Showing posts with label Clet Abraham. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Clet Abraham. Show all posts

Saturday 28 December 2013

London's Street Art 2013 - Nostalgia is so last year



They said it wouldn’t last and dammit they were right. The year turned out to be mortal, just 365 days long but attaching electrodes to 2013’s nipples, street artists cranked the generator handle to keep fresh work fizzing on the walls right to the very death. Let’s look back over the highlights, the brilliant walls, the teeny-weeny you’d-easily-miss-it fragments, the colours, the visiting international artists, the spats, the local artists who aren’t getting curated spots on permission mural walls, the REAL street art.

Words and photos: NoLionsInEngland


Street art is not a competition but Art Is Trash is 2013’s winner. Brash, colourful, inventive and at times downright lewd and crude, Art Is Trash turned his installations and painting into a performance. It was his ephemeral tragic bin bag characters and beasts that first caught our eye.

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Art Is Trash


He then took the fight to fly posters (ok, I know street art is doomed to lose that battle) with some twisted subversions of the airbushed, cool and fulfilled characters targeting our needy and product deprived community.

Art Is Trash subverts illegal fly posters
Art Is Trash


His cure for tapeworm may face challenges getting medical certification.

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Art Is Trash


One of the most beautiful campaigns was the soulful floppy eared characters who appeared on vintage music sheets and magazine pages courtesy of Midge, sometimes in stunning collaborations with My Dog Sighs.

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Midge v. My Dog Sighs


On the subject of vintage paper, 616’s trespassing in abandoned buildings resulted in the liberation of found letters from a bygone pre-email era, he picked out underlined highlights from the text which formed the basis for multiple distortions of his characteristic tribal cartoon characters.

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616 – “Monarch”


It has been a brilliant year for the highly promising ALO. His street work painted directly on the surface has won heaps of admirers and he is beginning to develop deserved traction in the gallery world.

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ALO


The world is certainly a brighter place for the pop art paste ups of D7606. After coming to attention for persuading icons of femininity that piss smelling phone boxes were the place to be seen in 2013, he expanded the repertoire to embrace other forms of technologically challenged communication utilities such as post boxes, valve TVs and “Tardis” police phone boxes.

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D7606 – (“yeah, Billy love, just go to the hotel and straight up to his room”)


D7606 proved himself to be an exceptional engine for artistic collaboration, inviting artists such as 616, C3, Gee Street Art and Benjamin Murphy to integrate their characters into his pop soaked retro world but as suckers for interaction between pieces of street art, the perhaps unplanned addition of a letter to the interface between Skeleton Cardboard and D7606’s post box tickled us most.

Skeleton Cardboard's Final Demand to D7606
D7606 v. Skeleton Cardboard


Clet Abraham has been a frequent visitor in recent years though the vast majority of his traffic sign subversions from previous visits to London were “sign man” carrying a heavy beam. On his most recent visit late this year his interference with the authority's visual control signals demonstrated the full range of his witty and imaginative repertoire.

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Clet Abraham



It would have been an incomplete year without the collaged brand-jacking of A.CE, he dutifully kept up a barrage of wheatpastes. Something unusual this year from A.CE was his "artist-cam" view of a night time bombing mission which captures the energy and “one man alone versus the city" of an intense illegal run, click A.CE: Inside The mind Of A Street Artist.

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A.CE


The Horror Crew, Mr Fan in particular, has had a great year with work which challenges categorisation. The observant will see in addition to the gorgeous candy coloured pop imagery that the legs of the beast in the photograph below spell out HC FAN, defiantly blurring the boundary between street art and graffiti. Also, is this cool street art or a permissioned mural? Though we have chanced upon him painting this spot a couple of times in broad daylight without a care in the world, I am inclined to guess that Mr Fan has created these beautiful Koons hat tips without permission from the property owner. That supposition is supported by the absence of any camera crew documenting every squirt of paint and also the absence of any stencilled shouts to any mural organizers.

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Mr Fan HC


Sometimes it’s the small and un-shouty street art that deserves greatest admiration, a piece that is clever, took some effort and doesn’t scream “I’m an artist, buy ME ME ME “. This metalwork bird by artist unknown is stunningly placed, beautifully executed and its installation is ingenious in a way you can only appreciate by finding it on the street, one of my favourites of the year.

