I really enjoyed this video of Dan Witz talking about his latest series of street art:
Dan Witz – What the %$#@? : San Francisco 2011 from Colin M Day on Vimeo.
Via My love for you is a stampede of horses
Street art and reality briefly collide in London
This video tells the story of one of my favorite murals in East London. It was painted by Joe Deane, Joseph Loughborough and Ben Slow. But it also touches on another story…
Street Art and Reality on Hanbury Street, London. from Shafiur Rahman on Vimeo.
Mike Ballard – Community Thunder
Mike Ballard, aka Cept, has a show opening this week in Cork, Ireland. Yep. Cork. Sounds like a kind of random place for a show an artist like Mike Ballard, but then again, Mike is not the type to do things the usual way (like the substantial differences between his art as Mike Ballard and his art as Cept). Over the last couple of years, Mike’s work has continued to grow on me. At first, I just trusted nolionsinengland when he said how great it was, but I’m not sure I could quite see it. Now though, I get that awesome sense of wonder when I see something by Mike Ballard. I’m excited to see that Mike is bringing his work to new audiences in Ireland.
The show, Community Thunder, will take place at Triskel Arts Centre, opens this Saturday from 6-9pm and runs through March 23rd.
PS, I don’t mean to say that Cork or Ireland in general sucks, I’m just saying it’s not known for a thriving street art or graffiti scene besides a few exceptions.
Photo courtesy of Mike Ballard
Street Art Pop Up Store in LA
Bomit is putting together a pop up shop in LA and it opens next week. The Street Art Pop Up Store sounds pretty cool. A lot of galleries like to say “Look. We’re not a ‘street art gallery.’ We just show lots of artists who happen to work outdoors. But really we show ‘contemporary art.'” Well this shop says “Screw that! We only show street artists.” Only artists who put hard work into getting up outdoors will be shown in the store. I think that’s fantastic.
Some of the artists in the shop will include Gaia, Dickchicken, Ludo, Love Me, Sweet Toof and Bigfoot.
The store organizers are looking for help putting the store together, so if you have any cool art trinkets that you’d like to donate to the store like stickers, shirts, toys or whatever else, they’ll take it.
The Street Art Pop Up Store will open on March 4th in LA. Keep an eye on their website for more info on the location.
Mr. Penfold and friends in Madrid
Update: Turns out this is all part of a larger project called Persianas Libres. Thanks to Luigi for the tip.
Mr. Penfold sent over these photos of his recent trip to Madrid with a number of artists, including Malarky, Richt, Billy and 45rpm. Here are some of the roll gates they painted.
Printmaking Today and Roa at Black Rat Projects
This Thursday, Black Rat Projects has their first show of 2011. Pritmaking Today is their annual group print show. There’s a long list of some talented artists with work in the show, including Swoon, Know Hope and Matt Small. There will be new prints from Swoon, Candice Tripp and Matt Small. There’s also something from Hirst, but that should be easy enough to ignore. We’ve got a couple photos of Swoon working on her print:
In addition to the prints, there’s also an installation from Roa. His installation is part of a new project space/artist residency project at Black Rat Projects.
And all this opens on this Thursday night at Black Rat Projects in London.
Photos by C-Monster and courtesy of Black Rat Projects
The History of American Graffiti
Before people start rolling their eyes about yet another graffti book, I have to say that this one looks pretty good. Not only did the infamous Roger Gastman (who is a Washington DC legend in my book; I have to rep that), but it really does attempt to trace the distinctiveness of the evolution of American graff in the past 40 years.
The book contains interviews with over 500 artists, and over 1000 photographs (seriously, this thing could break an Ikea shelf I bet) and of course, the one and only TAKI 183 writes the book’s foreword.
The book will be released in the beginning of April, but can be pre-ordered on Amazon
Milo Project
Here are some new works by French street artist Milo Project. Reminding me a lot of Mark Jenkins, Milo Project places realistic mannequins in the fetal position all over France. Below is a video of people’s reactions that is pretty funny even if you don’t speak French.
All photos by Milo Project
Preview of Retna’s “Hallelujah World Tour” in NYC
Over the weekend, I got the chance to have an early peak of Retna‘s Hallelujah World Tour show, which opens later this week in NYC. The show is looking like a real next step for Retna. The work is big, beautiful and a definite evolution from what he’s been doing. Here’s a little preview:
Arrested Motion also previewed the show and has more images on their site.
Photos by RJ Rushmore
