tantramar

White Line Highway

I'm a fan of this.

The concept was created by Studio Gelardi, and it consists of a small apparatus that applies a thin layer of colored chalk to a bike’s tire. As you ride, the chalk is transferred to the road, leaving a colorful trail behind you. Over time these trails on the road get more pronounced, which not only encourages other bikers to take the same route, but it also lets drivers know what roads are frequented with bike traffic, hopefully making them a bit more cautious.

Ticket to ride, white line highway
Tell all your friends, they can go my way...

via start me up

Banksy Pets NYC

Banksy opened his little pet store recently in New York (89 7th ave). It's a series of visual puns on pets stores and fast food in America. Some of it is quite amusing although more amusing are the comments you'll hear from tourists and locals in the shop, such as 'oh look, Tweety has cancer'!

There's nothing for sale and there are a series of cheap looking generic pet shop products on the wall. Bansky has been in some news of late after completing a series of very large murals in NYC, on walls that he rented as apposed to merely commandeering. It's also in the wake of some negative feedback from his New Orleans work. I was getting rather tired of the stencils so I'm glad he's exploring other ideas aside from painting livestock.

There are some more pictures in my Flickr set.

Street Art, Location Aware? (part 2)

Below is work by one of my favourite street artists, Knonose, although he doesn't fit into the traditional stereotype of what a street artist is.

Normally all you see is this:

All his work is on the rooftop of bus stops on the 55, 243 and 242 bus routes. He may use other routes but I only know of these so far. I don't know how far this extends but it spans from at least Shoreditch to Oxford Street. He understands the environment in which he places work and plays with it. Here's a close up:

They are (clearly) quite hard to photograph and so very little documentation exists (as far as I know). Knonose has told me he has very few pictures (except the good ones in this article from his Flickr account).

By limiting how the audience can view the pieces the artist has created a unique experience within the street art movement. You can only see his work on the top deck of a bus on the near side in the front few rows. Experiencing these little creations is a surprise on every journey. Sometimes there are new bits sometimes not. Sometimes you get to see some pieces decaying (I think they are made of potatoes) but often not, they don’t last that long. The artist is curating the street in a very unique way.

One of the reasons the graffiti pioneers in the Bronx used to paint subway cars was so that they could send out their message (tag or acknowledgment of their presence) right across Manhattan. They knew people would be watching. Knonose does the same thing. He knows that people will be passing his work and will see it. In fact many many people now look out for new pieces on their journey from the East End to the center of town and back. For someone that is really quite unknown he is at the same time very much recognised in certain communities or groups of people.

In fact the artist is creating an involuntary art tour (facilitated by London transport) for people to take and view his work. It's really very clever.

While some readers might be dismissive about the actual work, to me his process and working ideas are the most interesting aspects here. As weeks and months progress the viewer can witness new styles experimented with and new colours adopted and then later passed over. Anyone that takes those bus routes will know what I mean. This is what location-aware street art is, art that knows its place and is integrally tied to it in an interesting manner.

Hopefully more street artists will begin to uncover the creative potential lying dormant within their environment.
I've got an interview with Knonose coming soon (hopefully).

We Are All...

I saw a lot of these Slaves logos in Berlin. Not sure what it's all about but I really liked them...

Street Art, Location Aware?

Street art really interests me but very seldom delivers. My lack of enthusiasm for most work lies in the fact that I feel most artists seem to be missing the most interesting thing about street art; it's in the street.

Artists that show in gallery spaces are often restricted by the size of the gallery space or gallery environment. The only thing that ties the work together is the artist and their vision. With street art the potential is huge.
Be it referencing the area where you have created the work or what lives opposite or adjacent to the work. Or it could be local social comment, local political comment, geographically relevant comments, it’s all for grabs and yet so few grab at it. Big Brother posters by Fairey don’t count for much here folks. There’s loads to play with in relation to CCTV and simply referencing 1984 is a bit limp.

Artists commissioned to create work in an outdoor environment for public consumption spend a considerable amount of time examining and contemplating the environment in which their piece will be situated. Why do (most) street artists not consider this seemingly key factor?

Street artists think about where they create art, obviously, but this is frequently from a law (CCTV perspective). Banksy has painted deliberately near police stations to make a point as in case below by Shoreditch police station.

But there are so many other elements to consider. Why are there not more artists that simply create work facing north, or work that appears differently in sunlight to shadow. The outdoor environment is very rich and every street has slightly different clientèle. Why is this never considered?

Street art was born out of Graffiti. In NYC this was (and is) territorial, most street art doesn't even seem to factor in this seemingly crucial basic factor.

With the meteoric rise of stars like Fairey and Banksy I wonder how many up and coming street (style) artists are simply gunning for their first gallery show and produce very little work on the streets at all. New galleries are popping up in London every ten minutes and hosting shows containing the 'new street art' talent, after all there's money on them there bricks.

Street Art, Location Aware? (part two) coming in a couple of days

Red Lion Changes Again

So the Red Lion has a new piece up. I think this is due to the fact that some idiot drew over the last one. I'm hoping this is by Eine, the king of the street art letter form but I've got no proof yet.

