All posts tagged: 2:32 AM Projects

“Beautifully Destroyed” : RISK Rocks in Cleveland

“Beautifully Destroyed” : RISK Rocks in Cleveland

West Coast graffiti superstar RISK, bomber of freeway overpasses, designer of graffiti-inspired clothing, regaler of rap and rock videos; a self-aware sage-like lion-maned merging of Rick Rubins, Greg Allman, and a Norse Yggdrasil, now brings you the psychedelic slaughter of a Cleveland façade.

RISK in collaboration with Graffiti HeArt. Cleveland, Ohio. July 2019. (photo © Graffiti HeArt)

“We had crowds come every day to watch us paint,” he says of the technicolor splashfest he did along with Nashville artist Chris Zidek. The mural wraps the entire venue, a nonprofit that raises money to provide educational scholarships to youth who can use them – among other missions. With his distinctive style of saturated striped washes flooding the entire block Risk foregoes the letterform on the outside, but ventured in to catch a wild styled tag.

About this new full-spectrum piece that ties together his nearly forty years of graffiti practice along with his contemporary art practice, the muralist says, “I call it beautifully destroyed.”

RISK in collaboration with Graffiti HeArt. Cleveland, Ohio. July 2019. (photo © Graffiti HeArt)
RISK in collaboration with Graffiti HeArt. Cleveland, Ohio. July 2019. (photo © Graffiti HeArt)
RISK leaves his mark inside the building. In collaboration with Graffiti HeArt. Cleveland, Ohio. July 2019. (photo © Graffiti HeArt)
RISK leaves his mark inside the building. In collaboration with Graffiti HeArt. Cleveland, Ohio. July 2019. (photo © Graffiti HeArt)
RISK in collaboration with Graffiti HeArt. Cleveland, Ohio. July 2019. (photo © Graffiti HeArt)
RISK in collaboration with Graffiti HeArt. Cleveland, Ohio. July 2019. (photo © Deshon Jones)
RISK in collaboration with Graffiti HeArt. Cleveland, Ohio. July 2019. (photo © Graffiti HeArt)

This project is sponsored by Graffiti HeArt. Our thanks to gallerist/collector Brian Greif for images and on-the-ground information.

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Blek Le Rat Tours the US South

Blek Le Rat Tours the US South

Tennessee and Texas Sample a Certain Street Savoir Faire

Look out for Le Rat!

He’s getting up in places down south that you wouldn’t normally associate with a French Street Artist, much less the one who started stenciling in a style and manner unusual on Paris walls in ’81 – an antecedent for much of what we later would call ‘Street Art”. 

Blek Le Rat. Houston, TX. (photo © Brian Greif)

Thanks to gallerist and collector Brian Greif, Blek Le Rat made a run for it through Texas in cities like Waco, Austin, and Houston – after spending a week teaching students at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville how to create stencils in his distinct style.  

It was a unique experience for the artist roughly 40 years after he first began doing these same activities illegally and under cover of night – and Greif tells us that the artist was so moved by the large audiences and appreciation by new fans that he is even encouraged to return.

Blek Le Rat. Houston, TX. (photo © Brian Greif)

“I think its time now to go back to the real sources of street art by painting real walls in real cities and not just the major cities around the world,” says Blek in an interview with Greif. “We need to touch people by painting walls in cities that have not experienced this movement.”

Blek Le Rat. Nashville. (photo © Brian Greif)
Blek Le Rat. Nashville. (photo © Brian Greif)
Blek Le Rat. Nashville. (photo © Brian Greif)
“So two cats walk into a bar…” Blek Le Rat. Nashville. (photo © Brian Greif)
Blek Le Rat. Nashville. (photo © Brian Greif)
Blek Le Rat. Austin, TX. (photo © Brian Greif)
Blek Le Rat. Austin, TX. (photo © Brian Greif)
Blek Le Rat. Waco, TX. (photo © Brian Greif)
Blek Le Rat. Waco, TX. (photo © Brian Greif)
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Faith XLVII Flies Her Flags “Unbound” in San Francisco

Faith XLVII Flies Her Flags “Unbound” in San Francisco

As an artist you can sometimes address, even resolve, emotional and intellectual conflicts with your creative practice, at least that it how it appears in this new “Unbound” campaign begun by Faith XLVII in San Francisco. A lifelong observer and analyst of socio-politico events and their greater implications, the South African graffiti/Street Artist tells us that today the state of many things cause her feelings of frustration.

Faith XLVII . Unbound. San Francisco, CA. July 2018. (photo courtesy of 2:32 AM Projects)


“Watching the disharmony, the dismantling of human rights and the continuous struggle for equality is exhausting,” she says.
“The only way I can keep going is if I can transform some of this into my work.”


Each flag here at the corner of Golden Gate Ave and Hyde Street in downtown San Francisco speaks to the root of many societal ills, a coded reference to a poem/manifest by Dion Fortune named “The Cosmic Doctrine.”

Faith XLVII . Unbound. San Francisco, CA. July 2018. (photo courtesy of 2:32 AM Projects)

Here in the heart of the Tenderloin district where the fallout of emotional and physical pain and abuse is played out on the streets openly by those seeking to dull the torment with drugs, the winsome and lithe artist talks about the power of the manifesto for her.

“It is not that I believe in an idealistic future, on the contrary I am at times overwhelmed with cynicism. But despite this, I do think that we have to push for the betterment of the future, for the sheer love of the planet and for each other.”

Faith XLVII . Unbound. San Francisco, CA. July 2018. (photo courtesy of 2:32 AM Projects)

And the flowing golden umber fabric at the tips of these poles? I spent time researching the symbolism of the white flag as well as the history of the Peace Manifesto,” she says, and talks about them taking many forms, “with voices spanning from the scientist who is protesting the use of the atom bomb, to Greenpeace and worker parties to Woman’s Rights associations.”

“The words speak of an existential search, for essentially, this is the root of our suffering and confusion.”

Avalon of the Heart
The Building of The Atom
The Beginnings of Consciousness
The Beginnings of Mind
The Creation of a Universe
Evolution Upon the Cosmic Planes
Influences Upon Humanity
The Natural Laws
The Law of Polarity
Influences Acting on Human Evolution
The Law of Action and Reaction
The Evolution of Form and Mind
The Evolution of Consciousness
The Evolution of a Solar System
Developing the Power to Communicate Thoughts
The Manifested Universe

Faith XLVII . Unbound. San Francisco, CA. July 2018. (photo courtesy of 2:32 AM Projects)

Faith XLVII . Unbound. San Francisco, CA. July 2018. (photo courtesy of 2:32 AM Projects)

Faith XLVII . Unbound. San Francisco, CA. July 2018. (photo courtesy of 2:32 AM Projects)

 


The “Unbound” Mural Project is for UC Hastings College of Law in San Francisco, California.

 

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