Claudio Ethos sent over these photos of some of his latest pieces. Such a masterful painter, large and small scale. I can’t believe he isn’t in more mural festivals.
Continue reading “Ethos in Rio de Janeiro and Sydney”
Brian Barneclo, Alexis Diaz of La Pandilla and Ever recently spent two weeks at The Painted Desert Project, a mural project in the Navajo Nation organized by Jetsonorama. We posted about Ever’s work in the desert last week and Diaz’s walls over the weekend. Finally, here’s what Barneclo painted.
Photos courtesy of Jetsonorama
I recently met PMER/CATELLOVISION at X On Main in Beacon, New York. He has been kind enough to share with me some of the photos from his extensive collection of graffiti photography. This is the first post of what will hopefully be many, and look back into an era before street art and blogs and Oscar-nominated films, an under-appreciated era in the history of graffiti. Because some Vandalog readers will certainly be less familiar with this kind of graffiti than what we normally cover and because many of PMER/CATELLOVISION‘s photos have undergone edits to become artworks in and of themselves rather than simply documentation, this post starts with his explanation of his photographs. Enjoy! – RJ
“It’s graffiti. I like to twist it up, rock it up, shake it up, fingerfuck to fuck it up. I learned a long time ago not to trust graffiti artists. We’re a rare breed. Cut throat motherfuckers! Wreckless. Disrespectful with a shrug. We DGAF! I rock CatelloVision on each photograph because I deserve it. I earned it. I lived it. It may be your art but it’s still my memory. Besides, I was taught at an early age to write my name on everything. Each picture I choose to edit rocked me upon first seeing it. It’s that “Yo!” factor. Turnin’ the corner to see that wall for the first time, “YO!” Being a little kid in the midst of adults on a train platform while a dope train rolls in, “YO!” It was like Christmas! I had the camera and an endless supply of stolen film. I went everywhere and had friends in the lowest of places. It was the 1980’s and I was a little kid, a Brooklyn graffiti writing scumbag calling himself PM. All I ever wanted was to write my name on a wall and inspire a memory. I’m not sure if I have yet. Everybody is too busy paying attention to sugar coated graffiti dudes. I favor the underdogs. The dudes time forgot. . Graffiti is fucked up like that. You put in all this time and energy and have nothing to show for it in the end but a picture, and most dudes don’t even have that. Graffiti! The greatest sport ever played. It’s method & mischief. It’s Mission. It’s a coked out whore at last call. I’ve danced with this Devil almost 30 years now. It’s the only way I know how to live. It’s how I was brought up. It’s graffiti man! I love it and sometimes it loves me too.”
– PMER/CATELLOVISION: Graffiti’s bitch! A writer, painter, historian and pusher.
Artist, Photographer & Owner of X On Main: A Contemporary Art Gallery located in Beacon NY.
Continue reading “From the PMER/CATELLOVISION vault…”
Faith47 just painted two pieces in London: london. you beast which you can see from Leonard Street in Shoreditch, and a sacrifice on the altar of science at The Old Truman Brewery. Props to Global Street Art for arranging the wall on Leonard Street.
Photos courtesy of Faith47
Hyuro is currently at work in Copenhagen painting a massive (271-meter long) mural. I really want to drive along this road once the piece is done. She also has a solo show, In/Between, of 17 drawings opening in a few days at ArtRebels (Nørre Voldgade 18) in Copenhagen. In/Between opens on Friday the 24th from 5-8pm and runs through June 15th.
About the mural, Hyuro says:
“In the battle of opposites, nobody wins and nobody loses. It’s just a cycle, just another one. A deer runs and disappears in the trees, the forest devouring it in its branches. You can’t win the race against time. The night will come first and bring its darkness, but Copenhagen can sleep peacefully. The sun will rise again in the morning and the deer will continue along his way. Nature takes its course. Nature meets city meets nature; chaos meets order meets chaos; night meets day meets night.”
Check out more more pictures of the mural in progress and a preview of the show after the jump… Continue reading “Hyuro at work on her 271 meter long wall in Copenhagen”
Alexis Diaz of La Pandilla, Ever and Brian Barneclo just wrapped up their visit to The Painted Desert Project, a mural project in the Navajo Nation organized by Jetsonorama. We posted about Ever’s work in the desert earlier this week. Here’s Alexis Diaz contributions. Look out for another post with Brian Barneclo’s work soon.
