an app for iPhone and Android platforms that reads certain walls like QR codes, but instead of sending you to a URL, scanning a mural pops an image onto the screen of your phone, overlaid on top of the mural. We teased this technology back in January when it was in beta, but here’s a reminder of what it looks like when the app is doing its thing:
And now Re+Public is available for free public download on Google Play or in The App Store. There are new walls that activate it too. The mural by MOMO at the top of this post is one, and if you download the app, you can test it out on that image.
This is some pretty amazing stuff. I’ve been listening to Jordan Seiler talk about the possibilities of Re+Public for a while, and eagerly awaiting its release. Yes, Re+Public 1.0 is definitely an early version of the software since you have to tell it to look for a specific mural before you hold it up to a wall and there are only a handful of sites that will activate any augmented reality content, but Re+Public is a fantastic proof of concept. Some day augmented reality will be the norm. Like in sci-fi movies, we’ll walk around with little implants in our eyes that will act as heads-up displays for everything around us. Do we want those displays to be showing us ads with deals for nearby restaurant deals, or art (or maybe both)? I vote for art.
If you’re in Miami next week, a lot of the murals that activate Re+Public are in Wynwood Walls (unless all that is getting painted over), so try it out. You can see all the locations where Re+Public works and test it out for yourself over on Re+Public’s website.
Sofles goes all out for this one. I love the throwies that angle for the camera and the upside down piece, and the awesome surprise at the end. The video also features the work of Fintan Magee, Treas and Quench. The video has already gone viral with pretty much everyone in Australia I know that likes graffiti sharing it on Facebook and has already reached 1.6M views on YouTube in 2 days.
Juuuust in time for the end of the month, as usual. I’ve been working on some very special projects here in Melbourne all of which I will be sharing over the next month!
September was another great month in Melbourne. As usual a bunch of shows and some of the best street art and graffiti from the streets. Enjoy!
Meggs painted one of his biggest ever murals on the the Fare Share building. Fare Share is a “good rescue” organisation, taking unwanted food and making into meals for charity. Nice work.
Some mad work in Collingwood by some of Melbourne’s most prolific writers, Bolts, Sauce and Kawps. More shots here.
Bolts. Photo by Dean Sunshine.Kawps. Photo by Dean Sunshine.Sauce. Photo by Dean Sunshine.
I’ve posted a bit of DVATE’s work in the past. Here’s some more of his work on a recent trip across Europe (not sure who all the collabs are with). More here.
DVATE. Photo by Just Another Agency.DVATE. Photo by Just Another Agency.DVATE. Photo by Just Another Agency.
Banksy’s grim reaper at Houston and Elizabeth streets. Photo courtesy of The L.I.S.A. Project.
Yesterday Banksy announced his Better Out Than In piece quite late in the day. That, combined with some WordPress issues that we’ve been facing, and today’s Banksy + 5 is a day late. Sorry. Anyway, the piece was announced in the evening because it’s another performance and this one starts at dusk. As you can see in the video below (originally posted to Banksy’s site), the grim reaper in a bumper-car character drives all this little stage Banksy has set up at Houston and Elizabeth streets (right next to where Swoon and Groundswell are working on a piece at the Bowery and Houston mural location). The piece will be active from dusk to midnight today and Sunday if you want to go check it out. Me, I’m not too bothered. Also, there’s an audio description for the piece on Banksy’s site. Interesting side note: Banksy previously used the grim-reaper-riding-a-bumper-car image in this painting that he gave to the band Brace Yourself for changing their name from Exit Through the Gift Shop.
Today we have Clet Abraham, Revs, Ghost Owl and two unknown artists in the + 5:
Clet Abraham in London. Photo by Dave Nolionsinengland.Revs. Photo by carnagenyc.Clepto and Ghost Owl. Photo by Brian KnowlesUnknown artist in Christchurch, New Zealand. Photo by Jocelyn Kinghorn.Unknown artist in Venice, Italy. Photo by Corrado Disegna.
