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The Muse of Street Art

NeSpoon‘s latest project is pretty clever. It’s called The Muse of Street Art and here’s how she describes it:

Saski Garden (Ogród Saski) – former king’s garden in the center of Warsaw, since 1727 open for public.
Main attraction is the group of 21 baroque sculptures – allegorical muses of human’s creativity and science. One of them was an orphan, with no allocation. I adopt her 🙂

The two photo above were taken before NeSpoon’s modifications. The next photo is an example of the label that most of these statues had, but not the one that NeSpoon has modified.

And here’s what NeSpoon did:

Photos from NeSpoon’s Behance page

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New Ludo In New York

Granted they are all in Williamsburg, it is super nice to have Ludo visiting New York refreshing some old locations. I especially like the first image which takes a new approach to an aging and primarily rectilinear faile spot. More photos over at the StreetSpot

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Welling Court Mural Project

Totally honored and excited to be apart of this fantastic event that Ad Hoc Art has organized for the Welling Court community. Hope everyone in the area can make it out for the cook out.

Opening is Saturday, May 22nd, 4-10pm.

* The community is hosting an authentic NYC street party for the event.  If you plan on joining the celebration,  feel free to bring your favorite food, beverage, or street party fixins to share.

There’s never too much of a good thing…

Welling Court Artists include: Alice Mizrachi, Beast, Chris Mendoza, Chris Stain, Celso, Cern, Cey Adams, CR, Cycle, Dan Witz, Darkclouds, Daryll Peirce, Don Leicht, Ellis G, Free5, Gaia, Garrison & Alison Buxton, Greg Lamarche, JMR, John Fekner, Lady Pink, Leon Reid, Matt Siren, M-City, Michael De Feo, Mr. Kiji, Pablo Power, Peripheral Media Projects, R. Nicholas Kuszyk, Remi/Rough, Ron English, Royce Bannon, Sofia Maldonado, Stormie Mills, Sweet Toof, Swoon, TooFly, Tristan Eaton, and Veng RWK.

The address is 11-98 Welling Court, Queens, NY 11102

* Directions: Take the N or W train to 30th Ave & walk 10 blocks towards the East River or take the Q18 bus down 30th Ave to 12th St.

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Armsrock – Drawn Towards the Present

Yes. Armsrock has a solo show coming up in London. This is going to be fantastic. Except, for some reason, it sometimes feels like I’m alone in thinking that Armsrock’s work is brilliant. Hopefully this upcoming solo show will change some people’s opinions. Drawn Towards the Present opens at Signal Gallery on June 3rd.

Here’s the press release:

The Danish artist Armsrock, is one of a handful of artists on the Urban/Street art scene whose work reaches out beyond the confines of the genre. The quality and unique nature of his work, both on the street and for the gallery, has made him stand out in that talented crowd.

Armsrock’s work consists of delicately drawn figures, which he pastes on walls in urban settings. Mostly life-size portraits of humans on the edge of society, the character and placement of these pieces make them feel, sometimes, as if they have been tattooed to the wall. At other times, they can appear transitory – as if they had just arrived at a scene and are about to move on. More recently, he has developed an analogue projection technique that enables him to combine his magical drawn figures with light. This has the effect of making the images even more fragile and fleeting, almost like ghosts.

His new show in Signal Gallery is called ‘Drawn Towards The Present’. The show will be built around an installation that will consist of monumental charcoal drawings on rice paper. The imagery represented in the drawings is based on press-clippings from the artist’s archive, which have been reworked to create a fragmentary representation of contemporary history and a glimpse into our future hopes and fears.

Armsrock, was born in 1984 in Copenhagen and graduated at the Hochschule Für Kunst in Bremen, Germany. The quality of his art has been recognised internationally and has been seen in streets and public spaces across Europe and the United States. He has also shown his work extensively in traditional art institutions, such as museums and galleries. This is a young artist whose passion and commitment to his craft has won him supporters and buyers wherever he has shown his work.

Unfortunately, I’m going to be in Italy when this show opens, but I expect it’s going to be quite something to see. And make sure to get down to the gallery quickly, because the show only lasts from June 3rd until the 19th.

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Huge new(ish) mural in Vancouver

This mural by Titifreak, Peeta, Indigo and Faith47 was painted last month in Vancouver. I love how it turned out, especially Titifreak’s bit. The wall was painted for a certain event there, but since I have nothing good to say about the manipulative group that organized the mural, I’m not going to give them publicity by linking them up or naming the event. The art looks good though.

Faith47
Peeta
Titifreak
Titifreak, Peeta and Indigo

Photos by S.Vegas, who has a whole set of photos of this wall

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Banksy artwork removed in Detroit

Photo by bealebo

Marc Schiller from Wooster Collective said something interesting on Twitter the other day. He said, “Fascinating how each city on Banksy’s road trip (LA, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, NYC, San Fran) reacted completely differently to the art.” He then clarified by tweeting “LA: Indifference San Fran: Appreciation Chicago: Unaware Detroit: Biz Opportunity Toronto: Validation Boston: Confusion NY: Jealousy”

What did he mean by “Biz Opportunity” in Detroit? Well at least two of the pieces that Banksy painted in Detroit were removed by people from the spots where they were painted.