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Unknown


Something which seems quite commonplace in New York with their angle iron sign posts but which is rare in London is the metalwork tag. Artist “Three” from Singapore left this beautiful rusty tag on a wooden background of faded abstract spraypaint colours, a stunning and photogenic little piece which lasted quite a while.

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Three


D*Face closed the old Stolenspace location with a spectacular solo show, reviewed here, which was accompanied by an epic mural next to Christchurch Spitalfields, beautifully juxtaposing the sins of the flesh and religious piety.

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D*Face


In doing so, he provocatively went over a long running graffiti spot and to no one’s surprise, probably least of all D*Face’s, due response was delivered within days.

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Graffiti v. Street Art


There is a long list of artists and pieces of work we want to include in this year’s annual review but in recognition of the attention span of our audience…and hello to anyone still reading this far…plus the fact that I may have figured out the technology for the first time, we are going to recognise the great contributions of some (not all) of those artists in a photo slide show.


Coming shortly will be part 2 of Graffoto’s review of the year 2013 in street art with emphasis on the larger and more spectacular work of visiting artists and muralists and anything we feel just should be mentioned even if only for being damn photogenic. Sign up for the Graffoto email or RSS and see ya shortly.

Wednesday 6 November 2013

Hit Shot Walls - October 2013


words, photos: NoLionsInEngland

October sees itself out with a celebration of the macabre by the ghoulish, while people who aren’t street artists celebrate Halloween. This month has been a cracking month for new art and splashes of colour in our world, a large portion attributable to the Moniker Art Fair relocating from its previous village underground spot to the Old Truman Brewery and bringing hordes of street artists to the Brick Lane area

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Alex Face


Alex Face (Thailand), Bon (Thailand) and Mau Mau (deepest Somerset) came together on several walls, this little beauty involved interacting with the iconic ROA bird, giving it a leg which Bon’s psychedelic bird chops lumps out of while Mau Mau’s fox relishes toasting the resulting leg fillets over a dollar bill barbeque, though quite why Alex Face’s baby is having it’s ear served up on a plate isn’t quite clear. It’s always great when new street art pays respect and homage to its surroundings like this piece.

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Mau Mau, Alex Face, Bon


Alex Face and Bon also created a real squirt of colour on a much less frequented wall off the Brick Lane beaten track.

Alex Face and Bon
Alex Face, Bon


Shoreditch Junk on Sclater St provides a permission wall which somehow manages to avoid the sterility of other muralista’s spots. This interaction/collaboration between Skeleton Cardboard and Nathan Bowen elevates a savage and brutal skirmish between War and Death to new bloody heights.

Nathan Bowen v. Skeleton Cardboard
Nathan Bowen v. Skeleton Cardboard


On the same spot, RYCA created a wall of clone troopers in a spare moment in between creating one of the knock out gallery project installations for Moniker Projects.

Ryan Callanan Clone Troopers
Ryan Callanan


During the night of the "Great Equinoctial Storm" of October 2013 the heavy rain and wind combined to jet spray large stripes out of the mural and Ryan was so taken with the effect he came back with a much drippier clone trooper paste up composition zig zagging around sprawling gaps mimicking the storm damage filled with a stunning pop art styled star wars stencil motif.

Ryan Callanan aka RYCA
Ryan Callanan


Clet Abraham from Florence made a return visit to modify our many No Entry signs, sightings have been reported from Kings Road to Shoreditch via the City. Previous visits yielded more or less just the sign man carrying a heavy weight but this time Abraham has put up all kinds of subversions from his full repertoire, more focus on Clet Abraham’s London activity HERE.

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Clet Abraham


C3 from Birmingham has been peppered all over Shoreditch in the past few months, the D7606 collaboration effect we call it, so it has been nice to see some of her own stuff on heavyweight parcel paper. She’s a heart breaker.

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C3


Amanda Marie from Colorado USA was over for a Moniker Projects installation and she found a moment after that hectic weekend for a naughty bit of un-authorised stencil activity on a wall which years ago used to be one of the go-to walls for Shoreditch street artists.

