Showing posts with label Gent 48. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gent 48. Show all posts

Sunday 14 August 2022

Birmingham Street Art - More than Just Banksy

“It’s A Brum Ting” has been the signature of the past fortnight as Birmingham hosted the Commonwealth Games. So what is it about Birmingham, why is it so great? Armed with a cheap cheap day return rail ticket I set out several weeks back to discover what Goldie, Trevor Francis and Banksy (might have) appreciated about the UK’s “Second City” (tm).

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Justin Sola, Void One & Mose78


The art started right outside the train station, FokaWolf was well represented as was Brummy staple Tempo, of whom more later.

Foka Wolf
FokaWolf


Tempo  33
Tempo 33


Gent 48 is a giant of Birmingham’s street art scene so perhaps it was either fitting, or just inevitable, that the first mural spotted was by Gent48, painted in January this year when Birmingham was sorting out the torch relay for the opening of the Commonwealth Games. The mural features Haseebah Abdullah, England's first hijab-wearing boxing coach and Salma Bi, who founded the first all Asian women’s cricket team.

Gent48: Salmi Bi & Haseebah Abdullah
Gent 48 feat: Salmi Bi & Haseebah Abdullah


The one flag planted in my vague, unplanned plan was to locate Birmingham’s 2019 Banksy. Tick the box, complete the set. The route took me through a cluster of architecturally fascinating buildings. London by staid by comparison, so many planning luddites have ensured our post war rebuilding really lacks the surprise, flair and modernism a waddle around the centre of Birmingham will reveal. The interior of the Birmingham Library is so worth exploring for its design as well as its exhibition content.

Birmingham New Street Station Alejandro Zaera-Polo
Birmingham New Street Station, Alejandro Zaera-Polo


Birmingham Library Centernary Square
Birmingham Library Centernary Square


Birmingham Library Interior
Birmingham Library Interior


The route to the Banksy had already been mapped out by the Charm Bracelet trail by Mick Thacker and Mark Renn.

Birmingham Jewellery Quarter Charm Bracelet pavement plaque trail, Mick Thacker and Mark Renn
Birmingham Jewellery Quarter Charm Bracelet pavement plaque trail, Mick Thacker and Mark Renn


What’s to say about the Banksy on Vyse Street. Great placement, great use of the street furniture and a poignancy likely to rise as rampant inflation and fuel poverty drives up homelessness next winter. It is well preserved and thankfully no gallerist twat has laid his grubby “Preserving street art for private collectors” hands on it. So far. It’s a pig to photograph clearly and parts of its execution are a tad indifferent.

Banksy - "God Bless Birmingham"
Banksy "God Bless Birmingham"


Banksy - "God Bless Birmingham"
Banksy "God Bless Birmingham"


Banksy confirmed this stencil as genuine with a website message saying "God bless Birmingham. In the 20 minutes we filmed Ryan on this bench passers-by gave him a hot drink, two chocolate bars and a lighter - without him ever asking for anything." - Banksy

Banksy - "God Bless Birmingham"
Banksy "God Bless Birmingham"


Arriving in Birmingham I expected graffiti; thanks to an awareness of its recent history of street art festivals I expected murals; I wasn’t fully prepared for the brilliant explosion of sticker art. Every lamppost, traffic light, street sign and pole had been claimed by sticker art, one of my favourites being the huge variety of brace faces by Tempo who we used to see fairly frequently in London 10 or so years ago.

Tempo sticker montage
Tempo sticker montage


When Tempo was up in London our main delight was his large circular non permissioned paste-ups so finding a number of larger spraypainted murals was a pleasure.

Tempo 33
Tempo 33


Tempo 33
Tempo 33


Tempo
Tempo 33


Other sticker artists included Wreck1, Lisk Bot, Never A Servant, the legend Fokawolf and a very impressive scattering of the playful and rare (to me at least) street art of Pahnl.