Here’s what happened to Diamond Girl according to The Process Theory:

this is truth, I’ve been holding out on posting this, but i think its time. Famed Banksy artist took aim at Detroit, and like many people who knew it would be short lived, a cohort and i began removing the piece. In the wee hours of the morning. We worked diligently till about six am. Carving out the bricks ever so carefully. I promise, you have never seen a sledge hammer flow ever so softly into brick. as if the girl herself was trapped. When staring a modern legend, and if not the greatest street artist of the last 15 years.  a chance to feel, touch, see, and own a legend. for money? for preservation? who knows. some gallery would have beat us to it. i know they would, the other piece was already being removed by some gallery who we know is going to make the quick buck.  This was a guerrilla movement. an attempt in the night. much in an adverse way of Banksy hitting the wall himself. My accomplice hands bloodied and blistered. let it be known, to who ever took that piece… you didn’t deserve it. you didn’t work for it. but it should be documented. We are not an entity, we are not a gallery. We were two fans, trying to do the right thing before the hounds of a desolate city, hurting for money. Take what you will, i know we will catch a lot of heat for it. Rebels? Saviors? assholes? Dedicated fans? it depends on how you view it….

And you can see pictures of that piece on The Process Theory’s website. For now though, nobody really knows what’s happened to Diamond Girl.

On the other hand, the case of where I Remember (photo above) has gone is very public. On May 11th, Detroitfunk reported that the artwork had been removed by 555 Nonprofit Gallery and Studios. As expected when a Banksy is removed or defaced, there was a strong reaction from the public. Some people thought that 555 Arts were preserving the artwork, others that 555 Arts had essentially “stolen” Banksy’s art from the public trust, potentially in order to tell it for a massive profit. With no word from 555 Arts about the situation, the public was left waiting to hear what would happen. Finally, on May 15th, the Detroit Free Press picked up the story and fill in the missing details. It turns out that the folks from 555 Arts intend to not sell the work and to keep it on public display.

While I’m not sure that 555 Arts did the right thing by removing that wall, I think that in the long run future generations are going to be glad they did it. I’m not saying that every Banksy should be removed or protected, and I’m sure that most of the time these pieces are removed and protected purely so that the owners can profit from the artwork, but in the long run, it might be worth preserving a few of these outdoor pieces by Banksy.

Photo by bealebo

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Photos of Os Gêmeos’ show in Lisbon

This week marks the opening of Os Gêmeos‘ latest museum show, Pra quem mora lá, o céu é lá at Museu Berardo in Lisbon. Lucky for all of us not in Lisbon, Target was there to take plenty of photos.

While I was still very happy to see the work they had at their recent show in Milan, a lot of people I spoke with subsequently said they were disappointed with the work there. Now I see why. Pra quem mora lá, o céu é lá is really what a proper Os Gêmeos show looks like. In short, it looks amazing. It’s not at huge as Vertigem, but it’s the next best thing. I already know people planning holidays around this show after seeing these photos. I wish I could do that too. If you’re in Lisbon between now and September, this is something that cannot be missed.

Don’t ask me why Os Gêmeos’ artwork is so good, I don’t know. Just have a look and hopefully agree.

All photos by Target, who has plenty more images from the show on his blog

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The return of Bortusk Leer

It’s been quite a while since I last saw a new artwork from Bortusk Leer (last February maybe?), so I’m pleased to say that HowAboutNo! has been photographing a bunch of new monsters from Bortusk Leer that have been popping up around London.

Photos by HowAboutNo!

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Charming Baker has arrived

It looks like Charming Baker’s current solo show Stupid Has A New Hero at NY Studio Gallery has put Baker at the forefront of the New York art scene. The Telegraph reports that there were about 1000 people at last week’s opening, the show sold out almost instantly and buyers included art-world heavyweights like Alberto Mugrabi (a mega-collector and son of mega-collector Jose Mugrabi) and Damien Hirst. Well, whatever. The important thing for those of us without the £16,000 to buy an original is that the paintings look great as usual and the show is on through May 29th.

Joe Russo took some photos for Arrested Motion. Check out the rest on Arrested Motion.

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Kaws for Interview Magazine

Been looking forward to this for the last week. Interview Magazine has posted an interview with KAWS, conducted by Tobey Maguire. While not exactly earth-shattering like Shepard Fairey’s comments in Interview Magazine about the AP case, it’s a good read.

There was one particularly interesting bit for KAWS collectors. This is going to get into a bit of art-world-collecting-and-commercialization-bullshit, so if you don’t like that sort of thing (and I know a lot of people don’t), I guess just skip the rest of this post. Maguire asks Kaws about his Kimpsons, Kurfs and Spongebob paintings. About the Kimpson series, KAWS says that he used The Simpsons’ characters because they are instantly recognizable around the world. Makes sense. Seems like some thought went into that. If you want to insert your brand into pop culture, take a brand that you and the rest of the world loves and identifies with and use that. But then about the Spongebob series of paintings, KAWS says:

I started doing SpongeBob paintings for Pharrell. Then I started doing smaller paintings, which got much more abstract. And SpongeBob was something I wanted to do because graphically I love the shapes. But honestly, when I’m painting SpongeBob, I’m not thinking, Oh, I loved this episode. Honestly, I’ve never even watched it.

My immediate reaction to that comment is that the Spongebob paintings are basically KAWS just phoning it in concept-wise. Does it mean that his Spongebob paintings are essentially just him doing things because people like them and nothing more? Maybe that means the Kimpson and Kurf paintings are the more “significant” works by KAWS.

On the other hand, maybe that’s just a natural progression for KAWS. I’d guess that most KAWS collectors haven’t seen many episodes of Spongebob, but they don’t have to. They’re familiar with the character. He’s that much of a pop-culture icon. In which case, maybe these Spongebob paintings are even more meaningful and significant that Kurfs, which are based on a show that KAWS and his collectors probably did grow up watching.

Anyways, that comment just threw me for a bit of a loop and I’m curious to hear what other have to think about it.