International graffiti artist duo HOW and NOSM have been beautifying the globe for over 23 years now, dodging bullets, and running from police dogs in the name of sharing their art. In this episode, the duo heads to a land where wall space is plentiful and cops are gentle. Video after the jump.
If you walked down the streets of Santa Monica recently, you might have noticed trees wearing sweaters, a convertible dressed in a knitted wardrobe, and crocheted birds hanging from trees. Your mind was not playing tricks on you – it was all part of a very real art phenomenon known as yarn bombing. In order to celebrate this knitted street art movement, the 18th Street Arts Center’s Arzu Arda Kosar and Arroyo Arts Collective co-president Heather Hoggan teamed up to present “18th Street Yarn Bombing.” For those unfamiliar with the trials and tribulations of yarn bombing, ChinaShop sat down with Kosar for the inside scoop:
When it comes to street art, graffiti, or any artwork that winds up in public, there’s a certain process involved that can be as interesting as the final piece itself. With The Chicago Street Art Show, the work of Chicago-based artists like Don’t Fret, Chris Silva, Goons, and Mental 312 is hardly framed in a neat display; this show held at the Chicago Urban Art Society exists freely on and off the walls of the gallery, allowing people to really see the work and layers involved in contemporary street art. Personally getting to witness the final day of setup for this show illustrated how much life these pieces take on—especially when multiple artists bring their individual visions together.
Earlier this week, I inhaled my year’s quota of aerosol paint fumes as I watched some of today’s best Graffiti artists scramble to put the finishing touches on plywood reinforced walls at Little Tokyo’s Hold Up Art. The artfully spray painted walls are part of this month’s “Hi-Graff,” an installation-based street art exposition set to explore the concept of Graffiti as a contemporary art movement.
You don’t get to feel a city’s pulse until you’ve been trapped on a few of its highways. To understand what I mean, do this: wake up in the fog-dipped countryside, speed through the open space of sparsely populated fields, then past the first signs of industry – factories, pristine and painted in candy colors or splattered with graffiti, past car dealerships and low-income suburbs, until the highway is choking on traffic and you’re stopped at a toll booth, the humming city emerging at this final checkpoint. Now we’re ready to enter Rome.
Art in the Streets is the first major U.S. museum exhibition on the history of graffiti and street art, featuring the genre’s evolution from the bombing of New York’s subway cars to cholo tagging in the streets of L.A. to the contemporary street art popularized by the likes of Shepard Fairey and Banksy.
Located at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in L.A., Art in the Streets will run from April 17 to August 8, 2011, showcasing installations by 50 of the most dynamic street artists in the world. Artists include Banksy, Fab 5 Freddy, Lee Quiñones, Futura, Swoon, Shepard Fairey, JR, Retna, and Mister Cartoon.
Stephen Powers, the legendary graffiti writer and artist, spent a year painting 50 murals on the walls of West Philadelphia. He solicited notes from the inhabitants and hired local muralists to help him paint the murals.
The effort, produced in conjunction with City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program and sponsored by the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, was documented in a book. And now it is a movie. But it’s not a documentary.
About Stephen Powers
“Section Sec. 28.08 of the Texas Penal Code GRAFFITI. (a) A person commits an offense if with aerosol paint or an indelible marker and without the effective consent of the owner the person intentionally or knowingly makes markings, including inscriptions, slogans, drawings, or paintings, on the tangible property of the owner.” Shhh, could someone please not tell the guys behind the world recognized Clogged Caps Aerosol Art Festival? Because I just came back from shooting the 7th year of this 3 day live mural festival and it was off the hook. Let me break it down for you.
Oceanic Awareness Collaboration and Andi Campognone Projects are proud to present the 1st annual Art for Awareness Benefit. A one night event Saturday, February 26, 2011 from 6 – 11pm, featuring art work by 50 artists from around the country and as far away as the UK and Indonesia.
When Kenny Scharf was painting his mural—an orgy of candy-colored cartoon faces in various states of distortion—on the northwest corner of Houston and Bowery in downtown Manhattan, he said he wasn’t worried about graffiti writers painting over his piece, as they did to Shepard Fairey’s “May Day” mural at the same spot in July.