I think this piece by Escif close our our coverage of Public Art Horsens, a recent mural project in Horsens, Denmark. I really love what Escif did here. He has done a great job in Horsens and elsewhere of subverting expectations and keeping rebellion in mural festivals in programs that all-too-often just result in wall decoration. Photographer Henrik Haven, who helped organize the murals, sent over a story explaining this mural…
-The organizers: “Hello, we are working on a public art project here in Horsens, so we are looking for some walls to intervene. A selected group of international artists will arrive in town to create public works on various locations in the end of June.”
-The owner of the building: “Sounds really interesting. The Turkish pizzeria that just opened in the adjacent premises is not the most beautiful image for my building… you know! So I´m sure that some nice renowned artists can equilibrate this.”
-The organizers: “Sounds good, sir!”
And here is what Escif painted next to the pizzeria:
Pastel recently finished a wall in Buenos Aires, Argentina. What I like of Pastel’s work is how it references so neatly and effortlessly his influences in archetectural studies and demonstrates a hightened conscience of lines, shapes, and the richness that can expressed utilizing the absence of colors.
The Wa, OaKoAk and fra.biancoshock recently teamed up on a project across cities where all three of them made work on the theme of a “safari in the urban jungle.” The work was made in Milan, Berlin, Dusseldorf and St. Etienne. The three artists agreed on a theme, but beyond that each of them had no idea what the other two were making for their contributions to the project.
ChrisRWK is an artist whose work I’ve followed pretty much since I got interested in street art. He has a strong cult following of fans who love how his work brings joy, and he’s probably one of the go-to artists that people getting started in stickers look to. Chris is the latest artist in the space across the street from Woodward Gallery and he and Veng recently painted a wall in Little Italy for The L.I.S.A. Project (for which I am a co-curator). And then I read this interview and found out that’s he and Veng are doing a print with 1xRun, whom I’ve worked with as well. Basically. All in all, seemed like a great time to ask Chris a few questions…
RJ: What do you look for when you’re thinking about collaborating with another artist?
Chris: Over the years I’ve learned a lot from Collabing with artists. I remember asking artists if they would like to collab back in the day and people had no clue what I meant. Mainly cause no one was doing it on stickers. I had collabed with artists for years on murals and artists have collabed on canvases for years. Some that always struck a chord with me was the Basquiat, Warhol and Clemente canvases. So I figured bring it to stickers. I had been making stickers for years and they’ve always been a favorite medium of mine. From collecting to making, I always loved em. So with some artists I know to just do some hand drawn ones but with other artists I do printed ones. Some artists like El Toro, Bob Will Reign, Under Water Pirates I’ve collabed with for years, since around 2004. With guys like them I always love doing hand drawn ones because of the diversity. They would always do something new. Artists like Royce, MCA/Evil Design, Flying Fortress I’ve done both hand drawn and printed. Printed because of the strength and iconographic imagery.
ChrisRWK with Jos-L
RJ: Why are stickers an important part of street art and graffiti?
Chris: Stickers have been in graffiti for years but people never paid attention to them. I remember seeing ones with tags on them in the early 90’s when I’d go into Manhattan. In the late 90’s stickers started gaining popularity overseas from what I saw. In 2001 when kevin and I launched robotswillkill.com, stickers were starting to catch on in the US as its own scene. I remember when PEEL magazine contacted me about doing the cover for their first issue. I was amped, a zine all about stickers?!? And I was doing the cover?!? That was in 2003. In the past few years the Graff scene has rediscovered stickers and seems like their appreciation has grown for them. For years it was like they looked down on them. The sticker scene itself has grown over the past few years which is good and bad. You have tons of “artists” who just collect them and use the ones they get to trade up. It’s the baseball card theory, well for this generation maybe the Pokemon card theory. Don’t get me wrong – collecting is cool, but to an extent.
ChrisRWK with Skam Dust and MQ
RJ: About how many stickers do you draw or print each year?
Chris: Print I’d say 15-20 thousand. That’s mainly for trades, giveaways etc. I always liked putting up hand drawns. Printed are great for putting up because of longevity and ability to grill an area but there’s something about finding an original on the street. So hand drawn ones I’d say around 10-15 thousand. It’s tough to say cause I just sit down and throw on a movie and do em until the packs empty or the movie is over. So that could be a hundred or couple hundred in a sitting. Also depends on what style I’m doing. If they are black line ones then those I fly threw. If I’m doing color fills, shading etc it’ll be less.