Pahnl
Pahnl


Werck1, Lisk Bot
Werck1, Lisk Bot


NVRASIR
NVRASIR


Fokawolf & "Titty"
Fokawolf and Titty


Pahnl
Pahnl


Pahnl
Pahnl


Birmingham embraces adventurous and exciting architecture but the ancient brick and steam midlands’ post-industrial relics co-exist alongside the modern. Graff was popping up in some breathtaking spots and with more canals than Venice (Brummies say), canal-side vistas in particular are worth hunting out.

Birmingham & Fazeley Canal
Birmingham & Fazeley Canal


River Rea Birmingham
River Rea Birmingham


Farmers Bridge locks
Farmers Bridge locks


Digbeth River Rea
Digbeth River Rea


Smokers by canal
Smokers by canal


The urban huddle of car parks, streets and old factories in Digbeth just to the east of the city centre forms an amazing gallery. It is dominated by amazing murals, some appear to be permission murals liable to change, some look like relics of street art festivals with tags acknowledging “City of Colours” (2014 - 16) and “HighViz Festival” (2019-21) as well as our perpetual favourite – get up and get away with it.

Gent48, Ziner
Gent 48, Ziner


Goldenboy 924
Goldenboy 924


Liskbot
Lisk Bot


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Ziner (below) TBC above


Drop Burners Not Bombs Gent48 Ziner
Drop Burners Not Bombs Gent 48 Ziner


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Ziner


Ziner
Ziner


Broken Fingers
Broken Fingers


Cryola1
Cryola 1


Peaky Blinders _ Aske P16
Peaky Blinders, Aske P19


Philth
Philth


Inkie
Inkie


Cryola1
Cryola 1


Gent 48
Gent 48


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Philth, Never Ready


Paste-up action in the vicinity was fairly limited, the paste-up hall of fame hunt will have to wait till the next visit. Foka Wolf, Void One
Foka Wolf, Void One


Chance plays a key role in street art spotting in a city you haven’t explored before. There is the chance of what artists are “up” at that moment; your experience, your sample will possibly or probably be completely different to that of anyone else before or after. Also, what route do you take across the urban spider web of streets, alleys and paths? From A, B may be sought by going right then left; or you can turn left then go right, that’s two different street art galleries right there. While slaloming through the mainly industrial streets from Digbeth back to the train station, a glance over the shoulder into an open door revealed a delicious collection of political and tribute murals inside a fortuitously empty car park.

Void One memorial tribute mural to Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, Astro (UB40) and Captain Tom
Void One memorial tribute mural to Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, Astro (UB40) and Captain Tom


Gent48 Ziner The Brolly Works
Gent 48, Ziner The Brolly Works


The Brolly Works
Theresa May by Title


Two faced Jeremy Hunt is NHS Joker, Void One
Two faced Jeremy Hunt is NHS Joker, Void One


The Brolly Works
The Brolly Works


Malcolm X and Martin Luther King by Title
Malcolm X and Martin Luther King by Title


A good street art city should house a collection which is too vast for you to cover in your limited time, especially on a one day visit. It should also have change, renewal, vibrant health and life and Birmingham’s street art scene has both of these. It is hard to put it better than Birmingham’s own Prince Of Darkness when Black Sabbath reunited last Sunday (Paranoid starts 1 min exactly) for a spine tingling surprise set (BBC iPlayer, certain areas only, go to 2 hours exactly, next 3 months) at the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony.

“You are the best…..Birmingham for EVVVAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH”

Links:

Gent 48 instagram

Ziner instagram

Tempo 33 instagram

Banksy Website (please tell Banksy you found him through Graffoto.co.uk)

All photos: Dave Stuart


Wednesday 22 July 2015

Meeting Of Styles UK 2015

Shoreditch, London
10 - 12 July 2015

all photos: NoLionsInEngland


Meeting Of Styles returned to Shoreditch last week for the second Summer on the trot. Over a 2 day period spraycan graffiti writers and street artists from Brazil to Russia via Spain and UK threw a wild ribbon of colour around Shoreditch.

