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Completed G40 murals in Richmond, Virginia – Part 1

Pixel Pancho. Photo by Bill Dickinson

Art Whino‘s G40 Art Summit resulted in almost two dozen new murals for Richmond, Virginia this month. Congrats to Art Whino. It looks like they have put together a really amazing festival and transformed at least a part of the city. Starting with this post and continuing for one or two more, I’ll be trying to show all of these new murals. First up, we have work by Pixel Pancho, Roa, Gaia, Aryz, Jaz, Lelo and Scribe.

Aryz. Photo by Marc Schmidt

See more after the jump… Continue reading “Completed G40 murals in Richmond, Virginia – Part 1”

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Sean Hart

Update 2 (June 2012): Sean Hart has gotten in touch again to insist that all of his work is painted physically rather than made using image-editing software. He sent us more photos of his work in progress. One of these photos looks very real. It appears to be a tightly cropped in-progress shot for a piece in the Shine series which we have not seen the finished version of.

Update: Sean Hart has told us that all of these pieces were physically painted as depicted. He has sent us photos of his “Love Fearless.” piece in progress. Caroline and I think those photos look more likely to be photoshopped than the finished piece. So, once again, I ask if it matters if he physically painted the work or not. Hart seems to think it does and would like anyone reading this post to believe that the pieces were painted as depicted.

Sean Hart is a French street artist who seems to specialize in tumblr-friendly work, and I mean that in the best possible way. Like Banksy, his work always seems ready to go viral. At the same time, Hart’s manifesto/bio seems to be trying to say that he is much more than just another potential viral flavor-of-the-month but rather a street artist who actually does more than watch Exit Through the Gift Shop and start putting up stencils (and he’s actually been working outdoors for years). Anyway, here’s a bit of what he has done after the jump… Continue reading “Sean Hart”

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Weekend link-o-rama

Specter for Open Walls Baltimore

This week’s link-o-rama is a few days delayed. Parents were in town earlier this week and even came to an event some friends of mine organized at Haverford College: A talk by Jayson Musson (the artist who created and plays the character Hennessy Youngman). I don’t think my mom was amused. Here’s what I’ve been reading this week:

Photos by Martha Cooper

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Col at Orchard Windows Gallery

The grandson of a self-taught painter, Gregg Bruno aka Col — from an early age — loved modern art, particularly abstract expressionism. Twenty years ago, he began hitting the streets of NYC and beyond as a graffiti writer. His current work – a mix of 3-D styles on paper and found objects – is currently on view at Orchard Windows Gallery on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Here are some images:

The exhibit continues through Sunday @ 37 Orchard Street in NYC.

Photos by Lenny Collado

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Above at Jewel City

Above sent over some info about his latest mural, a huge wall of text in Johannesburg at the diamond-trading hub Jewel City. Here’s how Above explains the piece:

Africa has had a devastating history of blood diamond wars. Blood diamond refers to a diamond mined in a war zone and then sold to finance an invading army’s war efforts, usually in Africa where more than two-thirds of the worlds diamonds are extracted. This site specific social / political word play was painted on the exterior wall of Johannesburg’s largest diamond trader Jewel City.  Jewel City is a six-block mega-precinct that serves as a base for some 300 diamond traders as well as South Africa’s Diamond Board and State Traders Association. Jewel City is the largest diamond exporter in the southern hemisphere with over R7-Billion worth of Diamonds being exported every year.

I was able to get away with this diamond wall heist because I told the owners I would paint in big letters “Diamonds are a woman’s best friend” on the exterior of their building.  The owners loved the idea and all quickly agreed. The next day I had started painting but what the owners didn’t know is that I lied to them and was hijacking their wall. Like any premeditated robbery, situations are not what they seem and shit can flip from best friends to worst enemies in a few moments.

I assume the owners were too busy trading diamonds inside the mega centre they never took the time to come out and see I was painting a controversial word play about the diamond trade and how it’s fueled so much bloodshed in wars making it one of man’s worst enemies.

See the rest of the piece, as well as some of my thoughts as to why it might be problematic, after the jump… Continue reading “Above at Jewel City”

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“Is This Illegal?” ad takeovers

Desire Obtain Cherish recently started a new campaign of anti-billboard pieces using the slogan “Is This Illegal?” which points out that LA is overrun with unlicensed advertising and that street artists who go over billboards can face felony charges even though the billboards themselves are often illegal to begin with. So far, the group has hit up at least one full-sized billboard and some street-level advertising.

When watching this video of their billboard takeover, please ignore the general cheesiness of the video, as the text at the end is actually quite informative:

Benjamin Alejandro has also used the “Is This Illegal?” slogan in a takeover featuring his own work:

Once the issue of the mural moratorium in LA is more or less fixed (should be soon), maybe “Is This Illegal?” will become the new slogan of LA’s outdoor art community and the disruption of illegal advertising will become their new political cause. One can dream…

Photo by Birdman Photos

Via PublicAdCampaign and Melrose&Fairfax

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Do we need a “Go Bombing Day”?

Bomit‘s latest potential project is Go Bombing Day, an attempt at developing an organized day for getting up. In the UK at least, Christmas is already an unofficial Go Bombing Day for writers, but it’s not an organized event and it’s not global. Bomit’s hope is that a more organized Go Bombing Day could encourages artists around the world get active and also acknowledge the great artists who have been instrumental in the development of the street art, graffiti and stickering communities. Bomit is already promising free paint and asking for official participants who will paint on this yet-to-be-determined date and put the words “Go Bombing Day” in their piece. So, is Go Bombing Day a good idea?

Personally, I’m not sure. On the one hand, it would be great to get people out en masse putting up work. More art = good. Maybe it’s that simple. Shouldn’t it be? The event could be the precursor to a number of mini-festivals around the world, sort of like Meeting of Styles. But and organized Go Bombing Day may also mean that artists getting up on that day get enveloped by a sort of brand, even if it’s a noncommercial one. Go Bombing Day might encourage non street artists to paint their first walls, but it may also encourage people to get out and paint that first wall purely for the sake of self-promotion, already a concern in the street art community.

But what do I know? I wouldn’t be a participant in Go Bombing Day anyway. What do the artists think? Let us know in the comments.

Photo by RJ Rushmore