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Amanda Marie


Blair Zaye is a London street artist whose work appears infrequently but who does go back a few years, in October he had the interesting idea of installing a network of drainpipes which symbollically drained the surplus colour washing off the walls of Shoreditch, while this weary eye keeps an eye on proceedings.

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Blair Zaye


T.Wat has been raising the bar on the street art sculpture game.  The welding, papier-mâché and painting involved in creating this illegally installed bomb must be seen to be appreciated and you can see just that by clicking here.

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T.Wat


DScreet has featured music lyrics across his owl imagery before and now he leads the Lou Reed tributes with this beautiful Velvet Underground “I’ll Be Your Mirror” lyrics piece and in the process reclaims a long running Burning Candy/Dscreet wall from an equally stunning Soker Uno piece which also featured …. a mirror…cue X-Files music.

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DScreet


Soker Uno
Soker Uno



Another spooky Lou Reed related image…this banana by RYCA mimics the Warhol Velvet Underground album cover and was done as a side bar to the main Warhol-esque storm damaged clone trooper paste up mural but it was painted a couple of days before Lou Reed passed away.

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RYCA


Trust Icon has a little pop at the commercialisation of street art, nice paste up humour from someone whose last round of street art was such a blatant commercial that he turned a photo of the paste up into the show flyer ;-)

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Trust Icon


Finally, yet more by the legendary globally up artist Anonymous, the first an understated metal sculpture not spotted by many passing eyes, the second proving the enduring appeal of well observed and executed comedy genitalia

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Unknown


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Unknown


So the month of October celebrates death but unusually street artists actually ended up celebrating the hugely influential life of a genius lived to the full.

Thursday 5 January 2012

Graffoto Round Up Of The Year - Pt 3

HowAboutNo rashly promised FOUR picture-rich blog posts to review what was up on London’s streets and alleyways in 2011, so I thought I’d contribute something at this stage covering the Summer months, mainly because with our productivity we might not complete this magnus opus until Dec 2012.

Dr D was present and correct throughout 2011, this particular poster reflected what we were all thinking but by pasting up on this scale on the A501, Dr D said it with a little more panache.

Dr D


Small was beautiful throughout 2011,not only the likes of Isaac Cordal and Pablo Delgado (see VNA issue17 for an interview) but new to London’s streets were a collection of hand painted anthropomorphic pig sculptures by lovepiepenbrinck.

lovepiepenbrinck


Italian artist Clet Abraham visited these shores early in the Summer and took the liberty of modifying a number of our street signs.

Clet Abraham

We didn’t see too much of Kid Acne on London walls this year but he seemingly did go out on a bombing mission one night in the company of Aida and Emma. Seeing my bike leaning against a wall on the fringes of the shot reminds me of the self inflicted stupidity that led to my bike being nicked from just 3 feet from me in Brick lane in October. Twat.

kid acne


Stencils on old newspapers are Mr.Farenheit’s stock in trade, he (she?) certainly got up a lot throughout 2011. Supposedly the QR codes used in a lot of his paste ups do work.

Mr.Farenheit


Mobstr had a great year, frequently targeting street artist’s commercial agendas and, as in this one, the council buff.

Mobstr


Continuing to display a refined appreciation of vintage Burlesque as well as a faculty for hitting the high spots, Saki and Bitches turned out to be a continuing surprise and mystery – until her warmly received pop-out, sorry... pop up show in East London.

Saki and Bitches


Saki and Bitches


Ai Wei Wei had a piece running in Tate Modern in London and despite being unjustly detained in China for a long period was able to get these fearsome beasts up outdoors in London. OK, the courtyard, Somerset House.

Ai Wei Wei



Dain
Dain putting up some of my favourite paste ups EVER. This lasted 1 day and was then fly pasted over.

Stinkfish
Stinkfish

C215
C215 had at least a couple of trips to the UK in 2011, this was my fave from the year.

El Mac
El Mac painted this piece shortly before going off to paint in the Bristol "See No Evil" event.

New names in 2011. . .

These artists may well have exhisted long before last year, but in 2011 they smashed Hackney/Shoreditch and Brick Lane . . .

Nemo
Nemo

Nemo
Nemo

Malarky
Malarky

Malarky
Malarky



Kata

Kata

Kata - who showed ealry spouts of activity in July/August...but not much else since.


Part 4 before the weekend is out....in your Face!