How INSA strikes a balance between the street and the internet

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INSA just finished this new GIF-ITI piece at le M.U.R. XIII in Paris. I haven’t posted about INSA since the release of Viral Art, so I think it’s time to revisit his GIF-ITI work.

As I and many others have noted, INSA’s GIF-ITI is clearly designed for the internet. But what I like about it is that it’s not only for the internet. Blu’s animations look great as a finished product, but they’re not so beautiful if you visit those walls in person long after Blu has left. Some murals photograph well or make sense when you look at them, but they don’t pop or make sense when you see them in person. Others look great in person, but are difficult to photograph. INSA’s GIF-ITI pieces work amazingly well online (certainly better than most still photos) and still looks great on the street. That’s an uncommon combination.

For in-progress photos of this piece, see INSA’s blog.

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Animations by INSA

Melbourne Monthly Madness – April 2013

Another massive month in Melbourne in April with some great events, shows and work on the streets. This month I’ve also decided to include a bit more on graff and also some work off the streets in some of Melbourne’s awesome abandos.

Melbourne Train Graff - Photo by lukey006 on instagram
Melbourne Train Graff. Photo by Luke McManus.

There’s been an explosion of panels running in Melbourne recently, including a couple of whole cars. Whilst some of the pieces are not the best in quality it’s still rad to see so much graff on trains again lately. Are the authorities asleep? Or is it our lack of trains to meet demand to blame so they HAVE to run them? The best of Melbourne graffiti Facebook page is a good place to keep up with what’s running, they cover anything running each day on the Melbourne rail network (good and bad). Here’s my favourite flick from the page for April. Continue reading “Melbourne Monthly Madness – April 2013”

Broken Fingaz’s solo show in Vienna

If you’re a Broken Fingaz fan in Vienna, you’re in luck. If you’re not a Broken Fingaz fan but you are in Vienna, you’re still in luck because you’re about to become a fan. If you’re a Broken Fingaz fan and are not in Vienna (like me) but can afford to travel there (not like me), call work and tell them you’re sick because this Thursday, June 28th they have yet another solo show (because let’s be honest, who’s going to put work next to BF’s?) opening at Inoperable Gallery. For this show, they’ll be exhibiting some new works alongside pieces from their recent show in London and will hang through the month of the July. The piece above, done recently on the side of the gallery, is entitled “Chase the Devil” which is a play on the long history of Devil mythology in Vienna.

It seems that Unga will not be apart of this show, but he’s been busy; Unga and Insa have been blowing up the ‘Reblog’ button with this dope mural GIF. He also put up work with Lush in London and in Paris with Seth, Dem189 and Babs which was probably around the time of the group show in Paris, for which Broken Fingaz showed alongside Pure Evil and  Pascal Le Gras.

Photos courtesy of Inoperable Gallery

INSA uses crowdsourcing to paint LA mural

Last month, INSA was planning to go to LA to paint a mural, but he needed money for a flight and other costs of getting to and staying in LA. To raise the money, he sent out an appeal to his fans through his blog and offered a series of 12 paintings for sale (shown here). Anyone who bought a painting would also get their name painted on the mural, a photo of the mural, a thank you letter and an INSA goodie bag. By reaching out directly to his fans, offering the works at a discount and explaining exactly how the money would be used to fund more art, INSA was able to raise enough money to get to LA. Here are some photos of INSA’s latest wall with LA Freewalls. Check out more on INSA’s blog.

Photos by Todd Mazer

Via VNA

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

Weekend link-o-rama

Swoon in New York City

A day late, but here’s the link-o-rama. Let’s just say it feels like I’ve been competing, exactly one year on, with Ben Eine for the title of having had the strangest week. Here’s what I’ve missed:

Photo by Sabeth718

INSA at London Miles

 

I know Vandalog doesn’t usually post about non-street art shows, but the latest at London Miles Gallery off Brick Lane piqued my interest. The show is entitled Guilty Pleasures & Modern Vices, which artists will depict a modern version of the Seven Deadly Sins. The line-up consists of mostly pop surrealists and contemporary modern figurative painters, but among them is INSA. As a fan of his colorful abstracts and hyper realistic portraiture, I am looking forward to see what piece he submits. I’m thinking desire or voyeurism for his theme?

Weekend link-o-rama

ARGH LHR in London

Well I’m on my way back to Philadelphia this weekend. I can’t wait to get there and back into the swing of things. Random comment about Philly: If anyone knows of any photographers who are actively documenting street art and graffiti there, please let me know. Anyway, here’s what we missed this week:

Photo by nolionsinengland