Study of False Hope
RJ: A lot of your recent paintings feature your trademark characters less prominently than your work has previously. Where are they going? Where are you going?
Chris: Well I’ve always had an array of characters but the Robot always caught everyone’s attention. He became the icon for the stickers, clothes etc. I did him on paintings for years also. The boy and girl characters have gained more recognition in the past few years. Between the murals and canvases I can have them convey more emotion or tell more if a narrative. It’s funny because for years when I’d paint something everyone would say, “Are you doing the robot? I hope you do the robot!” So I did the robot. Nowadays people don’t say that because they’ve become familiar with the rest of my work. Granted when I sign black books, do stickers etc I do the robot. The newer work has subconsciously become more autobiographical. When I was talking to a friend of mine, he made that remark. So I started to think about it and he’s right on some levels. For example Veng and I did a show at Low Brow Artique called “From the Start: a collection of studies” and when I chose my 5 study subjects, they all had a deep connection to me and my life. So for the newer works, I try to tap into that more.
Mona Lisa by ChrisRWK and Veng
RJ: How was it painting your version of the Mona Lisa in Little Italy?
Chris: To be honest, tough at first. When Wayne from The L.I.S.A Project mentioned it I automatically thought ok time to paint a Mona Lisa. For some reason it didn’t dawn on me right away to do it in my style. I just figured paint Mona Lisa. So after a few sketches I did my style. Wayne showed it to the owners and they loved it. I showed it to Veng and he knew exactly what he wanted to do. This was the perfect project for him to bring back his circles. We put together the sketch fully and it was def meant for the spot. The L.I.S.A Project has a great thing going. It’s funny too because my best friends Godfather ran the restaurant where we painted for years.
ChrisRWK and Veng
RJ: You’re pretty popular on Instagram. What do you think Instagram has done for street art or stickering?
Chris: Things like Instagram have definitely brought more attention to things like street art and stickers. It’s quick and has its own scene. Once you mix things that have their own subculture it’ll only help promote each other. Blogs and stuff helped promote street art for years but were mainly constrained to desktop computers etc so with something like Instagram you have it right on your phone at any moment of the day. People love instant gratification. And to be able to post something from anywhere in the world for anyone in the world to see is amazing.
RJ: Have you got any upcoming projects that you can let us in on?
Chris: I just finished up 4 panels for the Woodward Project space across from the gallery. It’s titled “Those Summer Daze”. Veng and I have a print coming out with 1xRun soon. I’m involved in Sticky Situation NYC by Ink Monstr. I’m working on inventory pieces for Dorian Grey gallery. I’ll be painting at Jersey Fresh Jam. I also have a two man show coming up at Mighty Tanaka with Michael Banks(Sugar Fueled) this October. Oh and also finishing up issue #3 of Surface Area zine. Of course there’ll be some other outdoor art going on.
Ian Strange [aka KID ZOOM] has been releasing snippets and teasers for his upcoming show Suburban for some time now. I have been following it closely on his blog but I had no idea that it was going to be exhibited here in Melbourne at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV).
Ian Strange: Suburban is a multifaceted photography, film and installation exhibition created by New York-based Australian artist Ian Strange. Since 2011 Strange has worked with a film crew and volunteers in Ohio, Detroit, Alabama, New Jersey, New York and New Hampshire to create, photograph and film seven site specific interventions incorporating suburban homes. The recording of these interventions through film and photographic documentation forms the basis of this new and groundbreaking exhibition.
This exhibition looks like it’s going to be something really different, I can’t wait until it opens. Held at Melbourne’s NGV, a proud supporter of Melbourne and Australian street art and graffiti, it’s exciting to see Ian’s show running alongside the likes of classical artists like Monet.
Ian will also be doing a talk “Talking Strange” on the 1st of August, details here.
