December 30, 2006
Top Dollar Garbage
As we begin to sort through the trash art photos from around the world (see the previous post here) this story from Rene Gagnon caught our eye. He tells us...
"Being someone who loves working on the street i'm also someone who is constantly searching for ways to do it legally, it hit me a few weeks ago, peoples trash. some stuff gets picked up quickly, but bulky items sit around awhile and are great opportunities to get my art on the street. this "top dollar garbage" thing is a statement about the value we put on things because there is a pattern associated with it, coach, gucci, doony and bourke, louis voitton, etc... because of this i thought "maybe people will put value on trash, because there is a "top dollar" pattern on it", probably not but thought i might make someone think of how ridiculous the whole thing is."
Posted by marc at 7:57 AM in Activism | Recommend this! (24) |
| Swoon On The Streets of Baghdad
Sometimes life comes full circle.
When Swoon created the piece above she incorporated imagery that came from the cameras of marines that had been recently killed in Iraq.
This month, the finished piece returned to where it had begun, in the central Baghdad neighborhood of Karrada.
Photos taken by Johan Spanner
December 29, 2006
We Love Projections (Even If Sometimes They're Done by Brands)
Done by Sportlife, a chewing gum brand in Holland.
(Thanks Sheldon!)
Posted by marc at 4:43 PM in Projections | Recommend this! (36) |A Christmas Wreath Like None Other
The photos above are of a Christmas wreath made out of signs collected from local homeless people in Seattle. It was put up on the street in a heavy trafficked shopping district early in the morning of the 23rd of Dec by Erock and remained up until it was taken down by city workers on the morning of Dec 27th.
To create the wreath, Erock went around and collected them from homeless people in the area. In return he gave each of them a few dollars and some more cardboard and pens to make another sign.
Posted by marc at 2:22 PM in Activism | Recommend this! (65) |Projections in Miami
""WOW! How much did this cost? Looks nice, can me and a couple hundred of my homeless friends live in it?"
In August, Ivan, an artist/activist in Miami, began doing guerrilla projections of images on the new building developments that are appearing in and around downtown Miami.
He continued to do them until one night he and his friends were pulled over by the Miami police with their guns pointed inches from their head through the driver and passenger side windows. After two hours of being called anarchists and that what they were doing was "not art" and just "fucking around" he decided to stop doing the projections to work on other projects.
You can watch a seven minute video of some of the best scenes and phrases from the projections by clicking here.
Posted by marc at 10:19 AM in Projections | Recommend this! (34) |Shit We're Diggin: The Watercolors of Walton Ford
Yesterday Sara, Rekal, and I headed over to the Brooklyn Museum to finally see the Ron Mueck and Annie Leibovitz exhibitions.
While we were blown away by Mueck's sculptures and Leibovitz's photographs, for us the real highlight of the day was discovering the incredible watercolors of Walton Ford.
If you're in New York and haven't yet gone to the Brooklyn Museum to see these three shows, be sure to do so before they end in January. All three of them are amazing.
If you're not yet familiar with Ford's work, click here, here, and here.
December 28, 2006
Fresh Stuff From mezzoforte in France
More here.
Every Picture Has A Story - The Tape Woman in Julianapark Utrecht (Netherlands),
From Zworkt:
"well, i could spawn a story about my frustrations of the Christmas spirit, about the masses of people herding around buying things, wishing each other things, and how in the end every person is locked up in him/herself. But in the end i just found a piece of chickenfence which i turned into a woman holding her child. I just wanted to make a wrapped up man to sit on our couch (which sits there now). I liked making it so much that i made more. Not very much meaning and everything, apply your own thoughts. I guess I like the way it pictures some way of a nesting instinct and how that is eating some of my friends."
On a side note, the piece stood there for about two days and then was kicked to death by some children.
stood there for about 2 days and then was kicked to death by some children
Seen on streets of Asunción-Paraguay
Hats off to the artist who did the piece above. We love how he (or she) used the rocks from the street so that the image fits perfectly on the wall with the hand landing on the top ledge. Simple but clever.
Posted by marc at 10:48 PM in Wheatpastes | Recommend this! (29) |Manhole Mandala
The other day we posted some photos of some lovely rose pedal artwork that we came across in our neighborhood of Soho. Yesterday Aileen sent us the photos above of a piece she stumbled this past Saturday in union square.
