Of the 10,000 images he snapped of Street Art this year, photographer Jaime Rojo gives us 110 that represent some of the most compelling, interesting, perplexing, thrilling in 2012.
Together the collection gives you an idea of the range of mediums, techniques, styles, and sentiments that appear on the street today as the scene continues to evolve worldwide. Every seven days on BrooklynStreetArt.com, we present “Images Of The Week”, our weekly interview with the street.
We hope you enjoy this collection – some of our best Images of The Year from 2012.
Artists include 2501, 4Burners, 907, Above, Aiko, AM7, Anarkia, Anthony Lister, Anthony Sneed, Bare, Barry McGee, Bast, Billi Kid, Cake, Cash For Your Warhol, Con, Curtis, D*Face, Dabs & Myla, Daek One, DAL East, Dan Witz, Dark Clouds, Dasic, David Ellis, David Pappaceno, Dceve, Deth Kult, ECB, Eine, El Sol 25, Elle, Entes y Pesimo, Enzo & Nio, Esma, Ever, Faile, Faith47, Fila, FKDL, Gable, Gaia, Gilf!, Graffiti Iconz, Hef, HellbentHert, Hot Tea, How & Nosm, Icy & Sot, Interesni Kazki, Jason Woodside, Javs, Jaye Moon, Jaz, Jean Seestadt, Jetsonorama, Jim Avignon, Joe Iurato, JR, Judith Supine, Ka, Kem5, Know Hope, Kuma, Labrona, Liqen, LNY, Love Me, Lush, Matt Siren, Mike Giant, Miyok, MOMO, Mr. Sauce, Mr. Toll, ND’A, Nick Walker, Nosego, Nychos, Occupy Wall Street, Okuda, OLEK, OverUnder, Phlegm, Pixel Pancho, Rambo, Read Books!, Reka, Retna, Reyes, Rime, Risk, ROA, Robots Will Kill, Rone, Sacer, Saner, See One, Sego, sevens errline, Sheyro, Skewville, Sonni, Stick, Stikman, Stormie Mills, Square, Swoon, Tati, The Yok, Toper, TVEE, UFO, VHILS, Willow, Wing, XAM, Yes One, and Zed1 .
Hey bro and sis! Here are some of our favorite picks for the weekend around the global way as we head into the final holiday and New Year beauty that we hope everyone is surrounded by. Happy 7th night of Hanukkah to the Jews, and Happy ongoing holidayz to the Christmas and Kwanzaa and Solstice people.
1. 215 “Orgullecida” (Barcelona)
2. “Kids Eat For Free” at Tender Trap (BKLN)
3. Fresh Low-cost Original Silkscreens at “First Worldwar in Silkscreen” Group Show (BKLN)
4. “Graffuturism” at Soze Gallery (LA)
5. “Dark Corners, Savage Secrets”, Photography by Imminent Disaster (BKLN)
6. “Snap Back…” Rime and Toper at Klughaus (Manhattan)
7. New2 at White Walls (San Francisco)
8. Dave Kinsey “Everything at Once” at Joshua Liner (Manhattan)
9. Brett Amory at 5 Pieces (Switzerland)
10. RISK: The Skid Row Mural Project by Todd Mazer (VIDEO)
11. Swoon’s Konbit Shelter in Haiti (VIDEO)
215 “Orgullecida” (Barcelona)
French Street Artist C215 has a new solo show titled “Orgullecida” at the Montana Gallery in Barcelona, Spain. The artist has been for awhile using a lot of color with his multilayered stencil work – expanding his established vocabulary bravely in a way that most artists are too afraid to do. His portraits are placed well, are individually hand-cut, and sprayed with a sense of the humanity he’s always giving center stage. This show is now open to the general public.
For further information regarding this show click here.
“Kids Eat For Free” at Tender Trap (BKLN)
A phrase lifted from restaurant franchises that serve food like you are livestock at a trough, “Kids Eat For Free” is a mini survey of train riders who know the back sides of the country well. Under the moniker of The Superior Bugout, curator Andrew H Shirley continues to explore fresh talent from the emerging margin, and this group exhibition features work by North Carolina’s NGC Crew. Now open, and don’t forget the kids!
For further details regarding this show click here.
