Berlin’s 1UP Crew was in Moscow to participate in this year’s Artmossphere Biennale. We caught up with the guys for an impromptu action on the walls of the Winzavod Art Center while the installations in the gallery were taking place.
It was good to see them in action without having to climb through holes in fences or dodge the third rail! Here they are in the company of other writers and we’re guessing this spot will become a future Hall of Fame.
We always say that Street Art reflects us back to ourselves and during a recent trip to the streets of Barcelona we found some great examples of regional traditions that build community and celebrate culture, even strengthen it. Of course we also found some great stencil art that we hope you’ll enjoy.
The above stencil is a part of a larger wall where multiple artists have gone up over the years. It depicts a human tower or Castellers a tradition unique in Catalonia that dates back to the 18th century. In today’s Barcelona the Castellers perform in competitions, usually in the Town Hall Square during the traditional holidays of the particular town or city.
The stencil above is also on the same wall as the Castellers. This stencil depicts a Catalan tradition as well called the Correfoc. The Correfocs are a group of individuals dressed as devils playing with fire, mostly fireworks. As the Correfocs light their fireworks they get near the crowds, many spectators choose to participate by getting very close to the devils while others decide to watch the festivities from afar.
Electrified geometry and abstraction isn’t just for the street anymore, thanks to Spidertag’s vacation at the beach this month. Europeans and their famous vacations during August are always surprising us – by their solidarity as workers to demand those month-long vacations, to the fact that the continent stays drunk for such a long continuous stretch. Just kidding!
Anyway here’s the Spanish Street Artist bringing his work to the beach here in Cadiz in Andalucia in the south of Spain. Always the experimenter, we find him sketching new ideas as night falls on this part of the Mediterranean. Something new perhaps for the oldest city in Europe.
Irish illustrator Joe Caslin has just completed a two-mural campaign this spring in Dublin’s city center on the side of a castle in Co Galway in support of this May’s country-wide same-sex marriage referendum. At the end of decades of activism by many in the LGBT community, these giant murals may have helped to sway the outcome – they certainly resulted in a lot of attention on social media and even the front page of the International New York Times.
The image on the side of the seven story Mercantile building was inspired by Meeting on the Turret Stairs, the sorrowful passing of unrequited lovers depicted by Fredric William Burton’s in his1864 painting. Wind and rain quickly damaged the pasted paper version of his hand-drawn illustration, but not before it was recorded and parlayed across mobile devices and television screens.
Far away from the city and surrounded by cows grazing in bucolic pastures, Caslin’s second illustration, this time featuring two lovely young women in an embrace, was affixed with potato-starch based paste onto the façade of a grand structure, the Caherkinmonwee Castle in Co Galway. If you were looking for a more fitting frame for your portrait, you would be hard pressed to beat this one and Joe once again proves that location and context is king (or queen).
Italian text worker Opiemme just finished this ode to letters, words, and poetry in Gdansk, Poland for the Monumental Art Festival. A lover of the language, the muralist and public artist hopes to garner attention for the written word.
“I hope to spread poetry and create curiosity, to push people towards reading,” he says as he describes this new 10 story wall that is partitioned into outer space, the sky and the earth. “Like the energy of the sun, the letters radiate, transmitting in different languages knowledge, legends, and customs. They give “color” to our communications like light gives color to things.”
The mural is intended to honor the Polish poet and Nobel Prize winner in literature Wislawa Szymborska, and it includes a passage from his work,“… Truth, do not pay me too much attention. Solemnity, be magnanimous toward me …” from Under a Certain Little Star.
The nearer the words fall to earth, the more he hopes he will capture the interest of young readers. He says the words are simply sliding down the streaming drips of colors made from pouring bottles of paints. Using the eye candy as a seductive player, he says, the piece “is designed to attract the attention of adults and children in order to bring them closer to poetry”.
New Images from Brazil, The Gambia, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Rome
We check in today with the ever evolving itinerary of the singularly nomadic Street Art urban naturalist named ROA. The well known and respected aerosol painter hails from Ghent in Belgium but he is rarely there these days, so busy is he introducing his monochromatic pictorials of the marginalized animal world. Despite the immense variety of his subjects that are reflective of the local population, ROA’s style is unmistakeable, as is his choice of difficult and imperfect surfaces on which to paint. Some times his subject is playful or alert, other times they are in a struggle, still others are dead or dessicated; paying full respect to the cycle of life and death.
As if to remind us of our own sorry impact, once in a while they are ensnared and suffering in our unthinking detritus. Not surprisingly, a number of the animals are endangered and his painting can often take on an environmental advocacy as a result.
Here we travel with ROA through six countries to see where he has been painting and to learn a little about the environment that these new stars of the street have debuted upon.
