Tag: essam

As I’ve been gearing up for midterms, I’ve missed posting some great outdoor work (and other things) this week.

• Does the buffman have a sense of humor or did mobstr do this himself?
• Barry McGee, Chris Johanson, & Laurie Reid showing together in SF.
• You may have seen the video of Margaret Kilgallen on Art21 before, but here’s some previously unseen footage of her and Barry McGee from that shoot.
• I love this piece by Disk.
• And also this one by the highly underrated Ludvig.
• There’s a fundraiser to benefit Essam, the artist who was beyond those brilliant drone strike posters and then subsequently arrested, taking place later this month.
• Graffiti geeks will love this tattoo flash.
• Jack Murray aka Panik ATG has written a must-read post about some historic London graffiti on The Foundry being covered by a street-art-emulating ad for Microsoft’s Surface. Hopefully somebody once again uses that surface for something creative very soon.
• Ron English has a new colorway of his Temper Tot art toy for sale exclusively on his website.
• I’m not quite sure what has happened here. First, an artist who goes by the name Edwin painted this piece in Hackney Wick. Now, it looks like this. It seems to me that Sweet Toof went up and added his teeth to the piece as a subtle diss to Edwin for ripping off Lenny The High Roller, the character that Sweet Toof and Cyclops used to paint back when their Burning Candy crew really dominated Hackney Wick. Yes, lots of street artists paint skulls and graffiti writers paint skulls, but the similarities here, particularly the eyes and given the location, are too much to ignore as mere coincidence. Also, this might be a stretch, but the hands in Edwin’s piece kinda look like Gold Peg’s hands (who also painted with Burning Candy in Hackney Wick and elsewhere).
• This film about M. Chat is screening in Philadelphia next week at the Slought Foundation. Strange thing though. The description of the film actually never gives the name of the artist, but M. Chat has a Wikipedia article and a Twitter account and shows work in galleries. Additionally, the Slought Foundation has posted downloadable templates of M. Chat’s work for people to customize and put up on their own. I called up the Slought Foundation and was told that Thoma Vuille, the man who it seems was behind M. Chat, is not involved in the show, although the man I spoke with suggested that the M. Chat logo may have been painted by a collective rather than just one man (like The Toasters collective with one logo and multiple members). So, is this appropriation of an unexplained urban mystery or theft an artist’s creation? I’m not one for strict copyright laws, but it does seem to me like the moral thing to do here would be to at least give some credit to Vuille aka M. Chat rather than pretend that the cat is still a complete mystery.

Photo by Carnagenyc