The best way to support your local artist is to give their stuff as a Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza/Soltice present. No kidding. Everybody wins. Tonight a show of original silkscreens at totally reasonable prices is at Low Brow Artique in Bushwick. For tonight’s opening of their silk screen print show where you’d be able to purchase prints for $20…yes you read it right $20 bucks buys you art from 25 artists – many of them with work on the street – from Sao Paulo, Brooklyn, Buenos Aires and Berlin. Participating artists include: Selo, Markos Azufre, Hellbent, El Hase, ND’A, XOXU, Daniel Ete, Salles, Baila, Anderson Resende, DOC, SHN, XILIP, Serifire, Vero Pujol, Marquitos Sanabria, Diego Garay, Desastre, and Head Honcho.
For further information regarding this show click here.
“Graffuturism” at Soze Gallery (LA)
This is like an exclamation point for the end of the year. No kidding.
POESIA, founder of Graffuturism, the term and website, continues to explore the depths of “Progressive Graffiti” or, as it was previously known, “Abstract Graffiti”. With great intelligence, passion and an acute eye for detail, POESIA brings to the forefront the importance and beauty of this emergent new direction that is impacting the Street Art and graffiti scene (with ramifications for others).
“Graffuturism” opening tonight at Soze Gallery in Los Angeles and promises a smart-headed visual feast of shapes, patterns and color from a mini-galaxy of talent from all over the world. Perhaps more significantly, it’s a bit of a decentralized movement that has been centralized for you. The artists list includes: 2501, Aaron De La Cruz, Augustine Kofie, Boris “Delta” Tellegen, Carl Raushenbach, Carlos Mare, Clemens Behr, Derek Bruno, Doze Green, Duncan Jago, DVS 1, El Mac, Eric Haze, Erosie, Franco “Jaz” Fasoli, Futura, Gilbert 1, Greg “Sp One” Lamarche, Graphic Surgery, Hense, Hendrik “ECB” Beikirch, Jaybo Monk, Joker, Jurne, Kema, Kenor, Lek, Marco “Pho” Grassi, Matt W. Moore, Moneyless, O.Two, Part2ism, Poesia, Rae Martini, Remi Rough, Samuel Rodriguez, Sat One, Sever, Shok-1, Sowat, Steve More, West and Will BarrasSoze Gallery in Los Angeles .
Also New York chronicler and enthusiastic lover of the graff/street art scene Daniel Feral will be there with a special edition of the Feral Diagram in glicee prints, and a couple other formats (salivate). An ambitious exhibition like this is rare and not easy to come by so if you are in Los Angeles you must go.
For further information regarding this show and to read a great essay for the show written by Daniel Feral click here.
“Dark Corners, Savage Secrets”, Photography by Imminent Disaster (BKLN)
Self-appointed moral custodians (mostly white men) have traditionally hampered the exploration of sexuality in formal art history and the academic canon of what gets celebrated and revered continues to evolve more quickly now. The sea change that modern social liberation that was once revolutionary is now a given, but the debate of the appropriate role of sex and sexuality in the arts is far from over. We may have just quashed one Trojan horse of social conservatism in the White House, but the radical right wing has pulled the center pretty far in the last decade and some have even said there was a war on women launched legislatively throughout 2012. So we are pleased to tell you about fine artist and Street Artist Robyn Hasty AKA Imminent Disaster, who has a new show in collaboration with Alex Pergament entitled “Dark Corners, Savage Secrets”. Furthering her exploration of photography Ms. Hasty has semi-retired her now well known hand cut paper pieces and lino prints on the street and traded the cutting knife for the camera. With this show of photographs, sculptures and performance art she’s aiming to tear apart the inhibitions associated with the sexual act. “Dark Corners, Savage Secrets” opens tomorrow at Weldon Arts Gallery in Brooklyn.
For further information regarding this show click here.
“Snap Back…” Rime and Toper at Klughaus (Manhattan)
Freshly snapping back to New York from their successful truck trip to Miami, Klughaus Gallery brings Brooklyn natives RIME and TOPER for their new exhibition titled “Snap Back – Dangerous Drawings About New York”. The storytelling show features illustration and painting inspired by personal stories. Says RIME. “This show aims to tap into our life experience coming up in New York.” Show opens Saturday.
For further information regarding this show click here.