For today’s Better Out Than In piece, Banksy posted the video shown above. As of when I’m posting this late on Saturday night, the video somehow has over 50,000 views and I know at least two people who searched all day for the spot where it was filmed. The power of Banksy…
On a related note, since it’s a little over halfway through October, I thought this might be a good time to remind readers what this Banksy + 5 series is about and why I’ve been posting every single pieces from Better Out Than In and accompanied (almost) all of them with 5 photos of street art or graffiti by artists other than Banksy. Initially, I had planned not to post daily updates about every piece in the show. Maybe I’d send out a link on Facebook, but I didn’t want to take the time to write up and format blog posts every day for something that 1000 other sites would be covering. But Jonathan Lynn from Anewspace in Dublin suggested to me, “you should do a column called ‘this is the new banksy & here is 5 more artists who painted today.” From that, I modified things slightly and we got Banksy + 5: Today’s Banksy plus five photos of work that had either been uploaded to flickr or emailed to me within about 24 hours of that day’s Banksy’ going up. Banksy is a mastermind of getting media attention, and I knew that even the simplest posts on Vandalog mentioning Banksy would get more hits than posts mentioning just about other artist or providing interesting or exclusive content. Just as Banksy uses the media, I figured we could use Banksy a bit. So, let’s get on with the + 5…
Today I want to share with by Nathan Bowen, Skeleton Cardboard, Sened, and three unknown artistsedit: Anser, Aaron Rose and one unknown artist. Please leave a comment or get in touch if you know any of the artists that I don’t.
Nathan Bowen and Skeleton Cardboard in London. Photo by Dave Nolionsinengland.Sened in Tel Aviv. Photo by Astra Nilsson.Aaron Rose in Berlin. Photo by aesthetics of crisis.Unknown artist in Athens. Photo by Jean-Claude Utard.Anser in Toronto. Photo by Mary Crandall.
Update: As the New York Post notes (even though they reference the unverified and likely-fake Banksy twitter account), one interesting thing about this piece is the question of how long it will last before being vandalized.
For today’s Better Out Than In piece, Banksy has made a sort of 9/11 tribute or memorial. I suppose it’s interesting that Banksy is using a flower both as a memorial and to show an explosion, but I’m still not sure about this piece. Sidenote: Banksy has previously made at least twopieces referencing 9/11. And Gothamist reports that Banksy may have made two of this piece. There’s another similar stencil but sans-flower in Brooklyn Heights.
Kid Hazo in Philadelphia. Photo by Kid Hazo.Pablo Delgado. Photo by Boring Lovechild.Poster Boy and Bamn in Cuba. Photo by Poster Boy..frA* in Berlin. Photo by duncan c.
Once again, people such as myself are the butt of Banksy‘s joke for a Better Out Than In piece (and once again I’m late posting about a piece). This may be my favorite work in the show so far. Banksy arranged for a man to sell original Banksy artworks on the street next to Central Park. The paintings weren’t labeled as Banksy pieces in any way, and were available for $60 a piece (although one woman haggled a bit and snagged 2 for $60). The obvious comparison is to Joshua Bell playing in the DC Metro, though the parallels are not exact.
This piece by Banksy is great because, like so much of Better Out Than In, it’s about the crowd that follows Banksy’s work and the system in which Banksy exists. Jeffrey Deitch recently called Banksy a conceptual artist, and I think he is spot-on. This piece, and so many others in Better Out Than In, are not the physical art objects themselves but about the relationships that people have with the objects.
Most Vandalog readers will have heard people complain, or have complained themselves, about how mediocre Banksy pieces can get covered in plexiglass and preserved while masterpieces just around the corner by any other artist can get ignored or painted over. Even work by Banksy has been accidentally painted over when not identified as his work. For 99% of street art and graffiti, the vast majority of people see it without the context of “This is a work by Artist X, whose history is Y. It is important because Z,” but fewer and fewer people see Banksy’s work in that random way, as just another artist among thousands, as just another piece of visual information on a crowded streetscape. For a brief moment this past Saturday, Banksy was just another artist, not a media sensation. Any hey, for just another artist, $420 isn’t bad for a day’s work.
Of course, now I’ve got friends and relatives emailing me asking why the hell I didn’t give them a heads up about this and asking how they can get a Banksy for $60 in order to quickly flip it and possibly make quite a few thousand dollars. But while the works at the stall were authentic, I wonder whether or not Pest Control will authenticate them. Without that authentication, even the people in the video can’t really be trusted if they attempt to sell their “authentic” artworks. Those stencils would be easily enough to fake. But who really cares if the works are real or fake, so long as you’re not paying more than $60 for them?
Speaking of street artists being unappreciated when their name isn’t Banksy, here’s our + 5. These five works that range from very big to quite tiny and are by Ludo, 616, UFO, Cane Mortoedit: with Insurrectionize,Royce Bannon and Russell King:
Ludo in Paris. Photo by Carlos Ribeiro.UFO in NYC. Photo by Hrag Vartanian.616 in London. Photo by Alex Ellison.Cane Morto and Insurrectionize in Bergen. Photo by svennevenn. Click to view large.Russell King and Royce Bannon in Philadelphia. Photo by Ellen King.