On his third visit to The Gambia for the WOW festival, ROA had the opportunity to paint a yellow caterpillar, a flying serpent, the Pinned Scarabée and some pangolins in the villages of Kembujeh and Galloya. He says, “I will be back, it’s amazing” and would like to thank all the folks who live in those villages as well as the organizer of WOW, Lawrence.
“I’ve painted a pangolin before in The Gambia but being back there and having read so much during the past year about the illegal trafficking of pangolins – to be served as exotic food or mostly as a ‘medicine’, I needed to paint them again. Firstly, the so-called medical qualities of the ground-up scales are disputed and “the animals are currently on the list of endangered species because of the trafficking and the loss of habitat by deforestation in Africa,” explains ROA. He notes that one of their attempts to protect themselves is to reconfigure their appearance. “They can roll up into a ball to defend themselves,” he says.
In the past few months ROA has been to Brazil twice, and neither time to see the World Cup. Instead he has been backpacking around and doing “many small interventions in between beautiful beaches.” While the insects in some of these paintings are originally small, their final scale on the walls are definitely not.
While participating in Form’s PUBLIC festival, ROA painted a serpent eating his own tail; a design that refers to ouroboros, an ancient mythological symbol. He says that Australian aboriginal people believe “the serpent has a great symbolic value as ‘The Rainbow Serpent.’ “.
While painting the facade of the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch for the RISE festival, ROA decided to mix the dead with the living – “It’s a MOA skeleton with a kiwi!” he says. He explains that the moa was native to New Zealand, and flightless (like the kiwi), but the moa died out after humans settled the region.
In fact the Canterbury museum has a large collection of moa bones and skeletons and ROA understands that the museum is said to swap bones with other natural history museums to enlarge their own varied and large collection. One legend, according to the artist, “goes that they swapped some moa bones for the mummy they exhibit.
The site of the painting here has particular significance to the people of Christchurch as only a few years ago in 2010 and 2011 the city suffered serious and damaging earthquakes and almost 200 people died near here. The actual museum was well protected, but many buildings were heavily damaged and survivors still speak “about post-eartquake times, characterized by change and more social awareness,” he says, making this museum, “a very special place to be.”
“At the invitation of the MUECA festival in Puerto de La Cruz, I painted my first large scale insect wall!” exclaims ROA, who looks for ways to keep challenging himself. He says that this was a composition that included, “Lots of different little creatures to paint,” which was rather demanding, but he didn’t mind too much because, “it was a beautiful environment and atmosphere.”
There was a lot of bad weather in Riga during the Blank Canvas festival that ROA participated in, but “I got to paint the hedgehog and hopefully I will be back there soon to paint more,” he remarks.
Finally, we end our tour with ROA in the famous city of Rome, where he visited for the very first time. He says that it is a “wonderful city” and he painted this wolf “referencing the legend of the founding of the city.”
Roa extends his thanks to Stefano and Francesca of 999 in Rome.
A line drawing illustrator and photo-surrealistic fantasist combine their styles to form one long peculiar collaboration under Sao Paulo traffic. Both Claudio Ethos and Alex Hornest (aka Onesto) have done their share of wall work in recent years, each with their own distinctive style. Seeing them co-mingle on this Consolacao wall draws just enough of a contrast to fully appreciate their individual styles. Both will be creating another wall shortyly in the Zona Leste of this Brazilian city as well.
Big Week in New York this week – but then you probably knew that.
Here’s our weekly interview of the street, this week featuring Claw Money, Erik Denbreejen, Meer Sau, MSK, Pose, Rene Gagnon, Revenge, Revok, Rime, Street Hart, and Wing.
Looks like the Yankees could have used Joe Biden last night. “Who is this grandpa man?”, said my homey Ikbar behind the counter at the news stand, irritated that the Vice President has to hog half the cover of the New York Post from Derek Jeter. Guess the Scranton Slugger was knocking them out of the wrong park for some New Yorkers last night.
Also, anybody know why there are 10 TV vans with their saucers rotating on top and kleig lights at the end of their extended electronic probes blinding innocent semi-sleeping commuters walking by the Marcy projects in Brooklyn this morning? Saw Blondy McBlonderwig with perfect teeth and fishbowl eyes shrieking in a trench coat in front of the camera on the way to the M train, safely behind all the “crime scene” tape. Think the news has decided to do a story on the class war?
And now LIVE, here are the important up-to-the-minute stories we’re following for you this hour on WBSA.
