All posts tagged: LiebezurfarbeRise

We arrived from the overnight flight to London at 6 a.m., tucked into a full English breakfast (hold the Marmite, thanks), and headed underground to get properly lost on the Tube. A quick check-in with a Banksy sculpture seemed appropriate, given the current state of the world: nations rattling sabers, the rule of law looking increasingly negotiable, rumors of hot wars and troops on the ground, anonymous bomb threats to airlines, food freezers mysteriously going offline, and food and fuel prices that keep climbing. Or perhaps we’ve become so accustomed to the daily drama that we’re projecting all the world’s troubles onto one of Banksy’s impromptu public interventions. That poor sculpture never stood a chance.

Thank the graffiti gods, then, that we ran smack into Mark Rigney, the brains behind Hooked Blog, who’s been keeping a sharp eye on London’s street art scene for years. Mark assured us that whatever maladies we’d left behind in New York were alive and well here: the hunt for affordable food and housing, the steady gentrification of artists’ neighborhoods, and a rolling confusion of facts, rumors, and official pronouncements. Across Europe, people are being advised to stock up on food and water in preparation for emergencies that remain rather vaguely defined. It’s enough to make you wonder who’s sending the messages, what they know, and whether you should pick up a few extra tins of beans.

Fortunately, Hackney still has plenty to say for itself. Despite the relentless appetite of real estate developers, its streets remain a lively collision of messages, characters, colors, and competing claims to public space. And who better to navigate them than Mark, who knows where to find a somewhat hidden Zabou, a partially submerged Sweet Toof boat in a canal, and the latest evidence that London’s street art history is still hiding in plain sight? He also took us to the new V&A East Storehouse, where the museum has devised the rather ingenious proposition of inviting the public to explore its collections while they’re still in storage. Imagine that: a museum letting you see what museums usually keep out of sight.

So, with the world’s problems temporarily left to sort themselves out, we charged through an afternoon of unexpected discoveries, old friends, disappearing landmarks, and new ideas. London is still changing faster than anyone can comfortably keep up with, but hopefully we’ll know where to look before something worth seeing has slipped between the cracks.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Abraham O, Agent Decoy, Banga, Banksy, CEPT.TRP, Cool JC Art, Dale Grimshaw, LieberzurfarbeRise, Old Bones Art, Phlegm , SMO, Sweet Toof, Z.E.N. Art, and Zabou.

All week BSA is in London with Urban Nation Museum to talk to people about the street art and graffiti scene and Urban Nations’ celebrations of 10 years of existance.