There’s a raw idiosyncratic beauty to the street art that surfaces on the streets of Tel Aviv that continues to mesmerize me. Here’s a small sampling of what I saw on my recent trip:
Photos by Lois Stavsky
Zero Cents‘ distinctly disfigured – often disturbing — characters have been part of Israel’s visual landscape for years. It was quite a thrill to see his work this past week in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
Photos of Zero Cents in Bushwick by Tara Murray; photo with Know Hope in Haifa by Lois Stavsky
The gritty walls of Tel Aviv are among my favorite anywhere. I’m so glad that some of Tel Aviv’s most talented artists will be featured in an exhibit opening this Friday, August 26, at the Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Participating artists include: AME72, Adi Sened, Broken Fingaz, Foma, Klone, Know Hope, Yochai Matos and Zero Cents. Among the images curator Tal Lanir shared with me of these artists’ works on the street are the following:
Fame Festival isn’t the only place artists are taking over abandoned buildings. The leaders of Israel’s street art scene recently painted a building in Tel Aviv for their show Kindred Times and Future Goodbyes. Know Hope, Klone, Foma and Zero Cents all participated. Here are some pics that Know Hope sent me:
More after the jump… Continue reading “Kindred Times and Future Goodbyes”
So a week or two ago Know Hope says to me that he has a secret project in the works. Something about taking over an abandoned house. Sounded like a great idea, but I wasn’t sure if anything would actually come of it. Turns out, Know Hope and his friends were further along than I realized. The project, now called Kindred Times and Future Goodbyes, was well underway. In fact, it’s going to be opening at a secret location in Tel Aviv on Saturday. This is what street art is about.
KINDRED TIMES AND FUTURE GOODBYES
This Saturday
12.9.2009, 17:30-20:30An Exhibition in abandoned house in the form of a collaborative effort between : Foma <3, Klone, Know Hope, Zero Cents.
This exhibition came to life as a natural extension of the constant collaborative creation of the group.
The location is secret on account of legality issues and therefore will be announced at noon time, on the day of the opening.
The exhibition is located in a derelict building that has been abandoned for many years,and was once used for residence. The building remained texture-ridden and saturated with old memories, memories which the artists translate into present time through their artistic interpretation.
The wall paintings are a new periodic layer of paint that add on to the already existing peeled layers of time. The artists use these longstanding layers, which represent remains of personal stories and traces of memories, absorbing the existing textures and inhabiting the building with their artistic and contemporary interpretation.Although the new layer of paint created for this exhibition is soon to become covered with new layers of a renovated building, it is added to a pool of memories which can’t be evaded and enriches it, when it is bound to be preserved between layers of past and future times.
The location and further details to be announced on www.kindredtimes.blogspot.com
The artists have been prepping the building recently. Here’s a couple pics (plus the Zero Cents piece above is part of the show):
Found this wall yesterday across from The Art Lounge. It features work from Mike Marcus, Klone, Foma, and Zero Cents. Mike Marcus lives in London now, but he started out working in Tel Aviv. And Klone, Foma and Zero Cents and some of Tel Aviv’s best known street artists. The only one who seems to be missing here is Know Hope (who, coincidentally, pointed out that Zero Cents and Foma have work in this photo).