Photos by Jetsonorama and Alexis Diaz
2501 has his first LA solo show opening later this month at Soze Gallery in Los Angeles. 2501 has very quickly become a must-have artist on the global mural festival circuit, and so I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of new work from him this summer, but his indoor work is equally breathtaking. The show, See you on the other side, opens DATE. Soze Gallery will follow up 2501’s show with a solo show from his friend Pixelpancho in June.
2501 also sent me this text to serve as an introduction to the show. It is written from the perspective of Gargamella, the villain from The Smurfs:
How many lines (circles) (shapes) did I paint (draw), altogether?
The question seems plain. Indeed, actual numbers are often given. But they disagree and – other than variants of “many”- most of them are meaningless because they give equal weight to flea-rabbit and horse-elephant.
The circle shape (form) and its content (lines or void or macchie) discourage the search for a single numerical answer.
With minimal aesthetic of the monotone use of color (variations of black and white with glance of gold and fluo steam) 2.501 questions the deeper meaning of a propensity toward abstraction and toward infinity.
Playing hide and seek with lines and into circles, 2501 creates a vast moving image pervaded by dialectic between seriality –(reality) and disruption, between repetition and variation. (Roughness and smoothness)
Lines highlight the dynamics of graphic influences trough a constant evocative crescendo of juxtaposing and layering; video, tools, images and sounds trace a living path that weaves between explosions and silence, devastation and contemplation, (rise and fall).
Acting as a portal to somewhere else and as a threshold to the exhibition, the circles reveal a process of hidden connections and cuts, became a bridge without linear shape through which the comprehension of the ways of seeing are challenged. Evolving (animated) surface suggest vertiginous ways of experiencing / seeing/ visualizing, according to the point of view that sight is continually active, continually moving, continually holding things in a circle around itself, constituting what is present to people as they are.
How many circle (lines) (shape) will I paint (draw), altogether? I don’t know but I keep looking for (looking at- we only see what we look at) an infinite (we never look at just one thing) numerical answer. Because the relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. And the aim has been to start a process of questioning.
(to look is an act of choice and a process)
Photo courtesy of 2501
NoseGo has been quite a jetsetter this month. The above mural was painted in LA thanks to Branded Arts and Thinkspace Gallery, and then he headed off to Newcastle, England for his show at Unit 44, where he painted this piece:
Photos by NoseGo
Today I’m finishing my exams and packing up my dorm. Sunday, it’s off to London. Can’t wait. Here’s what I’ve been distracting myself with this week:
Photo courtesy of Trustocorp
Banksy‘s Slave Labour mural is back at auction. It and another piece (Wet Dog) were up for sale at an art auction in Miami back in February, but both pieces were withdrawn at the last minute after intense media attention, outcries from the local community where the piece used to be located, and speculation as to the legality of the wall’s removal. For more background on the original sale, read this post from February.
This time, Business Insider (your news site for all things Banksy) is reporting that the Slave Labour wall is being sold at a private event scheduled for June 2nd at the London Film Museum. While Business Insider claims that the piece could sell for as much as £450,000, I think that’s a bit high. Yes, street pieces might one day be valuable, but so far Banksy’s street pieces have failed to reach anywhere near the price that his gallery work has sold for, presumably at least in part because Pest Control refuses to authenticate street pieces. For £450,000, you could get a really iconic and authenticated Banksy painting.
Alan Strickland, a local politician representing the area where the piece was originally located, credits his efforts and the efforts of his community for the piece being withdrawn back in February and hopes to stop the sale of the piece this time as well.
It’s still not clear who owns the wall at the moment, but my money is on the owners of the building where it was painted. Otherwise, would they run to the police and report the wall as stolen property?
Also, isn’t this whole business of naming Banksy’s street pieces a bit funny? These aren’t names that Banksy came up with. They are just names that the media and us fans use to identify the works, but we treat them like official titles.
Photo courtesy of Banksy, aka lifted from his website