New2 at White Walls (San Francisco)
The White Walls Gallery in San Francisco are fortunate to host Australian artist New2 with his solo show titled “In One Hand a Ghost, The Other an Atom”. New2’s work on the streets is complex and dynamic with aerosol, but his handcut collage work for the gallery is moreso somehow – maybe because of a painstaking process of arranging thousands of hand cut pieces of paper. This show opens on Saturday.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Also happening this weekend:
Dave Kinsey with “Everything at Once” at the Joshua Liner Gallery in Manhattan. This show is now open to the general public. Click here for more details.
Brett Amory at the 5 Pieces Gallery in Berne, Switzerland opens on Sunday with his solo show “Lil’ Homies”. Click here for more details.
RISK: The Skid Row Mural Project by Todd Mazer (VIDEO)
Art in the Streets from MoCAtv
Swoon’s Konbit Shelter in Haiti (VIDEO)
Street Artist Swoon is looking to return to Haiti to build more shelters for people in the rural part of the country. This video gives a great look at the families and community who are helped. You also can participate by donating to the Kickstarter campaign to help Swoon make it happen.
The Street Art scene exists at least partially in tandem with the digital sphere and one of its effects on the concept of community is that artists today are more mobile and internationally connected to one another than their pre-Internet graffiti predecessors were.
The growth of connectivity is producing a foundational change to the world of the Street Artist and his or her relation to society as a hidden and/or marginalized figure. Increasingly it appears that it is impossible to be socially isolated when you are so busy relating, even if anonymously. Unwittingly, the stereotypical vision of the outsider is melting as one is pulled into a collective environment where peers regulate and monitor the actions of one another and settle disputes or give encouragement and opportunities. – Harrington and Rojo, Freed from the Wall, Street Art Travels the World, an essay for Eloquent Vandals, 2011
Any Street Artist who has visited another city quickly realizes that there is a network of couches across the world – open to the adventurous artist who has paid dues and built a trustworthy or respected reputation among their peers. If you are cool, you’ll find a brand new batch of friends who will help you out. Even as you can remain anonymous on some level in your online presence, a sort of relational database exists in the tribes hands today that enables peers to perform a streetwise background check on you. If you have a solid rep, you’ll easily get offered a place to crash and a tour of favorite spots to hit. That sort of camaraderie has always existed to some extent of course, as well as rivalry.
One relatively new development is the Street Art residency. The concept of a residency (or some variant) is not foreign to academically trained artists and as many artists on the streets today have some formal training, they will have exposure to the idea. But discussing a residency for Street Artists feels ironic as these artists have inherited and altered a scene that once was populated and defined almost exclusively by youth who grew up with far fewer opportunities, resources, or access.
As always there are still the philanthropists and the collectors today who give lodging and materials to young artists and many times today these doors are also open to Street Artists. Additionally there are the loosely cobbled-together festivals that are more prevalent in the last 5 years where one artist with leadership qualities is able to pool enough paint, available bedrooms, and beer to invite a collection of peeps to their city to kill some walls. With the rise in interest in Street Art due to high profile names like Banksy and Fairey, increasingly we are seeing corporate cash is slipping into that model as well so that lifestyle brands can more easily mingle with a scene that might help it sell product.
And so it appears like a natural development to find that OverUnder has a little shack in Nevada for a Street Artist to develop their craft, focus on their skills, and with some luck, to hit up some walls. Still in its beginning stages, OverUnder and his friend and co-Street Artist White Cocoa are hoping this residency can provide a safe space to expand and explore creatively for their hand-picked guests and to possibly work collaboratively. Here are some images from the very first residency guest who arrived this fall from Brooklyn, Street Artist ND’A. Among the local activities they did together were painting walls downtown, hiking a trail historically remembered for cannibalism, and slaughtering a pig on a ranch.
“Yeah, so ND’A was just out here and it was a very exciting yet strange time of changes. The residency is still being built up but is very close to being finished. White Cocoa and I built the entire structure with my brother over the summer and we tried to use mostly found materials which is evident by it’s idiosyncrasies. We also made a few trips to Habitat for Humanity and the lumber yard,” OverUnder explains about this multi-windowed shack with a slim sleeping quarter overhead.
