All posts tagged: Mark Rigney

Mark Rigney, BSA Wishes And Hopes For 2019

Mark Rigney, BSA Wishes And Hopes For 2019

December 28, 2018

As we draw closer to the new year we’ve asked a very special guest every day to take a moment to reflect on 2018 and to tell us about one photograph that best captures the year for them. It’s a box of treats to surprise you with every day – and conjure our hopes and wishes for 2019. This is our way of sharing the sweetness of the season and of saying ‘Thank You’ to you for inspiring us throughout the year.

Today’s special guest:

Mark Rigney, photographer, writer, founder of London-based Hooked Blog

Looking back it was for me a year of adventure and travel as I continue my ongoing journey to document the ever-changing and evolving street art movement.  Each year the number of festivals I revisit annually is ever increasing and throughout 2018 I made return visits to WaterfordWalls in Ireland; Nuart in Scotland and The Crystal Ship in Belgium.

This was the year I made it to my first PowWow which also happened to be the first European edition of the festival taking place in a city new to me, Rotterdam. Each year I make an effort to pick one or two new festivals or destination to visit and along with PowWow in Rotterdam; FestiWall in Ragusa Sicily, CVTA Fest in Civitacampomarano deep in the Campobasso countryside in Italy were just some of the new events that will now join my annual list.

Of the thousands of photographs I shot this year I have selected this image of British street artist Phlegm. I took this photograph on a particularly cold day earlier in the year while the artist was taking a much needed coffee break from working on a large mural in the East London neighbourhood of Walthamstow.

We talked about his Cigarette card series, which has seen him producing a magical series of wood engravings, copper engravings and copper etchings each no bigger than 7×3.5cm. Working under a magnifying glass these beautiful miniature artworks are packed with delicate line work with which Phlegm plans to scan and produce a mini book.

Phlegm spoke about experimenting and challenging himself so as not to become comfortable and how working on the series at such a small scale has really altered his line work in the larger murals he is painting. I look forward to seeing the entire collection in the forthcoming book which I hope will get released in 2019.

 

— Location: London, UK

— March 2018

 

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Mark Rigney and Ad Busting : 15 for 2015

Mark Rigney and Ad Busting : 15 for 2015

December 24, 2015
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What are you celebrating this season? We’re celebrating BSA readers and fans with a holiday assorted chocolate box of 15 of the smartest and tastiest people we know. Each day until the new year we ask a guest to take a moment to reflect on 2015 and to tell us about one photograph that best captures the year for him or her. It’s our way of sharing the sweetness of the season and saying ‘thank you’ for inspiring us throughout the year.

Mark Rigney is a photographer, curator, designer, blogger and art zine maker originally from Ireland and now running UKs Hookedblog for its 10th year in East London. His photos have appeared in numerous books including Untitled III: This is Street Art and The Art of Rebellion and quite a few times in VNA (Very Nearly Almost) as well as multiple illustrious Street Art sites like BSA.

London, UK
November 1, 2015
Artist: Jordan Seiler
Photograph by Mark Rigney

This has been a year filled with art, travel, good company and food for me, catching up with old friends across the globe and meeting new ones. It has also been a year filled with ad takeovers.

Through our friend Vermibus we first met New York artist Jordan Seiler in Berlin on a trip that coincided with the opening of Open Walls Berlin, a new gallery space where the two artists had a joint exhibition together. I was invited to accompany them both to capture them hitting up the bus shelters in the neighbourhood, removing the advertising and replacing the posters with their art.

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A month later I joined Vermibus again to document his month long ‘Unveiling Beauty’ project which saw him travelling to New York, London, Milan and Paris, installing works in each city. My documenting of ad busters continued last month with Jordan Seiler visiting London and installing a number of works across the city including this piece in East London.

~ Mark Rigney

 

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Alison Young and Vermibus : 15 For 2015

Alison Young and Vermibus : 15 For 2015

December 17, 2015

15-for-2015-A

What are you celebrating this season? We’re celebrating BSA readers and fans with a holiday assorted chocolate box of 15 of the smartest and tastiest people we know. Each day until the new year we ask a guest to take a moment to reflect on 2015 and to tell us about one photograph that best captures the year for him or her. It’s our way of sharing the sweetness of the season and saying ‘thank you’ for inspiring us throughout the year.

Alison Young is a Professor at the University of Melbourne, an expert in Cultural Criminology, winner of many academic awards, and author of a number of Street Art related books, including her most recent Street Art, Public City: Law, Crime and the Urban Imagination. In it she considers the ways in which street art has become an integral part of the identity of cities such as London, New York, Berlin, and Melbourne, at the same time as street art has become increasingly criminalized. Alison is also a simply indispensible source for many who are studying the intersections of art, culture, law, and urban space.

London, United Kingdom
20 September 2015.
Photograph by Mark Rigney

2015 was a year in which arguments about whether street art can still be considered in any way radical became ever more intense. At times, it seemed like the answer was obvious: when the sides of New York subway cars were used to advertise a ‘street art reality tv show’, many assumed that street art had lost any radical edge it might have had. Other examples were less clear cut. Some argued that muralism is making our streetscapes bland, as local neighbourhood character gets replaced by a uniform aesthetic in cities around the world; for others, the presence of a striking and skillful mural is a vast improvement and a source of community pride.

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For me, one of the most exciting examples of street art’s radical potential is found in the work of ‘subvertisers’ like Jordan Seiler, or the various artists working with Brandalism, who used techniques of street art and subvertising to take over 600 advertising panels in Paris before the UN COP21 Climate Conference at the end of November.

Another such artist is the Berlin-based Vermibus, who travelled to various cities hosting a Fashion Week in September and October 2015. He replaced advertisements with his own hand-painted images of women designed to make people think critically about the fashion and cosmetics ads conventionally displayed in public space.

I was fortunate enough to meet Vermibus in London, and watched him install these two pieces in the bus shelter outside Harrods department store – in broad daylight, with hundreds of people walking back and forth along the street, in a clear demonstration of the ways in which ‘street art’ can still be deeply politicized.

~Alison Young

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