JR is in LA putting up some murals. The LA Weekly has plenty of photos. Also, his new book, The Wrinkles of the City – Shanghai, that I mentioned a few days ago is available now on Drago’s website. Fair warning: The book’s not cheap.
Photo by Shannon Cottrell of the LA WEEKLY
Back in November, Steve Powers spoke at a TEDx conference in Philadelphia about his Love Letters and what he’s been up to recently in Brazil. Very cool.
Via Nuart
While Graffiti Brasil (by Tristan Manco, Lost Art and Caleb Neelon) is probably the benchmark against which other books about graffiti and street art in that country are measured, that book has been out for a while and it’s about time for an update on the scene. Nuevo Mundo: Latin American Street Art by Maximiliano Ruiz (author of Graffiti Argentina) looks like it may be that update, as well as an expansion on the concept since it covers all of Latin America. The book comes out in April or May of this year depending on where you live, but there’s already some preview pages on Gestalten’s website.
Photo courtesy of Gestalten
Just caught wind of what is turning out to be an incredible project from Imminent Disaster. Check out the Kickstarter, because money talks, but please take the time to support however you can. More from Disaster on the project after the jump.
“Homeland” is a Wet-Plate Collodion photo essay focusing on grassroots efforts to rebuild life after the collapse of the American economy. By documenting communities and individuals in NYC and across the country, this project aims to connect disparate communities and individuals into a national movement with common ideological threads. The range of projects documented will include urban farms, bicycle collectives, off-the grid homes, alternative fuel producers, art and theatre collectives, community dinners, free schools and after-school programs, squats, itinerants, tent cities and other grassroots social practices.
So you might have heard me talking about Wet-Plate photos, or mentioning that I might be leaving town on a cross-country trip at some undetermined date in the future. Both of these things are true and part of one and the same thing, which is a project I have been brewing up since last November. I am finally at a point where I am confident the project is happening. I just bought the car on Monday, a VW Golf Diesel, which gets about 50mpg, that I can run on biodiesel, from a funny man on Staten Island that I’m still dealing with to get the title figured out.
Continue reading “Homeland: A Wet-Plate Collodion Photo-Essay”
I found out about OverUnder last year during the Living Walls conference here in Atlanta, Ga. Hellbent, who was participating in the event, had brought with him a bunch of OverUnder’s wheatpastes for me to put up as part of the event. After that, I took a trip to NYC and on almost every street I would find an OverUnder tag. I saw so many that I started to count them and play games with friends to see who could find the most. Later that year I went to Miami for Art Basel, and the first thing I saw was an OverUnder tag on a huge plastic pink snail, and then all over Miami. I knew it then, I needed to meet him, and find out who was this OverUnder guy I kept seeing all over (in Atlanta, in NYC and in Miami). The best thing about finding an OverUnder tag is the fact that they all come with a personalized phrase to go with it, and they all are so fun and clever, it is really a true joy to find one!
I sent him some questions through the wonderful world of the internet, and OverUnder as awesome as he is, was very quick to reply, so here you have it: my OverUnder interview, Enjoy!
To see more of his work you can visit his Flickr or website.
What is the meaning behind the name OverUnder?
Well the name has several meanings to me but I guess Over Under is the message of graffiti. It’s a reminder of what you gotta do to get up and what will inevitably happen to your work in the end. Writers, toys, the buff, weather, all of it are constantly erasing your work and you have to always come back to the fundamentals of writing, or “getting over”. When ESPO’s book came out it must have struck a chord because around that time I made my first movie called ‘Overunder, The Art of Getting Over’. It documented the guy who buffs graffiti in Reno and then I mimicked his work but made buff marks that looked like cartoon-stylized explosions. You know, like, Batman style POW and KABOOM marks. I started expressing the term but never used it as a handle till more recently.
How and why did you come up with the OverUnder tag (floating paper planes tag)?
I’ve been trying to look back in the archives and figure that one out myself, and as far as I can tell, it originated from the back of an envelope flap. There are two things I love: Traveling and mail! I used to mail my friends all the time. Eventually my mail art world collided with my street art world and I began painting flying envelopes. Some 7 years later and they now resemble flying pieces of paper, birds, and sting rays. But to me they are a movement, a tumbleweed, a reminder to see what is at the top of a fire escape or behind a fence. I like that they are evolving. And I can see that they are still changing.
Do you usually come up with a phrase to do with the tag before hand or do you come with them on the spot? Would you tell me your favorite phrase so far?
I usually come up with them on the spot based off the conversations around me. I try to make mental notes of OVER UNDER phrases but lately it’s been much more exciting to abandon the O.U. ball and chain and write loosely about life. My most favorite recent phrase was, ‘A man who walked in front of bullets never felt so at home until it knocked on his door.’ And my favorite PG-13 one is, ‘Highway to the blow job zone’.
What inspires OverUnder?
Does FourLoko count? Semi just kidding. I’m inspired by long walks and short thoughts. My brother inspires me. My family inspires me. My family by other blood inspires me. Knowing that I’m more temporary than my art inspires me.
Why do you choose to put your work on the streets, what and why are you trying to communicate to the vast audience you have on the streets?
I don’t choose to put my work on the streets, I just put it outside because that is where it is supposed to go. On the other hand, I do ask myself why I should put work on the inside of spots. This is contradictory since I have shown work in galleries but I strive to make work that is crafted and knowledgeable of its environment, whether it’s inside or outside. I think growing up in a place like Reno that is surrounded by either huge mountains or vast desert really affected my perception of space. The environment rewired my concept of scale and as I learned about graffiti from the older generation of local writers it just made sense. It didn’t make sense to be cooped up in a studio working on a master piece when the trainyard was down the block. Now artists like Cai Guo Qiang inspire me to look at open space even grander.
