All posts tagged: Audrey Hepburn

FKDL and His Vintage Glamour Women

May 2, 2013

New Wall Celebrates Audrey Hepburn for her May 4 birthday in the Brussells district she was born in. Liz Taylor is her special guest.

There are many references to pop culture, movies, fashion, and celebrity that have appeared in Street Art in the last decade or so, thanks to our full immersion in the National Entertainment State. We always say that the street reflects us back to ourselves, and apparently we are fixated on poised prettitude, at least in some cities. From Street Artists like DAIN to Judith Supine to Faile to The Dude Company, Tian, Aiko, TooFly and myriad anonymous stencillists, you are bound to see depictions of glamorous women and in a variety of archetypes popping up on walls and doorways no matter the year.

FKDL “Breakfast at Ixelles”. Brussels, Beligium. (photo © FKDL)

Parisian Street Artist FKDL reliably returns to his wheelhouse of the 1950s and 60s when he looks for images of idealized females.  Even his silhouettes of graceful and lithe dancing figures will remind you of the 2-D animations of opening credits of Hollywood movies from the golden age, the hip early years of television, beatniks in tight turtleneck sweaters reading poems, and swinging chicks on the cover art from long-playing jazz albums.  As a “fill” to his forms, he often pastes in an actual collage of vintage commercial illustrations that he cut from magazines and dress making pattern envelopes.  Clearly his is a romance with an image of female beauty from an earlier time and he reliably visits it again and again in his work on the streets of Europe and New York.

FKDL “Breakfast at Ixelles”. Brussels, Beligium. (photo © FKDL)

So it is no surprise that last week when FKDL was in the Ixelles district in Brussels he found a lone façade wall on an empty lot that faces the street and was compelled to paint a tribute to the cinema icon Audrey Hepburn, born there 84 years ago this Saturday. “Breakfast at Ixelles” refers to the location and her most famous movie, set in New York, Breakfast at Tiffany’s.  While doing the wall he decided to also pay tribute to another screen grand dame Elizabeth Taylor. The 30 foot wall uses his distinctive collage style and the paint colors are associated with the flag of Belgium.

FKDL “Breakfast at Ixelles”. Brussels, Beligium. (photo © FKDL)

FKDL “Breakfast at Ixelles”. Brussels, Beligium. (photo © FKDL)

FKDL in New York (photo © Jaime Rojo)

FKDL (detail) in Brooklyn (photo © Jaime Rojo)

FKDL next to DAIN in Brooklyn (photo © Jaime Rojo)

FKDL in Brooklyn (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

 

<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA

Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA

This posting is also on Huffington Post Arts & Culture.

Read more

Collaboration without Consent

June 8, 2009 ,

So, when two artists do it together, it’s a collabo, right?

(That’s a fancy abbreviation for collaboration, for those of us who are sequestered on the inside of coolness.)

And when one artist smacks their stuff over top of another artist’s piece, that is a sign of disrespect right? Diss.

How about when one artist deliberately puts a piece on top of the work of another artist and subsequently a NEW piece of art is created by it?  Serendipity?

Who the heck knows these things?  And who the heck put this Audrey Hepburn head on top of a 19th century “call-girl” body by the artist Imminent Disaster?

Breakfast at Disaster (photo Steven P. Harrington)
Breakfast at Disaster (photo Steven P. Harrington)

It sort of looks good though, right? This stuff can only happen on the street, by the way – where the rules seem to be rather unruly, and completely ineffective anyway.  As soon as you try to write a definitive statement about the rules of the street, you will suffer street-hotdog heartburn. Don’t even.

For example, you don’t find people bringing their handy Bob Ross Master Paint Set into the Francis Bacon show at the Met just to brighten up the pieces, do you?

Now that I mention it, did you see the arrows on that Bacon piece?

Francis Bacon "A Piece of Wasteland"

"A Piece of Wasteland" by Francis Bacon

Holy Canoli! Do you see what I see?

Do you think street artist Jef Aerosol went to see the show and smacked it up with some of those red arrows when the security guard was eyeballing the Miss Cataract’s 8th Grade Art Appreciation Field Trip? He seems pretty sneaky.

Probably not, but that would be a new twist wouldn’t it?

Les mythiques
Creative Commons License photo credit: kikozbi1

Francis Bacon has been dead for a while, so if somebody started doing their art on top of his art, that would be kind of like Natalie Cole doing a duet with her father Nat King Cole on that record, “Unforgettable”.  As long as it’s a “tribute” can it really be called “desecration”?  It’s rumored that on Frank Sinatra’s final “Duets” album he didn’t even sing with half of his other halfs.  They just sang by themselves and mailed his studio a disk.  Two alive artists making art together, separately.

And let’s not even talk about Jim Morrison’s grave.

Jim Morrison's Grave Graffiti, Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, France.
Creative Commons License photo credit: Jim Linwood

Back to the “Breakfast at Disaster” piece at the top. Is this fine art?  Street Art?  Street Art 3.0?  Non-permission-based Art, Hybrid, Mashup, Sampling, Bootleg, Marbled Bundt Cake Art?

Damn, son, somebody better get some labels up in here!

Read more

Featured Video | Martin Wong’s “Houston Street”

Recent Articles on BSA