The first mural they painted in Reno was at an old Dice factory that is now being converted to a band rehearsal space and a metal shop down by the railroad tracks. ND’A says the process was kind of like a conversation, “We just sort of worked out the idea on the wall – and we have gotten to a point where we communicate well with each other on ideas and we’re able to go back and forth and change things kind of “on the fly”. That’s what I’ve always like about working with OverUnder. He’s really adaptable. It makes it easy to work on the street.”
OverUnder agrees, “The great thing about working with ND’A is that the painting is very conversational. And it goes both ways because anyone that knows ND’A will tell you how friendly and talkative he is, but even more so he holds up a great dialogue on the wall.”
About the piece itself, OverUnder helps explain what, for many, is work that needs some crib notes, “When painting together we tend to create non-linear totem poles that could be viewed like a cyclical ideogram,” he says. “For example, this piece could be about being lost in the idea of home, aiming at becoming stronger, snake eye vision and being three sheets to the wind. Of course the dice represent the Flyce Dice factory where the mural is located, the rocker foam hand signals the transformation of the factory into band rooms and a metal shop, and the dogs curly breath hints at the corkscrew tail of the 300 lb pig living just to the right of the frame. So it becomes very lyrical with hints at the past and the present. And if you read into it you can literally read into it.”
“The second mural we painted is found in downtown Reno. In the scene you see two geese watching a royal hand requesting one shot,” he says, “The message in the bottle is delivered at lightning speed to a Native American Medusa grandmother.” Is that clear to you? OverUnder isn’t that worried, “What it all means? We have no idea. But plenty of people walking by told us what it meant to them, which is always cool.”
The experience on the street in Reno and the conversations they had with passersby was a little different from those in some of the rougher areas in Brooklyn or fast-paced Manhattan. Says ND’A, “For the most part we had a really positive interaction with the neighborhood. People seemed to appreciate having a little artwork.”
When not in the cabin working on sketches painting walls in Reno, the artists were hiking up a snow-covered mountain and checking out an icy lake.
OverUnder explains, “We took advantage of our adventurous artist and exposed him to some alpine exploration and painting at Donner Lake. This is the same area that was made notorious by the tales of the cannibalistic Donner party.”
ND’A was pretty enthusiastic, “We went up into the mountains up the Donner Trail and painted in the tunnels and that was a completely awesome experience. It’s really serene and pretty and you are freezing your ass off and you can’t feel your hands.”
“After nearly freezing ND’A we showed him the other side of our diverse landscape by taking him out to a ranch,” OverUnder recounts about ND’A learning to slaughter a pig under the guidance of a Basque rancher. “None of us knew how we would feel when we did it – but it was a bonding and learning experience. It also provided meat for Thanksgiving and beyond that.”
Not all residencies are the same, and while the FAME festival offers artists incredible food, none have reported having to kill it before eating it. But for the right Street Artist, OverUnder is going to offer some good experiences just by way of location and his lust for experimentation and affinity for collaboration.
ND’A says he liked working together on pieces, “Even though we both work in different mediums we both have similar ideas on style and I think that each one of our styles are significant in their own right but complement each other very well.”
“To say the least, our residency program is not the slight-most traditional; but either is Street Art or any of the passions that give us our drive,” sums up OverUnder, “We loved having ND’A in Reno and look forward to all the work he creates in the future.”
A lot of action on the street right now – people are in organized events, on commissioned walls and doing their own personal thang too. Here’s our weekly interview with the street featuring Bast, Chris and Veng from Robots Will Kill, ECB, Faile, Jaye Moon, Jetsonorama, JM, Judith Supine, Meer Sau, Mr. Toll, ND’A, NoseGo, See One, and Stik.
Even as they shoot spit-wads at the windows and doodle intensely in the margins of their notebooks while constantly shifting in their chairs in the back row of English class, these two ADHD kids are paying sideways attention to the teacher and not really trying to cause trouble. If you want to keep their attention you just need to keep them engaged and help them channel their energy productively because the next thing you know Overunder and ND’A will be eyeballing the fire extinguisher or pulling apart the wall clock to see what makes it tick…
Two of the new crop of painters on the street who can’t keep their metaphors unmixed, Overunder and ND’A are sprinting through Brooklyn looking for new walls and ladders right now, and they’ve covered a lot of space already this new fall semester. The fast talking buddies have a way of playing off each others’ fantastic ideas and stories that will get you lost if you try to follow them, with words and symbols and meanings tossed into a clothes dryer and tumbled. Give ’em a spot, some bucket paint, and a couple of cans, and who knows what you’ll get. But you won’t be bored.
