Retna at the historical Bowery/Houston wall

Photo by i_follow

Keith Haring. Daze. Os Gemeos. Barry McGee. All of these artists have painted murals at the same spot at Bowery and Houston in New York City. The Street Spot has a history of the spot over the last five years, but it’s been being painted since at least the 1980’s. This week, Retna became the most recent great artist to paint at Bowery and Houston. Unfortunately, I’m not on the east coast right now because I would have loved to have seen this mural being painted, but plenty of New York photographers have been over to document the new mural both in progress on Monday and Tuesday and as a completed piece. Check out some of my favorite shots by Matthew Kraus after the jump… Continue reading “Retna at the historical Bowery/Houston wall”

Weekend link-o-rama

Ludo in Paris

It’s officially spring break, which meant the last week for me has primarily consisted of sitting at my desk where I read and type furiously until my eyes are tearing up and my fingers are sore. It also means I could only blog when procrastinating and that the next few days should be a chance to write some longer posts that I’ve been sitting on. In the mean time, here’s what I’ve been finding around the web this week:

  • The man who came up with the Broken Windows Theory died this week.
  • Great piece by You Go Girl on a bus.
  • If you like graffiti writers moving beyond text and generally pushing graffiti’s boundaries, make sure to check out this video of Askew.
  • Todd James has a new print out at Pictures on Walls.
  • Great group show coming up in London with Matt Small, MyMo, Sickboy, Fefe, Monica Canilao, Remi, Best Ever and more.
  • Stinkfish‘s work is on the cover of Diplomat Magazine this month thanks to Jeannine Saba. Here’s the cover.
  • David de la Mano did a fantastic job brightening up this spot in Uruguay.
  • Interesting article about street art that definitely makes a real difference in the world.
  • Plaztik Mag’s latest video features work by Skewville, Roa and Bast and is creepy/awesome.
  • The Living Walls Conference has two great announcements this week: 1. They are now a 501(c)(3), aka an official non-profit organization. 2. In addition to the annual conference, there will be 6 “Living Walls Concepts” mini-events throughout the year, starting in March.
  • Craig Ward wrote a letter critiquing Banksy’s critique of advertisers. Given: Banksy is one of the world’s best marketers himself. Beyond that, the letter is a bit of a mess and Ward points out that he has worked in advertising himself. Clearly, it’s written from the perspective of someone who has lost his perspective and seems to boil down to “There’s worse stuff in the world, so umm, please leave advertisers alone.” No doubt that there are greater evils in the world than the public advertising that seems to be the primary target of Banksy’s critique of advertising, but that sure as hell doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. Additionally, one of Ward’s points as to why traditional advertising isn’t as bad as Banksy’s advertising is that traditional advertisers pays for the locations they use. With that argument, Ward completely disregards both the negative externalities of massive ad campaigns that occur regardless of how much the advertiser pays (compared to the documented positive externalities of Banksy’s street art) and the illegal nature of many advertising campaigns which do not pay the government for the space that they use. By his standard, hiring an assassin to kill someone might be better than doing it yourself, because at least there’s money involved and somebody is getting paid for their time.

Photo by Ludo

Above: What goes up…

It’s great to see Above doing text work. Definitely what I prefer over his stenciling. What Goes Up was painted at Origin Wines in Cape Town, South Africa.

Speaking of Above, Fecal Face have just posted a preview of the special edition of his book Passport. I’ve also got one of these giant books leaning on my wall. Hopefully that will be a good enough reminder that I need to bring my passport to the airport on Friday even though I’m not flying internationally. Hopefully.

Anyway, here’s a video of What Goes Up getting painted…

WHAT GOES UP from ABOVE on Vimeo.

Photo by Above

New Works by CRASH Pay Homage to Time on the Subways @ NYC’s TT Underground

Over 30 years ago, Crash’s visual rhythms were riding the subways of New York City.  These early images have remained a consistent source of inspiration to the artist, as well as to the next generation of writers.  Through Friday March 11th Crash’s new art paying homage to his time on the trains can be seen at TT Underground in Manhattan’s East Village.  My favorites are the ones the legendary Crash – born John Matos — has fashioned on aluminum pieces constructed by his friend, Metal Man Ed.  Here’s a sampling:

And here he is back in 1980:

And, more recently, on the streets of the South Bronx:

Gallery images by John Matos & Lois Stavsky; outdoor images, courtesy John Matos

Weekend link-o-rama

Jade in Ecuador

It’s still technically the weekend for a few hours, so writing this is the perfect procrastination tool before I get down to doing homework. Hopefully you can take advantage of these links in a similar fashion:

  • Phlegm has a new print available. Quite a beauty.
  • A Love Letter For You, a film related to Steve Powers‘ project of the same name but also not the standard documentary you might expect, will be released soon. Here’s the trailer.
  • It’s definitely NSFW but also definitely worth checking out: F*CK ART at the Museum of Sex.
  • I’m guessing Vandalog will cover this in more detail with a full post and not just this tiny mention, but here are a boatload of shots from Os Gemeos’ show in LA.
  • Unurth happened to post cool optical illusion pieces this week by e1000ink and Rub Kandy.
  • Few things I’d rather see on a truck than a horse by Reminisce.
  • High Rise Murals is sort of a new project from Monorex. It organizes all of their murals (read: massive painted outdoor advertisements) under one banner. They launched High Rise Murals in two ways: By having INSA paint a mural and painting a massive Coca-Cola advertisement over some great graffiti. After someone very publicly shamed them, High Rise Murals selectively buffed the advertisement to make it look intentional and not about the massive tag (HW stands for the location of the advertisement, Hackney Wick). Over Twitter, Monorex said that they “are now in phase 2, re commissioning wall with artists.” This phase is also known as phase oh crap, we really screwed the pooch on this one and it’s time to backpedal. Monorex claim that phase two was always the plan, but I don’t see any reason to believe that. Artists need to get paid and painting advertisements can be a lucrative way to do that, but I think we can all agree that painting over graffiti and street art to replace it with advertising is not cool. Let’s hope High Rise Murals have learned from this experience and stop going over murals and art with advertisements.

Photo by Jade

In Progress: UGLAR x ZES Mural

UGLAR x ZES, as yet untitled mural

As RJ recently mentioned, L.A. is alive right now and ZES’s “Excavated Revelations” (a collaboration with RETNA which runs through February 25 at Known Gallery) is a big part of that.

But shows aren’t the only thing contributing to that feeling. Commissioned by the Holdup Gallery, ZES is currently collaborating with UGLAR’s Evan Skrederstu and Jose A. Lopez on the facade of the old Brunswig Drug Company Factory Building in Little Tokyo.

Originally built in 1931, this art deco tower now hosts a seamless integration of ZES and Lopez’s abstract work, one flowing into the other–and echoing, with one of ZES’s trademark curvatures in its lower left corner, a nautilus shell’s curl. These bursts of color frame an unsettling juxtaposition: an orangutan holding an AK-47 and what will be a walkie-talkie when Skrederstu completes it.

Location: On 2nd, west of Central, next to the Second Street Jazz Bar.

Close-ups: Skrederstu's Orangutan, Lopez & ZES's Flowing Abstractions

Photos by Ryan Gattis

Abstraction by Nelio

Nelio is a street artist hailing from Lyon, France. He has been painting for 14 years. His signature street work is composed of colorful and geometrical shapes, which are inspired by the atmosphere of the place they’re painted.

Photos by Neilo