Robbie Conal: I know Mear One as a whirling dervish. Painting, drawing, piecing, print making, poster production, T shirt lines, stickers and everything else I forgot to list. Always up to making and thinking about more things than I can even get my mind around. (In fact, after writing those 3 sentences—conjuring the Mearski—I think I need a nap.) So….I figure you must be hooked into world history and current events, like you have a social media I.V. drip going directly into your brain 24/7. Or, perhaps you even consume information the good old, old fashioned way…like, have you read any good books, lately?
MearOne: I haven’t found the time to read any books this past year but the years prior I was on a bit of a reading binge. I studied world history and human psychology from the writings of philosophers like Richard Tarnas, Robert Anton Wilson, Ken Wilber, and I enjoy reference books that explore the mind and place of humanity in reality. I have always enjoyed cryptic Scientific, Philosophical, and Spiritual literature from the late 1880’s through the 1940’s. My family has roots in Art, Music, Astro Physics, and this seems to be a very interesting time in the subject matter that inspires me. I enjoy Anthropology and Archeology too – as an artist I can find an endless story to create and build upon, one you don’t find in traditional public school teachings.
RC: Of course I’m interested in your reception habits and preferred sources of information, but I want to ask you about your big pieces about big subjects—you make more of them than pretty much any street artist I know. How do you choose a subject to do a big “piece” about—like not necessarily doing a commission, but something more on your own.
M: For the work I create, my personal views and understanding of politics and humanity are worked into a extreme story that I can create to illustrate the issues that desperately need to be discussed. I search for truth to interpret this world that is insane. There seems to be a secret side of life that the average, complacent American victim has no idea about, and is partially responsible for. I believe the powers that be are mindlessly manipulating society to satisfy our addiction to greed and power. There are deeper levels of secret organization who are invested in harming upon the uninitiated and poor worldwide.
RC: Also, how did you develop (or evolve) your major pictorial form—the one (or 2 or 3) you use for the big pieces? (Which seems to me like a contemporary melding of classic social & political muralists’ heroic populist representation, teeming with images, use of deep illusionistic space and cracking open Pandora’s Box just enough to let loose some spiritualized microcosmic sci-fi galaxy spinning.)
M: My subject matter stems from what is happening right now and sometimes incorporates the past but shows how they are linked and perpetuated. My paintings are philosophical perspectives on reality and I use real world current issues, juxtaposed with ancient myth, symbolism and my own imagination of the future in order to express a multidimensional way of conceiving of life responsibly and artistically. This is my way of looking into larger fields of time and how the human experience plays itself out. In addition, my work speaks about the unheard and lesser known ideas surrounding our culture like Social Conditioning, Political Power, The Higher Self Psychology, and The Material and Non-Material universe. I use current issues to discover their connection to past events and draft out a diagram of how time may be more akin to something like a four dimensional spherical reality as opposed to linear. There is something happening here and I want to know. There is a saying that goes something like, “If you long for ease and comfort than settle for it, but if your quest is for truth than you must search, and search you will.” And so here I am searching through my work to find what is true.
Two One is one of my favourite artists in Melbourne. I’ve enjoyed finding his work on the streets for many years, starting with his infamous elephant throwies and evolving into giant, yet intricate pieces. His studio work is also amazing. His latest show at Backwoods Gallery “Define Nothing” shows off his latest style and is set to be a cracker judging by the preview shots below.
Shepard Fairey has expressed his disappointment in Obama before, but maybe never with such strong language as he used on his own blog recently when discussing Edward Snowden’s release of documents relating to PRISM and other NSA domestic spying programs. The posters Fairey designed promoting Obama are some of the most iconic political images in a generation, but now Fairey writes, “The extent of Obama’s spying is unacceptable and I feel sickened and betrayed by someone I dedicated a huge amount of time, energy, and money to support based on the way he presented his views as the antithesis of Bush’s. The charge of Edward Snowden with espionage for exposing the Prism program only dims my view of the Obama administration further.”
In the same blog post, Fairey defends Snowden writing, “I got choked up today thinking of the courage it takes to expose a horrible problem when you know you will be brutalized as a consequence. I see nationalism as falling in line with the govt. agenda regardless of how morally flawed it is, while I see patriotism as doing what pushes the country in a morally superior direction, even if it conflicts with govt. policy. We need more patriots and fewer nationalists.”