While their individual styles are distinct, with OU blending realism and figurative forms with architectural elements and ND’A giving a gritty low-brow cartoon monster treatment to his symbols and characters, the fluidity of undulating shapes and the free flow of ideas keeps these two in the same school. Here are a couple of new pieces of theirs for you to grade as they run down the hall and out the double back doors onto the playground to swing from the monkey bars and look up girls skirts. Here on this wall Overunder found a way to interact with that other devilish, horns ‘n all bad boy LNY. The results are well balanced with both pieces complimenting each other.
This week seemed busy on the streets of New York after LA graff writer Saber started us off on Sunday with a sky-writing campaign that was politically charged arts advocacy and a social media-soaked smackdown of the right wing in the US. From culture-jamming to political commentary to social advocacy, it looks like some Street Artists are getting back their voice in many pieces that are espousing a message. Not all of them of course.
So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Bast, Billi Kid, Creepy, Classic, Espo, Home Sick, JB Rock, Jeice 2, Meer Sau, ND’A, Olek, OverUnder, PM AM, Reader, and Ugo Rondinone. Locations include New York, Istanbul, London, Portugal, Sicily, and the Pilbara desert in the Northwest of Australia.
As he paints the giant 8-shaped snake biting it’s tail, the Italian Street Artist JB Rock explains his new piece this way, “This is a portrait of our modern society and especially of my beautiful but very counterproductive country. For this work I’ve been inspired by the UROBORUS concept, remixed with the Infinity symbol”.
“I traveled up to Port Hedland which is an industry Port in the North West of Australia and painted some walls and found objects in the desert as part of a residency with FORM gallery,” says the Perth-based Creepy.
Here’s our weekly interview with the streets (and sometimes inside), this week featuring new shots of Barry McGee, Buttless Supreme, Dain, Elle, Etnik, Ive One, Jose Parla, Kashink, Klepto, Matt Siren, ND”A, Overunder, Pork, Swil, This Is Awkward and Zor.
It’s a BSA Fun Friday and we’re gonna tell you all about some stoopendous Street Art shows this weekend from Brooklyn to Chicago to Paris to Vienna but first….Everybody get up and do some FF dancing like my homeboy PSY in Korea.
This sh*t is Gangnsta, bro.
SEOUL, YOU THINK YOU GOT TALENT…
1. VIDEO “Gangnam Style” Dance Frenzy from Korea
2. Bäst Sells Olive Oil and Opens New Show at Opera Gallery (NYC)
3. “Just Your Type” at Low Brow Artique (BKLN)
4. LUDO “Metal Miltia” at Galerie Itinerrance (PARIS)
5. “All Write You Scumbags” with Reyes and Steel at Klughaus (Chinatown, NYC)
6. “Dominant Species” by ROA at 941 Geary (San Francisco)
7. GAIA, MOMO AND MICHAEL OWEN in “Zim Zum” (Baltimore)
8. Don’t Fret in “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Chardonnay”(Chicago)
9. Tel Aviv: Israeli Street Artist and poet Know Hope “Others’ Truths”
10. The Black River Festival in Vienna, Austria
11. Stephen Powers AKA ESPO “A Love Letter for You”
12. “Permanence at Space 27 Gallery in Montreal, Canada
13. eL Seed in Tunisia (VIDEO)
14. When Lucent Met Herakut (VIDEO)
15. Voice Of Art “Graffiti Against The System” Presents GATS (VIDEO)
Bäst Sells Olive Oil and Opens New Show at Opera Gallery (NYC)
Street Artist Bäst has always mixed a savory chopped image salad. With his dicing, cutting, collaging and stencilling work on the street over the last decade, a lot of his recent stencils are twisted Bodega style signs advertising basic staples for the pantry. But of all the collaborative advertising that Street Artists have been getting into, we never could have predicted this; Olive oil. You can actually go to snooty classist foodery Dean and Deluca and buy a bottle of Bast style olive oil right now. Only 500 were made in this limited edition and the oil smells better than the petroleum-spilled brownfields in industrial Bushwick where you usually see his work, so why not?