It goes without saying that we hope the artist continue to make them
Posted by marc at 10:11 PM in Environmental | Recommend this! (30) |Every Picture Has A Story - Trev in Nanjing, China
"These were done in Nanjing, China, KST was done by KST and The McDisappear from China was done by me, PLA (People's Liberation Artist...ha!). I don't know if you take submissions, but I'm sending them anyways. We're just starting out and Street art in Nanjing is still in its infancy. I'm Chinese-American and my friends are Chinese. The life here is extremely regulated by culture I felt like I needed to express myself...Your weblog has been quite an inspiration for me to do-er than a sit back and watch-er. Keep up the good work!" -Trev
Every Picture Has A Story - Roberto in Santiago
Here's the story of the piece above as told to us by Michael back in May -
"Back in the summer of 1998 I spent 3 weeks shooting a documentary film on Cuban life and culture with 3 other friends from Toronto. We ended up meeting a guy named Roberto. He sold books on the street in Santiago and had a really inspiring outlook on life. A quote of Roberto's that has always stayed with me is"me gusta pisar siempre adentro de la verdad, asi me siento mas seguro"...or roughly translated...I always like to stand inside the truth, in this way I feel most secure... I had an opportunity 2 weeks ago to put up a piece in a laneway behind the Cameron House in downtown Toronto....I thought of Roberto... "
Float Part 2
Not too long ago we posted a terrific little video called Float that is part of a series called Backspace. Earlier this month Stephen posted part two of Float. If you haven't checked it out yet, give it a look. Like the first one, it's lovely.
Posted by marc at 8:55 PM in Video | Recommend this! (10) |Time Lapse Video of Speto at Spring
One of the pleasant surprises during the seven weeks that we had to put together the Wooster on Spring show was receiving a phone call from our friend Jake Dobkin back in November. Jake called us because that week he was hosting a panel discussion and demonstration with the Brazilian graffiti artist Speto as part of the Bi-Fold events put on by LVHRD.
When we spoke, Jake mentioned that Speto was interested in doing a piece inside 11 Spring. The timing could not have been more perfect,as Sara and I had just been talking about our concern that the show wasn't yet showcasing any examples of graffiti or street art in the South American style. Having Speto become part of Wooster on Spring was music to our ears.
So one afternoon Sara let Speto into 11 Spring just before he had to head to the airport. In an hour or two he finished his piece and headed off to the airport.
There's a lot of things that we like about Speto's piece. For one, we knew that it was a tricky location next to the staircase. A lot of artists would perhaps turn down the spot, but Speto approached it with passion.
The thing that stands out most for us about the piece is how Speto uses the hair to draw people up and down the staircase. The way the hair flows and extends to the next floor captured for us quite well how graffiti and street artists have the ability to quickly adapt to their surroundings and incorporate the "realities" of their environment into their work.
Unknown to us until this morning, LVHRD did a time lapse video of Speto's work while he was in New York. The piece he did for 11 Spring comes near the end. You can watch it by clicking here.
Posted by marc at 10:09 AM in Wooster on Spring | Recommend this! (4) |Speaking Out About Corruption in Singapore
The Mob Squard are a group of young artists and activists living in Singapore. In May they put up the piece above basing the work and design on three words: rock, terror and evil.
He told us - "The image had based on incidents and scences that took place or affacted our lives on this island. For example we believe that somewhere in the higher authorities corruptions are taking place and had taken place esp for one of the recent events in singapore ( national kidney foundation saga), and sometimes we pray for someone with great power and heart to changes the lives of peoples and victims who are affacted by such incident."
Posted by marc at 9:43 AM in Activism | Recommend this! (14) |Taking A Stand in Lahore, Pakistan
Fatima is an art student living in Lahore, Pakistan. The images above are from a street art project that she did in Lahore to take a stand against the local government who have been cutting down trees and eradicating the greenery of Lahore.
To express her feelings, Fatima made a caricature of a local politician under whose authority the trees are being cut. She then placed the caricature on a tree on a main road where all the trees were being marked with a red cross signifying that it was to be cut soon.
She then left her cardboard piece for people to see and take notice.
Posted by marc at 9:34 AM in Politics | Recommend this! (13) |Seen On The Streets of Tehran
Each day when we check our email we're constantly amazed by the diversity of nationalities and cultures of the people who contact us. We agree with Blek Le Rat when he says that urban art (his definition for the graffiti movement and how it has evolved) is the most powerful art movement in history, primarily from the fact that there isn't a city in the world that today doesn't have some form of graffiti or street art.
One of the most interesting email correspondences we've maintained this year is with a group of Iranian graffiti writers living in Tehran. While the communication hasn't been easy, every time we open an email from A1one we feel like the reason for updating the Wooster site has been re-confirmed to us.
