YYY of IDT Crew is an artist based in ShenZhen, China. The work is vivid, colorful and fantastical.
Photos by YYY
Reverse graffiti
This piece is not new, but I only stumbled upon it recently and it seemed too interesting not to share. “Reverse graffiti” is the act of leaving a mark/tag/image by selectively cleaning a surface rather than applying paint. The video above shows Alexandre Orion dealing with São Paulo police who couldn’t make a case when they realized that all he had done was creatively whip away grime. In order to buff his work, the city had to resort to cleaning the whole bridge – a job which clearly needed to be done anyway.
The website Environmental Graffiti posted their top 35 greatest works of reverse graffiti, covering everything from more elaborate versions of writing “clean me” on a dirty car to the large-scale murals of Paul Curtis. Very cool way for street artists and graffiti writers to get their hands dirty (bad pun) without necessarily violating the law.
Photos by Alexandre Orion
El Tono and Momo’s “Impropables”
El Tono and Momo have teamed up to install 52 of these small sculptures around Besancon, France for a project they call “Impropbables”. On El Tono’s website, there are a few photos showing how they installed the pieces, which shows how they really worked with the space to fit the materials in with few extra tools. The two also produced a zine documenting the project, which is available here.
What’s beautiful about this project is the subtlety of the work. It might not jump out to a lot of people, but I think to come across one of these pieces and realize that it was placed there intentionally would be a really special and thought provoking find.
Photos courtesy of Momo
Via Graffuturism
Kosbe at Woodward Gallery Project Space
There’s a raw elegance to Kosby’s aesthetic that has intrigued me since I first came upon his stickers and paste-ups a number of years back on an array of public surfaces in Brooklyn and Manhattan. It’s great to see it now gracing the Woodward Gallery Project Space on Manhttan’s Lower East Side, where it is visible to so many. Here are a few close-ups from the four-panel installation, Borrowed Time, that officially “opened” this weekend.
Photo courtesy of Woodward Gallery and by Lenny Collado
Entes and Pesimo in Pamplona Alta, Peru
Last month, Entes and Pesimo participated in a grassroots project Alegrarte in Lima, Peru. This initiative stands out to me, particularly because of its focus to exist outside the city’s various arts districts. Alegrarte focused on bringing artists, such as Entes & Pesimo to decorate, revive and uplift Pamplona Alta, a shantytown in the outskirts of Lima. This is the project’s first go, and I’m hopeful that more attention will be brought to areas such as this; areas that do not have a potable water source, roads, or available long term educational opportunities.
Pamplona Alta is home to hundreds of families that settled in the mid to late 1980s, as a response to violence brought by The Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso), a revolutionary group known for its violence and extreme measures of political revolt. This growing township still struggles with developmental and infrastructural dilemmas; thankfully artists and various non-profit organizations aim to beautify the town in more than one way, and as a response I’m hoping to see more attention brought to larger scale problems. Art is powerful, voilà!
Photos courtesy of Entes & Pesimo
Weekend link-o-rama
Okay Christmas and new years are over. Let’s get back to real life.
- Blanco uses water to freeze a poster to a wall in Mongolia.
- Some great new tiny work by oaKoaK and Slinkachu.
- NoseGo has a show at Slingluff Gallery’s new Honesdale, Pennsylvania location.
- If you’ve never seen Evan Roth give a talk before, here’s a good one to start with.
- Aakash Nihalani has a show coming up in NYC at Jonathan Levine Gallery.
- Looks like the Living Walls team had a good time in Miami.
- A show with two members of DRUGS Crew (Panda Sex and Mark Cross) just opened at New Image Art in LA. Sounds really interesting.
Photo by Jake Dobkin
An ad disruption inside an ad disruption inside an ad disruption
Jordan Seiler of Public Ad Campaign is a one man powerhouse challenging the ubiquitous presence of outdoor advertisements. For a bit of context on Jordan’s relationship with the city’s advertisers, here’s an interesting short story: two years ago, Jordan took over three billboards in Philadelphia during an exhibition of his in the city for a project he called “Let me handle this”. Rather than leave it at that, he asked the ad companies to allow the works to remain for the duration of his show and explained that if any one of the works were to be taken down, he would put two up in New York City. All three pieces were removed and Jordan, a man of his word, put up 6 new takeovers in New York, posing the same threat against the New York ad companies so that if any of these takeovers were to be removed two would go up in Philadelphia. The show ended before any of those 6 were taken down, though Seiler hoped that they would be removed so he could continue to put up work. The moral of the story is that Jordan is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to advertisements in public space. You can read more about the “Let me handle this” project here.
In more recent news, Jordan revisited a phone booth which he had taken over twice before: The first time he hit it with his signature weave pattern. When that got taken down, he took the space over again with a photo of that last takeover. Recently, Jordan took over the ad space again with a photo of the last takeover, and thus leaving a photo of a photo of an ad disruption. Or more appropriately, an ad disruption within an ad disruption within an ad disruption. The work here is probably one of my favorite ad takeovers Jordan has done to date, and I’d say in my top 5 favorites of all time.
We can see through Jordan’s documentation that the phone booth is getting a bit beat up over time but the leaning of the phone booth gives the image a sort of Twilight Zone effect. It’s like an echo of a single act. I’d love to see Jordan keep going with this.
Photos by Jordan Seiler
Ever, 2501, and Pixelpancho side by side
This recent collaboration in Miami includes some of 2012’s breakthrough street artists sharing a wall: Ever, 2501, and Pixelpancho, plus a base (although I don’t have a good photo of this part of the wall unfortunately) by El Topo.
Photos courtesy of Ever and by Wil Hughes
Toronto’s alluring characters, Part I: Troy Lovegates, Patrick Evoke, Hunto, Jarus and more
From the photorealistic to the abstract, the characters on Toronto’s public spaces captivate. Here are a few more:
Photos by Sara Mozeson
Waone in India
This piece by Waone of Interesni Kazki is called Lost Sheep and it’s in a little backstreet of Kochi, India. I know Interesni Kazki have done some huge murals and people really seem to love those, but I prefer their smaller works like this one. Their smaller pieces become a part of the environment rather than looking like a giant canvas attached to a wall.
Here’s a video to give a sense of the area where the piece was painted:
Photos courtesy of Interesni Kazki