This Brooklyn native artist has been amusing, hijacking, and inspiring with his work on the streets of New York for well over a decade and it’s also cool to see his gallery work at his solo show “Germs Tropicana” opened last night at Opera in Manhattan. If the pieces are too pricey, Dean and Deluca is just a couple of blocks away!
For further information regarding this show click here.
“Just Your Type” at Low Brow Artique (BKLN)
Outside is the brand new wall piece by ND’A and Dirty Bandits. Inside this art store/gallery they are joined QRST and Gilf! in this new small show called “Just Your Type”, opening tonight.
For further information regarding this show click here.
LUDO “Metal Miltia” at Galerie Itinerrance (PARIS)
Parisian Street Artist LUDO was in multiple shows around the world and blanketed the Paris Metro and bus shelters with his subvertisements for two years before a gallery in his native city invited him inside. Tonight Galerie Itinerrance will have LUDO’s first solo show entitled “Metal Militia”.
With a truly unique approach to social critique that serves as a cunning indictment of the advertising industry and the military industrial complex, you won’t find anything like the pretty disgust than the work of LUDO.
For further information regarding this show click here.
“All Write You Scumbags” with Reyes and Steel at Klughaus (Chinatown, NYC)
Ever the ballsy wiseguy, the Klaughaus Gallery in Manhattan continues to produce and present quality shows that challenge your possibly prejudicial pre-formed perceptions of propriety and pugnacity. This time they invited West Coast natives Reyes and Steel to exhibit at their space with a show titled “All Write You Scumbags”.
From the press release, “The New York debut for both artists and showcases a distinct chemistry cultivated over years working together as friends, creative partners and members of MSK, one of the highest regarded graffiti artist collectives in the world.” To find out what this means go to their show opening tonight.
For further information regarding this show click here.
“Dominant Species” by ROA at 941 Geary (San Francisco)
Street Artist ROA concludes his US Summer Tour 2012 in San Francisco at his own victorious opening Saturday at 941 Geary Gallery. The show is aptly called “Dominant Species” and will feature many of the cast of creatures you have grown to expect.
For further information regarding this show click here.
To read BSA’s feature on ROA this week and to see beautiful images of his work in Mexico, Africa and Cambodia earlier this year click here.
GAIA, MOMO AND MICHAEL OWEN in “Zim Zum” (Baltimore)
GAIA, MOMO AND MICHAEL OWEN are transforming the space at the Creative Alliance Gallery in Baltimore with a collaboration that promises to spill over the street and beyond. If you want to see what the trio is up to put the gameboy down and head out to the gallery for their opening tomorrow night with an exhibition titled Zim Zum.
Don’t Fret in “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Chardonnay”(Chicago)
Chicago based Street Artist Don’t Fret has a new solo show, “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Chardonnay” opening Saturday night at the Bizzare Gallery in Chicago. So if you are planning to arrive naked, BYOB and put your wallet under your armpit. Lo-fi comic book doodling that make most people look like family day at the tractor pull, Don’t Fret drawings are people you know and often dang hilarious.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Also happening this Weekend:
If you are in Tel Aviv: Israeli Street Artist and poet Know Hope is releasing a new zine titled “Others’ Truths” and he’s mounted a small exhibition of the drawings that illustrate it. This exhibition will remain open all day today until 4:00 pm. Click here for more details on this show.
The 2012 Edition of The Black River Festival in Vienna, Austria is now open. The festival has an important selection of Street Artists putting up works throughout an entire week of programs. Roster includes Blu, Evan Roth, Florian Riviere, Isaac Cordal, Mark Jenkins, and ZukClub. Click here for more details on this festival.
The film screening by Stephen Powers AKA ESPO “A Love Letter for You” is being hosted by the Joshua Liner Gallery in conjunction with their current show by the artist “A Word is Worth A Thousand Pictures”. The screening will take place tomorrow at The Tribeca Grand Hotel. The artist will be in attendance along with the director and a Q & A will follow the film. Click here for more details on this event.
“Permanence” is the title of the new group show at Space 27 Gallery in Montreal, Canada. With an ambitious line up international and Canadian artists this show aims to juxtapose the “ephemeral nature of street art with the permanence of collectible art.” From their press release. Click here for more details regarding this show.