1. Bedlam in London
2. Jaye Moon Breaks the Code (NYC)
3. Moniker 2012 (London)
4. John Breiner at Mighty Tanaka (Brooklyn)
5. “Good Guys” in Chicago
6. "Street Art Live" in Da Bronx All Day Sunday
7. SANER "Catharsis" From The Cinema (VIDEO)
8. I Love Paris Volume 5 by kouettv (VIDEO)
Bedlam in London
If you are in London this weekend and are feeling spooky and wild, nevermind that tame Madame Tussard – turn your GPS to “BEDLAM”, Lazarides new group exhibition underground in the Old Vic Tunnels. With artists including Antony Micallef, Artists Anonymous, ATMA,Conor Harrington, Dan Witz, Doug Foster, Ian Francis, Karim Zeriahen, Kelsey Brookes, Klaus Weiskopf, Lucy McLauchlan, Michael Najjar, Nachev, Tessa Farmer, Tina Tsang, Tobias Klein, War Boutique and 3D all of them working on the theme of pandemonium. Inspired by the infamous mental hospital, we were expecting to see Boris Karloff popping around the corner while appreciating scary art that experiments on your brain. Welcome.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Jaye Moon Breaks the Code (NYC)
She’s been constructing on the streets for a year or two, but her main tricks have been in the gallery for about a decade. Street and Fine Artist Jaye Moon has a new solo show titled “Breaking the Code” at the Newman Popiashvili Gallery in Manhattan so you can see where some of this Lego madness came from. Study the numbers and the text and break the code. And don’t forget to hit up Red Hook Brooklyn because Jaye Moon is also an artist in GEOMETRICKS currently on view at Gallery Brooklyn.
For further information regarding this show click here.
For further information regarding GEOMETRICKS click here.
Moniker 2012 (London)
MONIKER ART FAIR is in full swing and open for business until this Sunday. Take a trip to The Village Underground in Shoreditch if you are interested on seeing original works of art by some Street Artists who are moving the conversation on the streets right now. Remi Rough, Penny, Niels ‘Shoe’ Meulman, Ludo, Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada, Hush, C215, Ben Slow are all represented with installations and new works of art.
For further details and a full list of artists and schedules click here.
John Breiner at Mighty Tanaka (Brooklyn)
Not a Street Artist but seemingly always in the street mix – maybe he has a lot of Street Art friends or something because Jon Breiner has been at a lot of events over the last couple of years and we’ve had the opportunity to see his studio work evolve so here’s a shout out. Breiner might be one of those definitely underrated fine artists that you don’t pay much attention to and then BAM!, where the hell did this kid come from? A curator of shows and DJ, Breiner goes deep below still waters; Fastidious in his craft Mr. Breiner’s work gets close and personal, meticulously drawn and painted, portaits with weight intricately real and occasional surreal little stories with plots that are off center. His new show titled “Sooner or Later We All Make the Little Flowers Grow” opens tonight at the Mighty Tanaka Gallery in DUMBO.
John Breiner. Detail. (image courtesy of the gallery)
For further information regarding this show click here.
“Good Guys” in Chicago
Wanna know who “The Good Guys” are? Head over to 2381 Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago where The HOTBOX MOBILE GALLERY new group show will open tomorrow showcasing local talent of Chicago born and raised Street Artists including, Left Handed Wave, Brooks Golden, Clam Nation, Don’t Fret, Espir, Nudnik, Lucx and Nice-one.
For further information regarding this show click here.
“Street Art Live” in Da Bronx All Day Sunday
This Sunday the Sermon is at The Bronx and the Minister is SinXero.
Showing brotherly love New York style, a group of Street Artists including Army of One/JC2, Fumero, ADAM DARE, TONE TANK, Elle Deadsex, ENX, Choice Royce, Royce Bannon, See One & Danielle Mastrion, VEXTA, Mike Die, KID Lew, & ZIMAD, as well as, SinXero (SX) & colleague Bayoan will gather at Graffiti Universe for “Street Art Live”. An event to honor Iranian brothers and Street Srtists Icy & Sot.
It’s a Sunrise Service so just stay up Saturday night >> The event begins at 5:00 am until the whole block at Graffiti Universe is completely painted.
For further information regarding this event click here.
Also happening this weekend:
The Kosmopolite Art Tour in Amsterdam, brought to you by Aerosol Bridge Club began on Wednesday and will continue until this Sunday at the MC Theater in Amsterdam. Big mural live painting with appearances from local and international artists with tons of side events. Click here for more details regarding this event.
Monsieur A the French artist is in Mexico City for his solo show “André Saraiva” at the Anonymous Gallery. This show is now open to the general public. Click here for more details about this show.
Low Brow Artique Gallery goes soft brow with Dickchicken’s solo show “The Penis Mightier Than the Sword” opening tonight in Brooklyn. Click here for more details about this show.
Mad One and Neely II are hosting “Sticker Phiends” in Tempe, Arizona opening tomorrow. This annual sticker feast attracts a huge following of national and international sticker artists and fans. Click here for more details about this event.
Elfo is a graffiti writer and social commentator whose work intentionally sidesteps traditional notions of style or technical lettering. This …Read More »
In her latest mural, Faring Purth delivers a powerful reflection on connection, continuity, and the complexity of evolving relationships—a true …Read More »
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