I lurked around and I found something about a cabin, would you tell me more about it?
Good hunting. Yes, I moved back to NY, homeless and with limited funds after biking across Europe with OTHER. A friend in Williamsburg had a lean-to in their backyard and offered it to me for $150/mo. I moved in and scavenged wood, windows, and hardware to seal it up and make a home. White Cocoa moved in with me a few months later and together we framed out the front, added a wood burning stove, layed wood flooring, and built a patio out of barricades. It’s a small 110-sq foot space but we’ve made it our home and already withstood some crazy weather this year. In a way, it’s our protest to the ridiculous price of New York real estate and a return to Walden Pond. An urban Walden Pond.
I saw you all over Art Basel last year 2010. Did you like Miami? Any awesome stories from that trip?
I got to swim and walk around in shorts. How could I not like going from Brooklyn to Miami in December! It was my first time to ArtBasel and I loved it! Since I was only there for 3 days, I tried to make the most of it and I’ve got the blisters to prove it! White Cocoa and I walked two laps of Miami Beach one day (15+ miles); the first lap finding spots and the second lap putting in work. The story that made the headlines was the one about those ridiculous pink snails but aside from that the best moment was racking a box of paint from Mr. Brainwash while he and his 3-dozen assistants were deciding which way to position his awful paintings. I figured he was going to waste it on something silly anyways.
Favorite place to do street art? Favorite place in the world?
It’s kind of situational. I joke with my friends about how certain places tell me to do it. As if I have no self-control. Then again, maybe I don’t. But I suppose I love ruins. Contemporary ruins. New York has its fair share although they are becoming few and far between. Berlin has great alleys. Paris has great vans. Portland has great trainyards. Cuba has great texture. New York has great roll up gates. Everywhere has its reason. And if not, you’ve always got your imagination.
Favorite street artists?
Matthias Wermke, Mischa Leinkauf, OTHER, Jan Danebod, ADAMS, E.B. ITSO, AKAYISM, Felice Varini, MOMO, BLU…
Any words of encouragement/tips to new aspiring street artists out there?
Don’t ask, don’t look, don’t think about it too long. Just make it your way.
BONUS: (this is one only for cool points): draw a picture of yourself or how you see yourself (this might require scanning, but gives you total creative freedom) or tell me a joke.
Sorry, don’t have a scanner. But I heard a good joke recently from my man PET: What is Snoop Dogg’s favorite weather? Drizzle.
Photos by OverUnder
A lot of people were first introduced to street art through Banksy and his rats. Then, you learn that Blek le Rat was painting stencils of rats back in the 1980’s. What people don’t often realize that one of street art’s early pioneers beat both of those artists to stenciled black rats. The Rat Patrol project by Christy Rupp, from 1979, consisted of wheatpasting images of rats all around New York City. Street Art, a book from 1985, is the invaluable resource that first introduced me to Rupp’s artwork, but since then, I don’t think she has been acknowledged for her work as one of the first street artists, and possibly the first street artist to use rats extensively, a character that has become iconic within the movement.
Here’s how Rupp describes the project:
Life size image of a rat placed amongst accumulated garbage. I started pasting these up during the 3 week garbage strike in May of 1979. Never intending to defend rats, I wanted to point out how we had created a habitat for them, and they would naturally occupy it. The city has it’s own ecosystem with a delicate balance. Rats were very visible in those days where I lived in the Wall St. area. Especially around dusk when the human traffic would abruptly taper off leaving all the days harvest for the first rats to discover. During this time I studied rat behavior and found them to be similar to people in many ways, not least of which was the ability to work together as a community, making them possibly better suited to living in NYC at times. Also it has been said that rats possess a culture- if you define culture as the ability to pass information through generations without direct experience- such as a fear of predators and pesticides. Humans are the only other species that can do that.
Also, there were even Rubble Rats, which took the form of sculptures:
Rupp’s artwork is a piece of street art history that should be longer be ignored. Certainly something that should be kept in mind with LA MOCA‘s upcoming street art show.
On her website, you can purchase a print of the 2nd photo in this post.
Also, I was looking around the rest of Rupp’s website and there are a number of other cool artworks worth checking out.
Photos by Christy Rupp
Attempting to walk that tightrope which keeps corporate sponsorship of art cool and not simply corny, Cirque de Soleil has recently gotten interested in street art. Their Safewalls project begins this week in London with a launch even at High Roller Society. At each stop on the Safewalls tour, artists from that city will be designing alternative posters for Cique de Soleil shows. In London, Jon Burgerman, Glenn Anderson and Sweet Toof (see above) have designed the posters for a show called Totem. I love what Sweet Toof has done for this project.
The posters and prints will be for sale online today and there will also be a launch even on the 17th at High Roller Society. The posters will be limited to 300 copies and screenprints of the same designs will be limited to an edition of 50. I’ve got to say that I love the idea of posters. As far as I can tell, posters are basically the same printing technique at giclée prints, but they are on a material that is better suited to the ink instead of some archival heavy paper that makes so many giclée prints look terrible. Plus, I’m guessing the posters will be more affordable that a similar giclée print would be.
A series of videos have been made interviewing the artists involved in the event. The first one is below, and here are links to the next two:
SAFEWALLS | LONDON 2011 (1/3) from SAFEWALLS on Vimeo.
Photo courtesy of Safewalls
Some of my favorite London photographers will be showing some photos of street art and graffiti at the London ICA next week for the show London Walls. Definitely worth checking out if you like photos of street art and graffiti.
A newly released mini documentary on South African based artist Faith47, was just released. Shot beautifully, the video gives an insight into the street/fine artist whose work can be seen all around Cape Town and painted a great piece at Moniker Art Fair in London this past October.
Faith47 from The Ginkgo Agency on Vimeo.
