Sonni is an artist from Argentina who is probably best-known in the rest of the world for the boom box piece he painted in Miami a couple of years back for Primary Flight, shown above. For some more insight into this artist who is painting some of the cutest and most fun murals around, check out this video:
Photo by ohhector
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, both gilf! and Hanksy returned to Little Italy to find parts of their walls for The Art of Comedy damaged and in need for repair. Pieces of the artist’s wheatpaste had been ripped in the storm and another artist had also added some work of their own to the street artist’s wheatpastes. Wedged between two of the final pieces in the panel, a stick figure girl had been draw in peach chalk on the wall beside the word “poop.”
Through the magic of Twitter, Hanksy confirmed that comedian Jim Gaffigan had in fact taken a stroll in the neighborhood past the wall recently. When paying a visit, his children decided to try their hand at some of their own childstyle street art.
Before the artist began buffing the wall I took a picture of the character that Gaffigan’s kids collaborative work next to Hanksy. Working from this photograph, Hanksy recreated the young artist’s drawing on mural, this time making it permanent through spray paint. The stencil is intended to be given to his daughter with the note “for the world’s youngest street artist.”
In addition to repairing existing walls, Hanksy also comepleted the final piece in his series for the New York Comedy Festival. Taking the imagery back to its roots, the artist chose to stencil an “OG Hanksy Rat” between two Italian restaurants. With handwriting similar to that of Gaffigan’s daughter, Hanksy doused the freshly primed space with red paint, bringing a more literal meaning to the saying “caught red handed.”
Photos by Rhiannon Platt
Earlier this week I had the opportunity to see a special preview of The Return of Lencho, the first full-length film written and directed by four-time Emmy Award winning producer Mario Rosales. I’ve been, since, haunted by its vivid portrayal of the ruthless brutality directed against street artists and youth in Rosales’s native Guatemala. Featuring the artwork of Stinkfish, Bastardilla, Aeon and Soft, The Return of Lencho opens tomorrow evening for a one-week run at Manhattan’s Quad Cinema. Mario Rosales will be there to answer questions following tomorrow’s and Saturday’s 7:50pm show and Sunday’s 5pm show.
How are you?
Photos by 4foot2, 16ANDPREGNANT, Herbalizer, ‘N’, photofil, sabeth718, Saner KGB, SOKE, Startape PhotoGraff, and Vitostreet
Chilean artist INTI finished his latest mural in Paris, titled “Our utopia is their future.” This work is 47 meters high and is part of a collaborative effort by Galerie Itinerrance that is turning Paris in to an outdoor gallery.
Photos courtesy of INTI
Pixel Pancho and 2501 were recently in Baltimore for Articulate Baltimore. Here are the two walls that Pixel Pancho painted and the one wall that 2501 painted. Martha Cooper has more photos. They pair are now out in Arizona at The Painted Desert Project. Here’s a video from day one out there.
Photos by Martha Cooper and 2501
Two of our artists for The Art of Comedy were interviewed in some pretty major media outlets today. Hanksy has a Q&A with Time Out New York and Artinfo spoke with gilf! about her political, but non-partisan, street art. Both great reads.
And of course, the above photo of one of gilf!’s pieces for The Art of Comedy is from Brooklyn Street Art’s Images of the Week post.
Photo by Jaime Rojo
The exterior surfaces of many of San Juan’s decayed and abandoned buildings – along with the concrete walls found largely in its public housing projects – have become canvases for some of the most vibrant graffiti and alluring street art that I’ve seen anywhere. Here is a sampling of what we saw on our recent visit:
Bad, a member of the HD crew, escorted us to walls we never would have found on our own, while delivering cans of spray paint to just about every artist getting up in town. Curious about it all, we had the chance to ask him some questions on a brief coffee break:
Tell us about all these cans of spray paint that travel with you. What exactly is your role here?
I represent Montana Colors in the Caribbean. I am its sole distributor.
How did that come to be?
I saw that there was a need here for quality spray paints. Too many graff artists were using cheap paints. When I began getting up in 2002, I used to have to get mine from the States. And this way I am doing a service for the artists, and I am also making money.
How has this job affected your life?
It is my life. I know at least one graff writer in every country. I have a home anywhere I travel. It’s the best life!
How does the graff here in Puerto Rico differ from what you’ve seen elsewhere?
Our styles are more distinct and more varied than most of what I see elsewhere.
Certainly more so than we see back in NYC. How has the graff scene in Puerto Rico changed since you began getting up over 10 years ago?
Back then, most of the writers came from the lower class. That’s not the case anymore. The scene has also been going in cycles. It was huge at the beginning of the century. We hit a low in 2005, and in 2010 it began, once again, to boom.
Any favorite artists?
There are many. Among them: Os Gemeos, the Mac from Germany, Celso here in Puerto Rico…
How do you feel about graff artists exhibiting their work in galleries?
I respect both the artists who promote themselves and the galleries who support them.
How do you feel about the role of the internet in all of this?
It’s definitely been a positive force. I remember when all we had were magazines and photos of our pieces that we mailed back and forth. The internet is a much easier and speedier way for us to share our work.
What do you see as the future of graffiti and street art here in the Caribbean?
You’re here for our first international street art festival that has brought some of the world’s most renowned street artists — including Roa, Ever, Sego and Jaz — to Puerto Rico. This is just the beginning. And in a few weeks, we have a major graffiti jam happening in the Dominican Republic. It just keeps on getting bigger — both here and across the globe.
Photos by Lenny Collado, Dani Mozeson & Lois Stavsky
mobstr has been busy lately with a few new clever text-based stencils around London and a print release that is a bit different from the standard fare from printers like Pictures on Walls or The Outsiders.
What makes mobstr’s latest print, entitled This One, interesting is that it’s a reversible doublesided print with a different image printed on each side of the paper. While I don’t love the images, the idea is cool. This One is an edition of 35 and can be purchased online for £140.
Photos by mobstr
