Noted artist C215 recently graced a tall building in Paris’s largely working class 13th arrondissement with a huge mural that he describes as a “lovely, simple cat.” A collaborative venture between Le Parcours Street Art du 13e and Itinerrance Gallery, it represents the local government’s attempt to beautify this semi-industrial neighborhood.
Photos by Théo David. Special thanks to Demian Smith of Underground Paris for keeping me informed!
Note: This article is the third in a three part series that discusses how three artists dealt with the topic of histories within their Bushwick Collective murals. Check out part 1 here and part 2 here.
Recently, the Yok and Sheryo shared their “Pipe Dreams” with 5 Pointz in Long Island City. This past week, the duo chose to show the Bushwick Collective their present rather their future. Emblazoned with the locals of Bushwick, such as roaches, rats, pizza, and the devil, their composition contains memories of their travels as well as these traces of home. Titled “Road Trip,” skeletons can be seen surfing, which the Yok took in while in Australia, alongside various characters painting and drinking. Together, each of these cartoons rides an extended motorcycle, joining memories of home and far off excursions.
The complex narratives in their collaborative walls often contain coded jokes as well as the dominant narrative; Ping Pong nicknames references to cartoons find their way into the descriptive elements of each figure. Most endearing of any character Sheryo has created was one that surfaced recently in the crew of cyclists. An alien with other worldly features and was placed between a bearded man and a surfing skeleton in the central part of the piece. The artist said that it represented herself as an illegal alien, going so far as to create a unicorn on the being to match her own clothing that day. This self-portrait sees the artist riding alongside representations of her travels and local friends, enjoying the ride.
Photos by Rhiannon Platt
The London Police are due to show in, well, London next month at StolenSpace Gallery. It’s All Fun & Games Until Someone Gets Hurt centers on theme of sport. As the press release notes, “they have totally mistimed their sterling effort of jumping on the Olympic bandwagon,” but hey, those works are complex things and a show around sport is better late than never.
It’s All Fun & Games Until Someone Gets Hurt opens on May 9th (6-9pm) and runs through May 26th. I’m headed to London in late May, so while I’ll miss the opening myself, I’m looking forward to seeing the show in person.
Photo courtesy of StolenSpace Gallery
Note: This article is the second in a three part series that discusses how three artists dealt with the topic of histories within their Bushwick Collective murals. Check out part 1 here.
Long time collaborators and friends Chris Stain and Billy Mode bring a personal history to each mural they create. Through the years, this partnership has lead to a fast, seamless work ethic. From watching the creation of their wall for Open Walls Baltimore in 24 hours to their latest creation at the Bushwick Collective, which took about a week despite weather conditions, the duo always work in a manner that is astounding in imagery and efficiency. When the two artists find time to break from their schedules of school, family, or skateboarding to take on a new project, it is known that it will be nothing less than awe inspiring. On a series of ladders and forklifts, Chris and Billy become like a structured ballet as they weave around each other, never interrupting the other’s flow except to make the odd joke.
While the artists have great personal history, their imagery deals with their hopes for the future. Billy Mode’s text speaks to this message, telling the youth of the neighborhood that the future is theirs to invent. In addition to the this literal embodiment is a figuritive explanation as two children embrace, sharing their love for each other and the future. These girls represent those who will shape the world’s future, the youth of today. Through a combination of metaphors, Billy Mode and Chris Stain hope to give hope to adolescents, whose creations could one day be seen on the walls of Bushwick.
Photos by Rhiannon Platt
LNY and Celso González recently painted this collaborative piece in Newark, New Jersey. Nice combo.
Photos by LNY
It’s a shortish link-o-rama this week, but with some really good stories and great walls…
Photo by Awer
In the last week, I’ve posted part 1, part 2, and part 3 of our 4-part series of Henrik Haven‘s photographs of Copenhagen graffiti (and a bit of street art). Here is the final post in the series, which I am really loving. Throughout this series, rather than mention some artists in the photos and neglect others, I’m just going to leave the photos without artist credits.
Continue reading “Henrik Haven’s Copenhagen – Part 4”
When I originally approached Droid 907 about his latest zine, Sex or Suicide (Either Way You’re Fucked), it was described as simultaneously the most honest book about graffiti and a collection of lies. This inability to distinguish which stories are strange enough to be true or perhaps so outlandish that they must be fabricated heightens the experience. From tomes written on a buffed square of an abandoned facade to gritty, type-written pages, Droid explores the limits of his medium, in both graffiti and storytelling. Through these pages, the often enigmatic but ever present force of New York graffiti slowly peels back the layers behind his “Droid” persona, or perhaps adds more if the stories are in fact fabricated. With 40 pages of travels, redacted locations, and a cover silkscreened by Bushwick Print Lab, S.o.S. is Droid’s most visceral text to date.
Following a few month span in the artist’s nomadic lifestyle, readers are placed in media res, with no prior knowledge of the author’s relationships with those he encounters. You are suddenly left on the side of the tracks with no contextualization, in an anarchistic manner that mirror’s the text’s aesthetics. To help illuminate the backstories of a few of these individuals, as well as his own artistic practice in creating Sex or Suicide, Vandalog conducted a brief interview with Droid.
Continue reading “Sex or Suicide: Droid 907 says either way you’re fucked”
Pinched this post from Invurt, an absolute MUST see documentary on Melbourne’s graffiti and street art culture. From our awesome train graffiti to street art and gallery art; this documentary gives a great insight into the city I love and the amazing graffiti and street art that I’ve loved since I 1st got on a train as a kid. The movie features friends, favourite artists and familiar places so that makes it even more special.
From Invurt: “Created by Alex MacBeth and Miriam Hison, the documentary ‘Charts the development of the Melbourne street art scene,’ Children of the Iron Snake looks at the last thirty years and tracks the journey of graffiti from railway junctions at night to festivals, abandoned factories, rooftops, drains and galleries. Comprising interviews with over 15 artists, as well as criminologists, anti-graffiti activists, and politicians, the film offers a in-depth look at one of the biggest art movements of our time.”
Pretty much the most amateur thing you can do if you want to wheatpaste a giant poster is to print it out on a bunch of 8.5″ x 11″ sheets and paste them up in a grid. It’s gonna be complicated and probably look terrible. Unless you are part of the Italian street art duo sz zs. They make that 8.5″ 11″ grid work work amazingly well by playing with the possibilities it provides. I’m not artist, but I must say, in my experience as an observer, playing with the constraints you are given rather than staying within them or foolishly trying to ignore them is a one very important secret to successful artwork.
sz zs have been getting up in Venice for a little under a year, and I very much look forward to seeing where they take their project next.
Photos by sz zs
