The diversity of You Go Girl

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Until I was looking through Carnage NYC‘s photos, it never really dawn on my just how much variety You Go Girl has in their work. You Go Girl is one of those rare artists somewhere between a street artist and a graffiti writer who really has no boundaries for how they get up. It could be stickers, rollers, posters, spraypaint… It could be a character, tag, a throw-up… You Go Girl doesn’t fit comfortably any boxes. That sets them apart from a lot of street artists and graffiti writers who seem to find one thing and stick to doing that well until they get recognition for it (and then they keep going but at least by that point they might be getting paid).

Here’s just a small sampling of the different styles of work that You Go Girl produces on the street:

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You Go Girl with The Reader aka Boans
You Go Girl with The Reader aka Boans
You Go Girl with The Reader
You Go Girl with The Reader

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Photos by Carnage NYC

Recently in Oakland, CA…

Ernest Doty, David Polka and Thomas Christopher Haag

One of the most under-appreciated but active street art and graffiti scenes in the USA must be in Oakland, California. Luckily, the site Endless Canvas does great job of posting some of the highlights of what’s going on. Here are a few of my favorite pieces that were just photographed in the last two months…

"May Day" by unknown artist

More after the jump… Continue reading “Recently in Oakland, CA…”

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

Some rollers

Photo by Luna Park

I’ve recently been spending a lot of my recent free time with a paint roller getting the inside of a building to look very white, so to counterbalance that, I’ve been seeking out some more disruptive uses of paint rollers. Here are a few recent pieces that I came across.

Mighty Mo, Sweet Toof and Nemo. Photo by Alex Ellison
Roller and photo by mobstr
You Go Girl! Photo by Damonabnormal
Horror and Rowdy rollers. Rocks by Rowdy. Photo by Becki Fuller

Photos by Luna Park, Alex Ellison, mobstr, Damonabnormal and Becki Fuller