The images above were sent to us a week or so ago with the line - "It was th worst work in Tehran,,, some about Mind Control by Our Gov ,aome a teasand joke with the Voting which is in friday to choose Islamic leaders comity.."
Posted by marc at 9:18 AM in Politics | Recommend this! (21) |Surrend in Sri Lanka
In October we received an email from Jan & Affex of the artgroup Surrend. After traveling to various political hotspots including Poland, Belarussia, Turkey, and Serbia, the group contacted us from Sri Lanka where they were doing a street campaign with stickers.
They wrote...
"We are here in Colombo to proclamate peace since the breach of truce and the impending civil war has arisen again. We come with the message of peace through 4 stickers, which bare slogans such as "Potentially prosperous society" "Terrible beaches here" "The food is as bad as in Denmark" "Snow all year", all stickers containing the phrase "Of course you kill each other" underneath each single statement. We work with irony in the text. We ask of people to see the beauty and possibilities of their country. We don't have any solutions for the situation here, so it comes about in a naive and childish way to just ask for peace, and in that respect the stickers have been made with the appearance of children's drawings, originally made with watercolor as well. The status here is very tense, and we have been stopped in car up to 5 times in two kilometers, by armed guards in full gear with Kalashnikovs. They are present in the streets almost everywhere. The people we have met in the streets while sticking have been very friendly and interested, and seem to have a good attitude towards us and our business. The irony is hopefully understood by people who see the stickers by themselves."
Posted by marc at 8:59 AM in Activism | Recommend this! (4) |Finding Better Terminology (or Moving Beyond the Phrase "Street Art")
From our friend Influenza in Holland:
"i just quickly wanted to come back on that old topic you seemed to open up once more about the limitating label people seem to put on what we do (streetart, post-graffiti art, etc).
always thought, and still think, the best name that covers the majority of the movement we are living in would be "urban intervention art"
the intervention is an essential element that separates the guerrilla-strategy based urban art from lets say - making bronze sculptures for the main square on the invitation of the city council - or making oil paintings of a street scene for a commercial gallery.
at the same time the additive of intervention to the label underlines the aspect of illegal or less legal in our actions, as an essential element in the character of the produced works (in real as well as just as reference).
While we don't love the phrase "Street Art" we also see the point that Tim is making who wrote us earlier this week:
"...I feel like people are always trying to name a movement (or school of art) and often times it's mostly to commodify it and associate themselves with it. The magazine Juxtapoz, for instance, refers to the movement as "lowbrow art." I find this label to be pretty useless, and I also don't like the fact that when someone, like Juxtapoz, goes about naming a movement, they associate themselves as being the main proponent or 'father' of that movement.
I think naming a movement usually benefits the artists who are associated with it in the short run, because if a movement picks up steam, members of the group get exposure just by being part of it (such as the Young British Artists movement of the 90's or the much-hyped neo-expressionism of the 80's). However, it also serves to limit the art, I think. I've never thought
of the art on wooster as 'street art,' 'urban art,' or even 'graffiti,' it's just art. The people who want to name an artistic movement are usually writers and critics who need to contextualize something in order to write/think about it.
While thinking about this, I looked to the past and realized this has been going on for a while. The term cubism was first used by a French art critic, not the artists painting in that style. And the leading artists in the cubism movement, Picasso and Braque, didn't have much use for it.
I know some schools of art are conceptualized and given a self-imposed name, Dada comes to mind, but when people who aren't the artists themselves (usually art writers) go about labeling a style or school, it's usually only serves to pigeonhole artists..."
to which Influenza responds....
"i disagree with that other text you put under my writing. think its important artists themselves take responsibility for the context around their art. resisting the (in my opinion patronizing) label "streetart" -in my time streetart was a synonyme for pantomime or chalkdrawing on the pavement - means correcting if in a way that fits most, but at the same time cuts out other expressions. indeed labels limit, but this movement is by now old and mature enough i think to fit the jacket.
and a movement it is.
to which steve adds....