Ekto & friends


Meeting of Styles is an international and not-for-profit federation of spraycan festivals, this year 22 MoS festivals around the world are responding to the “Mind Above Matter” theme

Brick Canvas Central if we can call it that was a dramatically transformed elbow of land trapped between a knot of railway tracks now under new ownership and currently renamed the Nomadic Community Gardens.



A primarily Bangladeshi community has transformed the Fleet St Hill end of the gardens with raised beds of allotments while a temporary village of tents, vans and dens of upcycled wood and canvas housed kitchens, bars, decks and admin.



The set piece featured wall on the Fleet Hill Arch was this year tackled by a multinational crew on Mind Above Matter theme (last year: men and beasts), artists making appearances on this huge collaboration are: Tyme (Swe), Adno (Rus), Awone (Swe), DJa’Louz (Fr) and from the UK Jim Vision, Zadok and below them Kak, Ekto and Wisher. You have to get close this year to the wall to appreciate the letter mastery and intricate details in the background, which wasn't the case at MOS UK 2014 when the grafftiti writers rolled a lot more images into the composition.




Wall locations were geographically more wide spread this year, the centre of weight shifted over to the Bethnal Green side of Brick Lane with some painting taking place even further east than the Nomadic Community Gardens. The walk from Nomadic Gardens yields awesome examples of 3D lettering included these pieces by Ebee, Zase and OG Hush.

Ebee


OG Hush


Zase


Up on Redchurch Street, OTwo and Andrrea Riot entertained the crowds with their abstract background and calligraphic “graffuturism”. That background is awesome, the calligraffiti reads Wizard Kings. Or perhaps Wizard Kinggs. Or maybe something else completely different.




Continuing the graffuturist or “post graffiti” theme, Stendec from the wilderness north of the wall and Soma painted this amazing piece east of the Nomadic Community Gardens

Stendec / Soma


It is very easy and actually common for those close to the culture to see Meeting Of Styles as a letterform based graffiti shindig but it actually has always aimed to be wider and all embracing. Traditional bubble letters and wild style sit happily alongside the abstract and the calligraphy based. Signwriting fonts converse with characters. No stencils though, no surprise there!

Auto 1


Morgazmik / FPLO


If you happened to park your van somewhere and returned to find it defaced by Masai and Airborne Mark like this you would have to have a heart of lead not to be excited.

Masai


Airborne Mark


Neoh continues to create work raising awareness of mental health issues, this is believed to be first example of pure face portraiture rather than figurative beauties from Neoh. Given the nudity that has crept into his figures recently it was probably a good call location to focus just on faces in this community!

Neoh (Ldn)


There was even sculpture from Joel Dean from Ireland though some of the improvised seating, shelter and indeed cooking arrangements also took on the appearance of sculpture.

Joel Dean (Odisy in background)


It is proper to give a salute to visiting international artists who trekked to Shoreditch to participate in this London edition of MoS.


Fumero (NYC)


Jotace is from Barcelona and found space alongside Morgazmik and the awesomely productive FPLO from Brazil.

Jotace

Polish born now London based Ewelina Koszykowska threw a veil over this female figure.

Ewelinak


Quite a few of the Meeting of Styles artists took advantage of being in London to go a bit off piste with other walls away from the organised Meeting of Styles locations. FPLO from Brazil popped up in a couple of locations.

FPLO (Bra)


FPLO (Bra)


Adno found time to pull off this beauty on a gate just off Brick Lane.

ADNO (Rus)


The festival ranges beyond the multiplicity of painting styles to include hip hop and beatboxing, street food, soul food and have-a-go workshops.

Unknown B-Boxer


There was actually genuinely something for everyone and the whole event was accompanied by a wonderfully chilled and relaxed vibe. Apart from the amazing painting by the Meeting OF Styles artists, this plot of land is well worth visiting to see how the community have transformed it with their collective urban agriculture spirit.

Just for fun to end with, some "work-in-progress" action shots from the Sunday:

Auto 1


Gent 48 (Birmingham)