In the spirit of Unity, we present Street Artist eL Seed in Tunisia (VIDEO)
This week there has been much news of sadness, discord, and suffering in Libya, Egypt, and Yemen. Street Artist and painter eL Seed gives us a moment to pull back and reflect on the beauty and poignancy that a religious belief system can contribute to the lives of some.
Here he creates ‘Madinati’ Calligraffiti on Jara Mosque in Gabes.
When Lucent Met Herakut by The One Point Eight (VIDEO)
“A short documentary which presents the show involving graffiti duo Herakut and the Lucent Dossier group, detailing both the rehearsal process and the final performance in a unique and different way.”
Voice Of Art “Graffiti Against The System” Presents GATS (VIDEO)
Low Brow Artique is proud to present Just My Type, which brings together four artists in a contrast of the various uses of typography. For this show, the gallerypresents the work of Dirty Bandits, Gilf!, ND’A and QRST. The exhibition will be open to the public from September 14th toOctober 7th, with an opening reception on September 14th from 7 to10pm.
Both being knowledgeable sign painters, ND’A and Dirty Bandits employ similar techniques when using typography in their art. Creating signs for different occasions, the Dirty Bandits employs humor combined with exceptional letterforms. Through creating series themed around such things as ex-boyfriends and pickup lines, the artist pairs intricate and feminine type-work with a good amount of hilarity in each sign. In a similar vein, ND’A uses pop culture references and cartoon-like visuals to grab viewers’ attention as well as give them a good laugh. Known for his love of 1950’s music and comics as well as contemporary rap, the artist provides a wide range of visual and textual influences for his viewers.
In addition to providing humor, typography can also be used to convey a serious set of ideologies or beliefs. For QRST, the banners integrated into his pieces typically carry a simple message of his moniker. However, occasionally, the cynicism seen in his portraiture paintings comes across through in these spaces. Using source material such as biblical quotations, the artist wants the viewer to see the world his way, with a dark, cynical bent. Carrying a similarly serious tone, Gilf! uses text to confront inequalities and promote change within society. Often, the artist subverts the manner in which viewers are traditionally accustomed to reading in order to garner their attention further. Whether it is forming the words into an eye chart or arranging them in an otherwise unusual form, issues such as equality and women’s rights remain the focal point of her pieces.
With work ranging from the self-conscious to the socially conscious, Just My Type represents the spectrum of concepts that words can be used to convey. Accompanying these ideas are a wide range of typographical styles whose details are just as intricate as the thoughts behind them.
Once you’ve stumbled up and whizzed through the same streets in your neighborhood a hundred times it’s a great temptation to explore, especially in the summer. Jump off the gravel and wander along the stones and up the railroad bed and through the high grass and go single file on the dirt path, teetering astride a slimy inlet and shimmy through a hole in the fence that rips your shirt. What the hell – it’s all in service of discovery just off the beaten path.
And probably it’s no stunning surprise to you to find out that there is this lively conversation happening on the walls. Wouldn’t call it “party talk”, per se, but a lot of the guests seem to know each other, and many are very opinionated. So we find a lot of graff here, and mixed in with the tags and pieces are other artists we might call Street Artists. As your eyes acclimate to the new surroundings, you realize that this busted back lot and former crackhouse are not so abandoned. In fact, some times these buildings are more alive than any busy street, with a lot of activity in and around them. And sometimes you know that you’re are definitely not alone.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week including Anthony Lister, Blanco, Bored One, Celso, Dan Witz, Elbow-Toe, False, KSM, Kuma, LNY, LUSH, Michael DeFeo, ND’A, Nether, Nick Walker, Sorta, Tense, and Whisbe.
Hey! It’s Friday!!! What’s for breakfast? Oatmeal and Hamlet! IF you are brave enough to go all the way down the stairs, that is.
1. “City of Fire” Sparkles in Beverly Hills (CA)
2. Stencil Bastards (Zurich)
3. “20:12” in London
4. Figment 2012 (NYC)
5. 2012 London Gymnast by #CodeFC (VDEO)
6. Voice of Art with Enik One. Los Angeles and the crackdown on murals (VDEO)
7. Conor Harrington Will “Meat” You on the Street and in the Studio (VIDEO)
8. YO! It’s ND’A Up on a Roof in Bushwick, BK Baby! (VIDEO)
“City of Fire” Sparkles in Beverly Hills (CA)
“City of Fire” is a group exhibition that includes some of your favorite Street Artists skewing decidedly uptown and curated by Arrested Motion.
