I know I haven’t been too active here lately. My dissertation and job hunting in London has pretty much consumed my life that past few weeks. But I saw this new El Mac piece on Arrested Motion and am absolutely in love with it. On a recent trip to Montreal, Canada, the artist painted this piece entitled Spirit in Summer as an homage to the town of Rosemount. The woman depicted is apparently El Mac’s interpretation of Rose Phillips, after whom the town is named.
Hoping this is going to be a print, because I would love to look at this piece on a daily basis in my flat.
After a fabulous summer in Atlanta, Living Walls is migrating up north to Albany, NY and has finally been kicking off. Brooklyn Street Art has been providing some great coverage of the work going up around the city prior to the event from Chris Stain, Clown Soldier, Nanook, Overunder, White Cocoa and myself. Here are a couple glimpses of the progress being made.
For me, involving the word “freedom” with a barrier built around one half of a city, a barrier involving not just a wall but barbed wire, guard dogs, machine gun implacements, search lights, and soldiers with the instructions “shoot to kill”, doesn’t make sense, and I wanted to use this opportunity to remind people of just how disgusting it is to divide a city and it’s people. The barrier built between the Russian sector and the British, American and French sectors of Berlin was, in many cases, built down the middle of streets, dividing friends, families, and whole communities. Over night on August 12th 1961 relationships were destroyed and freedom, a natural human right, was viciously snatched away from millions of German citizens, people just like you and me. I tried, in my simple way, to show this with one of my “one line” drawings. I hope it will stand as a reminder of the reality of the Berlin Wall, and of the walls dividing people in other parts of the world.
The other side of my wall is a little lighter, showing the words “Every Wall Is A Challenge”. This is both intended as a reminder of the many people from the East that escaped, and of the teams of West Berliners who dug tunnels and found other ways to rescue and reunite families, and as a cheeky nod to the graffiti writers of the city today.
When I last visited Chelsea in late June, the streets were almost devoid of street art. There were a few worn stickers and paste-ups, but not much else. It’s getting better. Here are a few images I saw this afternoon:
Elbowtoe
Celso
Sti(c)kman
Lorenzo Masnah, huge collaged paste-up; Stinkfish on the upper right
A while back, I posted about some murals at Draw the Line Festival in Campobasso, Italy. Well that was just the start. Here’s some more from the long lineup of artists painting at the festival. These murals are by Etnik, Truly, Dado and Sera.
Snyder, a tribute to Kase2 (RIP) by Krush, Dame and Evol and other pieces
You know what’s really nice? Sleep. Hence, this weekend is a blessing. For now, life is school school school and more school. Hopefully there’s still a trip to NYC in my near future though… Here’s what has been going on around the internet and on the street:
OverUnder and Chris Stain have gotten things started at Living Walls Albany. OverUnder’s portrait looks kinda like an Ethos piece, but it still looks cool. And Chris’ tribute to the 9/11 first responders was painted on wood and has just been moved to the New York State Museum.
A few years ago, there was a castled painted in Scotland by some of Brazil’s best street artists: Nina, Nunca and Os Gêmeos. It was supposed to be temporary, but the owners of the castle want to keep it.
Jim Carrey and Shia LaBeouf are both trying to do some street art. Yep, the guy from Ace Ventura and a Disney Channel star are now technically street artists. Melrse&Fairfax says, “Interesting how street art seems to be more and more an exciting ‘escape’ for celebrities.” I’d like to replace interesting with some other word or words…
Here’s the latest spot organized by Murals around New York/MaNY. As you can see, it’s in NoHo in NYC, right by the entrance to Bleecker Street Station. The gate on the left was painted by Radical, and the gate on the right was painted by Veng.
Opening tonight at the East Village’s Dorian Grey Gallery is CLUB 57 & Friends featuring some of the early pioneers of the 1980’s East Village art scene and the CLUB 57 performance space. Both original works and legendary photographs are on display. Here is a small sampling:
Robert Carrither’s photo of Basquiat, 1980, image courtesy of gallery
Robert Carrither’s photo of Keith Haring, 1980, image courtesy of gallery
Hank O'Neal's photo of Richard Hambleton & Basquiat, photo by Lois Stavsky
Martha Cooper's photo of Basquiat on door, image courtesy of gallery
Dress designed by LA II aka LA Roc, photo by Lois Stavsky
The opening reception is from 6 – 9pm this evening at 437 East 9th Street between 1st Ave and Ave A. The exhibit continues through October 9th. Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Sunday 12 – 7pm.
As we mentioned the other day, Roa and the French Da Mental Vaporz crew (Blo, Bom.k, Brusk, Dran, Gris, Jaw, Kan, Sowat), as well as others, were recently in Copenhagen painting for the Galore Festival. Here are some photos of the festival by S.Butterfly, mostly of DMV’s wall. You can find more pictures from her on flickr or her blog.
First though, this is a video by S.Butterfly of DMV working on their mural…
There’s actually an interesting story behind the mural. S.Butterfly explains, “The mural is a satyrical reference to unscrupulous people who are willing to deface street art walls for profit. The DMV also incorporated a tribute to Kase 2 (RIP), as well as Copenhagen landmarks, including the infamous Christiania market, where you can find anything.” So the crew painted segments of the mural on removable panels, which they then moved to the end of wall and hung next to the “street art shop” (pictured above and below). In place of those panels, they painted windows to other places, as if the wall itself had actually been removed.
