13 Jun 2012 - 1 night only
then Lovebox Festival, Victoria Park, London
15 Jun - 17 Jun 2012
all photos NoLionsInEngland,
In case you missed Part 1 of Graffoto’s news and views from Banger Art, check it out here (opens new window or tab or something) for background and loads of artwork.
Eine, Will Barras, Aida, Sweet Toof
Did you know Pablo Delgado also painted? News to us but a reliable source identified these coarse and somewhat KKK channelling figures as by Pablo.
Pablo Delgado
Matt Small paints anonymous humanity, defusing the stereotype and reducing the inferred intimidation. In this show Matt paints on car bonnets and doors, revisiting a format he showed at Black Rat Press in early 2009 but let’s face it, there aren’t many forms of reclaimed metal that Matt hasn’t daubed. Matt’s technique is based upon blending various immiscible oils and liquids on a level(ish) surface then dragging the fluid around to create the image. A little information about his technique is quite irrelevant of course as these hanging works serve as a jolting reminder of the colour and beauty in Matt’s portraits.
Matt Small
One of the first examples of Will Barras’ work this keyboard botherer came across was a battered van at Cans II Festival in 2008, his stunning char-a-banc at this show was an even wilder and willowier series of ethereal wispy human and equine figures on a smoky abstract background. Should black, greens and cornflower yellows work together in a Ridley Walker-esque frieze of gothic post apocalypse characters and mad animals, perhaps not in theory but behold the beauty.
Will Barras
The underground car park is huge, let’s take a guess and say it might have fitted 60 to a hundred cars in the architect’s utopian scheme. Pillars, pipes and weird skanky flooded side rooms break up the space. Transits, that is lines of sight rather than Ford vans, offer all kinds of beautiful interactions between cars, installations and art on the walls.
The eyes have it: Jorge Rodriguez-Garada, Matt Small, Sweet Toof
The Borrowers style miniature figures of Pablo Delgado have been populating the streets of London for over a year now but the pavement level dwellers have suffered some tragedies with spectacular lorry jack-knifings and terrorisation by Aida’s oversize dayglo queen of the jungle. It has the look of a cult B movie in the making.
Aida, Pablo Delgado
The car decorated by Pablo Delgado features a hugely intricate mankind-as-plague tableau. The human population squeezes out the animal kingdom and to escape their self inflicted overcrowding the humans scramble up the passenger side door (dear America, right handed drivers would find drive-by shootings easier with the steering wheel on the other side) and in through a hole in the window, to reappear out another hole on the driver’s side where they expire in free-fall, greatly improving matters for the rest of nature which now have more room to graze. As a fully thought through coherent composition executed in pain-staking detail, this stood out in exceptional company.
Pablo Delgado - passenger side
Pablo Delgado - side where the steering wheel goes
Back to Aida, the Princess of Screenprinting has done a masterpiece of pop art with more than a hint of glam with a glittery neon zoological kaleidoscope, perhaps the spangley gun on the dashboard even hints at gangstaaa! Rising to the challenge of the novel medium, Aida brought her screens with her and sprayed through the image with aerosol stencil style, bet that’s easier said than done..
Aida
Group shows generally give us the willies with many ill-combined artists chucking in lackadaisical “cluttering up the studio” pieces but in Banger Art, all the artists worked on site for days putting in shitloads of time and creativity. There is not a single crap “dialed-in” performance in the cavern. In the case of the artists whose work is familiar to us (sit down Dan Hillier, Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada) the concept was much more taking the refinements of the studio art to the car park rather than the usual cash-in taking the street into the gallery, except of course for Matt Small who routinely paints rusty metal in the studio. Good art deserves a great environment and this grubby neglected underground bunker provided a perfect ambience for art on wrecks.
Dr D
The potency for street art to play a positive role in a regeneration programme has been discussed before and specifically was one of the elements in justifying the use of the St Peter’s estate car park facility. I am a little inclined to be sceptical and cynical about this but there is no doubt that the wave of positivity around this event, where the door was open and residents mingled and marvelled, creates a lasting impression that feeds into the necessary positive sentiment about the area.
There was something so right about this location for this spectacle, it will be interesting to hear from anyone how these cars fit in in their second incarnation at Lovebox festival in London’s Vicky Park this weekend, link up your pics in the comments below.
The texture, scale and colour of this show made it incredibly photogenic. More photos meaning other photos not used in this blog are here.
Ella (surprise guest)
With so much to see and so many ways to see it, there are several other great photo sets out there and each has a number of unique pieces not repeated in the others, check out HowAboutNo, Hookedblog and LDNGraffiti
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