Artists include: Cyrcle, Thomas Doyle, Ron English, James Jean, Kid Zoom, Dave Kinsey, Mars-1, Patrick Martinez, Pedro Matos, REVOK, Rostarr, SABER, Andrew Schoultz, Jeff Soto, Judith Supine, TrustoCorp, Mark Dean Veca, Nick Walker, and Adam Wallacavage. You can look forward to rockin’ art and cool rocks.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Stencil Bastards (Zurich)
Christian Guemy curates “Stencil Bastards”, a group exhibition that showcases a select group of artists who work with stencils. Opening tonight at the Starkart Exhibitions Gallery in Zürich, Switzerland, these are some of Europe’s best at the moment.
Artists included in the show are: Epsylon Point (FR), C215 (FR), Eime (PT), Btoy (ES), Orticanoodles (IT), Kris Trappeniers (BE), Leckomio (DE) and Snik (UK).
For further information regarding this show click here.
“20:12” in London
The show “20:12” at The Curious Duke Gallery in London, UK is now open in time for the Olympics with a solo show by #codefc. The artist has been creating stencil art as a commentary on the imminent games to be inaugurated momentarily in London, using his signature image of a camera to play with traditional images of athletes shown performing various sport disciplines. Check out the multimedia video near the end of the posting.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Figment 2012 (NYC)
It’s back! Take the boat to Governor’s island this weekend and play in the grass and the trees and see art, installations, and performances. Figment 2012 in New York City opens this Saturday at 10:00 AM – A multidisciplinary art festival that welcomes all regardless of age, gender, race, sexual orientation and body fat index.
If you would like to spend two full days (no nights) on a beautiful Island on the East River taking in all sorts of art and experiences and meet the artists who make it first hand then this is the event of your dreams. Go! You’ll have fun.
For further information regarding this event click here.
2012 London Gymnast by #CodeFC (VIDEO)
Watch the Street Artist create a stencil and watch 50 other graphic elements fly, flicker, and shimmer across the screen at the same time. It’s the Gymnastic Minority Report!
Voice of Art with Enik One. Los Angeles and the crackdown on murals. (VIDEO)
It’s weird how they disguised his voice and face on this, like he’s an international extraterrestrial terrorist of some sort. Dude, he’s smacking up some wheatpastes. Calm yourself.
Conor Harrington Will “Meat” You on the Street and in the Studio (VIDEO)
Giving us the lowdown on his formative graff years and his subsequent transition into fine art and his continuing love for both games – a promo from his show at Lazerides.
YO! It’s ND’A Up on a Roof in Bushwick, BK Baby! (VIDEO)
Dan Gingold and Andrew Morton shot and produced this very atmospheric time-lapse video of ND’A just off the train tracks of the JMZ – a ghostlike shimmer on a rooftop. Well done.
On a side note, we hear that the primary goal of this video is to bring fame to the participants, which hopefully will result in a yacht filled with whiskey and strippers. If you are invited I would wear my life preserver the entire time just in case. Nothing else, just the life preserver.
As you may have heard, New York’s young artist community has been in a rather fast migration away from Manhattan for this entire century.
And so has most of its Street Art.
As the neighborhood of Bushwick assumes the role of new art nerve center (and hard charging, chatty hormone-infused bohemia), the Street Art that began in Williamsburg at the turn of the millenium is without question a natural companion for the trip. This weekend Bushwick celebrated its 6th official Open Studios program (BOS) and gave Street Art it’s genealogical due as major influencer to the whole scene by inviting a number of the newer names to exhibit indoors for the opening party. Naturally, if not ironically, the streets walls had work by many of same.
Always in flux, the current Street Art scene reflects the players as much as the chaotic and diversified D.I.Y. times we’re in. As the more designed multiples of Fairey and the repetition of Cost have given much ground to the highly labor intensive one-offs with a story today, you can see that this narrative style may have been set into motion by people like Swoon and Elbow-Toe in the intervening wave.
To give you a sense of the complex visual ecosystem that influences the fine art/ Street Art continuum in 2012, here’s some eye candy from inside, outside, sanctioned and freewheeling that were on display during BOS this year.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