Hello! I thought that I would toss in my two cents about the name "urban art." I completely agree with you that "street art" is not a flattering term for what it is that we do. Blek le Rat has suggested that it be dubbed as "urban art." I feel that this name is also limiting because the word urban implies that the art is confined to a city environment. (I may be one of the few, but Im sure that I am not the only artist that does work outside of the city. I am currently working on a campaign that focuses mainly on rural areas and some areas that have little to no population. (Ill send some photos when I finish the project)) By adding a word in front of "art," it will immediately allow the ignorant to categorize what it is that we do. And when so many of us are doing such completely different things... style, medium, location, message, etc. it would almost be an injustice to label what we do. Just because most of our art is displayed in urban areas or on the street, doesn't mean the art should be defined by that. There is so much more to it than that. For example, just because the impressionists and cubists used canvas to paint on, doesn't mean that they were labled as "canvas artists" and just because art is displayed in a gallery doesn't mean its referred to as "gallery art." So, I enjoyed the last statement that Tim had made....."A celebration of art" Plain and Simple. When you boil it all down, thats all that you are left with. It is what it is.....art.
Best Documentation of An Art Event Ever
If someone were to give an award for "the best documentation of an art event in 2006" no doubt the winner would be Zedz and his ArtBeat project that took place in Amsterdam two months ago.
Working with Esher from Berlin, the entire process of creating the art was captured with a camera with a 360 degree lens that took a photo every 30 seconds that then made an incredible 360 degree, completely interactive,
If you do one thing this morning, check out the website, the 360 degree interactive film, and the documentation on the official website for the project here.. We were blown away.
Posted by marc at 7:52 AM in Art | Recommend this! (11) |December 27, 2006
The Girl In The Corner
Agnieszka is a 28 year old artist living in Poznań, Poland. She works at the Academy of Arts in Poznań as an assistant in the graphics workshop. Recently she wanted to place her work in a public space because, as she says, "it is the most honest form of artistic dialog."
She told us - "Śródka is one of the city's neighborhoods. Forgoten and deserted. Wondering through the streets of this neighborhood I found a hidden and forgotten courtyard. Extremely small (around 6m2), as if squeezed between tall, dark walls of houses. The place is very small, claustrophobic and filled with voices of pigeons. Frightening and in the same time charming, like taken out from a different world.In one of the corners I placed my white sculpture of a little girl. She was facing the wall with her face hidden in her hands as if she was playing "hide and seek".
I believe that this work had good response especially from from local society. It gave a lot of joy to local children. That was something! The atmosphere of this little court yard was amazing and I like to think that this little girl was already there, I just gave her a shape and form..."
From The Streets of Beirut
In September, Jo Baaklini, who's only 17 years old student living in Beirut started a blog to show graffiti in Lebanon. The image above was one of the first one's put up on the site. It's one of our favorite photos of the year.
Posted by marc at 2:11 PM in Stencils | Recommend this! (6) |Keeping The Viking Tradition Alive in Sweden
In October, Evil Criminal contacted us with the following message...
"i study fine arts in the north of sweden and i am fascinated by the amazing artwork of the vikings who were the first street artists in scandinavia and traveled a lot to install their rune stones which they used to scratch and paint on so i wanted to remember my roots and keep the tradition alive and interact with the beautiful landscape of sweden. greetings from the vikings!"
Posted by marc at 1:59 PM in Art | Recommend this! (7) |Our Passion For Vintage Photographs (or In Search of Richard Hambleton)
Before digital cameras were invented, it was somewhat rare for people to shoot images of street art.
This year, one of our goals is to track down and compile as many unknown vintage photographs of street art from the late 70's and early 80's as possible.
(If you have any to share, email us at woostercollective@gmail.com)
The photo above, taken by Allan Molho, is of a piece done by one of our current obsessions - Richard Hambleton.
There were rumors that Hambleton stopped by 11 Spring one day just before the opening while the artists where painting. Malcolm mentioned that it might have been Hambleton who put up a series of mirrors inside the building. Sara also thought that she might have asked Hambleton to leave because she didn't know who he was.
Over the last couple of months, reading more about the East Village scene in the 80's, I've become obsessed with the work of Richard Hambleton. A dream of ours is to one day curate a show of Hambleton's work.
UPDATE: A tip from Miss Dabree: "There was an awesome book from when i was a kid that used to have some of his stuff in it. Alot of cool street and outsider stuff.. New, Used and Improved: Art for the. 80's, Peter Frank and Michael McKenzie, Abbeville Press, Inc., New York with a Ronnie Cutrone painting of Bugs Bunny on the front.. I used to get it out of the library and steal pages out of it until I just decided to take the whole thing. Sorry N. Plfd public library"
Ruben the Acrobat
"Ruben the Acrobat" was a life sized sculpture placed on the streets of Lima, Peru by
FUMAKAKA.
It lasted three weeks.
Posted by marc at 7:54 AM in Sculpture | Recommend this! (14) |