JR Doing

Whatever you think of JR's work there's no denying it looks good on the side of a building. Hard to avoid in London right now.

Blek Le Rat Interview

Blek Le Rat is the original stencil artist, creating his identity in the 1970s in New York he began painting properly under the Blek Le Rat moniker in 1980.

Hopefully, fans of Banksy will know Blek's work. He's inspired many of todays street artists in terms of ideas, approaches and techniques.

The ever brilliant Fecal Face has a great interview with the man.

Breezy Barking

It really annoys me how unadventurous most street art is. None of it really engages with it's environment much. This however, is fantastic.
The dog is sleeping, then a train passes under the vent and the little fella comes to life.
More please.

via Wooster

Sort Of Exciting

Another Eine piece has cropped up in Shoreditch on the front of the 333. It says EXCITING!. The NG! is around the corner.

Obviously a commissioned piece. I'm hoping that his client simply said we'd like something like this. Eine is one of my favourites to see new work by and I'm hoping he's not gonna knock these out for too much longer.

Also I'm not sure about the choice of word or what it represents? Was the 333 specifying that? I wonder.

Had A Lick Of Paint

I saw this yesterday. The building used to have the worst signage of all time, which I wrote about here.
Vast improvement. I don't love the painting but it's still better than the old sign.

The Right To Copy?

I've never been a fan of Shepard Fairy, I simply don't think he's any good. I was impressed with the power and reach of his obey campaign a while back but as an artist I think he blows. Technically quite clever but with the imagination of a sheep (see what I did there?).

So it was with some interest and smugness that I read this article about all the occasions he's been pulled up for copyright issues and all the people he has quite shamelessly ripped off.

The way he has stolen images from propaganda artists over the years is quite shocking. For most of these original images the artist is unknown. It was obviously potentially fatal to be known (in certain countries) as someone creating work speaking out against the government.

Fans of Fairey argue that these images are in the public domain. Thinking about this I'm starting to see echoes of what's been happening in markets all over London, where people are selling Banksy images on canvases. These images are 'in the public domain' so apparently are freely available to profit from! This is exactly the same as what Fairey is doing to the old propaganda artists, well slightly worse, as at least he is tweaking the images a little. While I'm not a huge Bansky fan either I don't like that he is being screwed over by chancers making a quick buck.

People go absolutely crazy when large co-corporations rip off artists. I'm thinking companies like Urban Outfitters or some of the blatant advertising agency 'creative' steals that have occurred in recent times. How is this any different from Fairey or Banksy stealing images. After all, they are doing this to make money as well. It's a shame we can't ask Warhol to talk about this a little!

While you may like Banksy (and not know Blek Le Rat) and may like a Shepard Fairy poster of Bob Marley on your wall, one thing cannot be denied, the laws on copyright are in a right mess.

John Tehranian, a law professor at the University of Utah recently calculated that with due to his daily infringements on US copyright law he was owing (daily) fines of £5.8M. This was outside of using any P2P networks.

The way we are consuming images and remixing content is changing and evolving almost every month on YouTube and other public forums. This effects everyone, from the 12 year old making a new version of a film trailer to a artist 'referencing' another artist to an ad agency making a new commercial to Ford making a new car.

We need laws that understand our cultural climate not ones which were created before colour TV. I hope that someone is doing some thing about this but I feel the powers that be would be happier simply having more lawsuits and court cases.

Got The Blues?

Street Art doesn't get any more street then this! This blue road stretches for 1000m in Holland. Painted by Henk Hofstra. Just fantastic.

via Wooster

The War On Street Art

Hackney council in London are getting serious about this one. I wonder if it's the presentation of the streets they are concerned about or the advertising revenue they're not recieving from fly posting and street art...

In Shoreditch right now you can't throw a pig without seeing one of these little signs (above). The new cameras (left) are a bit different. They're floor rigged not wall mounted like you might expect. I'm not sure why this is. It looks like some crazy new camera style. I'm wondering whether the whole arm moves...

There are considerably less posters around at the moment and I felt a bit sad about this. Half of what I know what's going on in my neighbourhood is via the posters that covered every spare inch of wall space.

But then I saw this today (below) and realised everything is alright really.

Street Art Or Advertising?

Currently in the east end of London you cannot turn a corner without seeing a new Shepherd Fairey piece pasted up on a wall. He has a new show on Drays Walk (off Brick Lane) starting on the November 2nd.

So all these new paste ups are, in a roundabout way, to promote the new show, where he will sell many many prints and a few originals too I expect. This very much rings of what I wrote the other week about Invader's smaller street pieces effectively becoming a trigger for his gallery prices and status.

So in effect the street work is there to act as advertising for their main work, for sale in galleries. These guys, the likes of Fairey, Banksy and Invader are very much brands now, by their own creation. This is an intriguing scenario.

This is by no means a bad thing. These hungry guys can do whatever they choose to get to where they want to be. They have all been doing this on the downlow for years and years and this seems to be their time, right now, so they should be milking it. It's simply very intriguing to see the whole grass roots process roll out, and the creation of brands without using traditional marketing.

I think the whole, if art becomes branding is it no longer art question, I'll leave for another day.