London International Pasteup Festival

London International Pasteup Festival sneaky peek feat Shuby, Uberfubs, Art.tits and Whatifier


Street Art has many forms, different techniques have evolved to suit different artistic strategies and different environments. Stencilism is most closely associated with street art’s emergence in the early to mid 2000s thanks mainly to Banksy and the many artists he influenced and inspired. Muralism, on surfaces ranging from building site hoardings to massive end gable walls has come to dominate the public’s awareness of street art over the past ten years. Street art is most profound as an outlet for the unsung, the outsider, the radical and the romantic and the most convenient format for unauthorised street art is the paste up - images on paper glued to external surfaces.
Uncurated pasteup street art, 2021


On the heels of London’s first Mural Festival last year, 2021 brings The London International Paste Up Festival. 100s of pasteup street art over 6 locations and many artists seen in London for the first time complimenting many old favourites
KGuy, London International Pasteup Festival participant, pasteups from 2007


The formal opening night takes place this Thursday 4th November at The Hoxton Gallery and the festival runs until Sunday the 7th. On Sunday I will be leading a free tour of the paste up locations and the art will remain visible for viewing for varying lengths of time depending on the location.
LIPF participant DaddyStreetFox gets up high earlier this year


The full schedule can be seen below and you can check their Instagram for any updates.
LIPF program

All photos Dave Stuart except LIPF program

Diggin In The Archives Pt 10

When I first began to explore street art one my favourite artists was and indeed still is French stencillist Jef Aerosol. This Aerosol masterpiece was on Hanbury street and marked more or less a the time that this wall was just beginning to be used for permissioned murals.


Jef Aerosol 2010


Shoreditch street art was dominated by stencilism in the 00s and why not, Banksy was the stencil artist kicking down the doors of public disinterest and general hostility. K-Guy was and again still is a great personal favourite. This is his take on the dual significance of the national flag, a symbol of pride yet also racism.


K-Guy 2008


The next photo shows K-Guy’s artwork in context. In 2007 Shepard Fairey hit that spot with a long lasting paste-up (a spot he returned to in 2012). Sotheby’s and Bonhams started their urban art auctions in early 2008, others then hitched to that bandwagon. This was probably the first occurrence I came across of an arts related organisation destroying a piece of street art in pursuit of advertising. This shit still goes on and basically if you see street art being damaged in pursuit of the commercial interests of galleries, auctions and online sellers, then it’s a clear sign the fuckers do not get the culture, steer clear.


K-guy 2008 featuring Shepard Fairey – defaced, dissed and abused


Special Offer: Free Art! The stencil on cardboard below was a piece of free art by the prolific, varied and much missed street artist Mr Farenheit. Hopefully it went to a good home. This doorway in fact the whole building, now demolished, was always intensely distressed and beautifully decayed; muscular rust on the iron door had very little sympathy for any paper pasted onto its surface. “Special Offer” is a detail from an ACE paste up; the thick black bars emerging over Twiggy’s left shoulder are a Paul Insect relic; D7606 also did great paste up montages on this door and it’s a rare photograph where you can’t see one of his pieces at this spot.


Mr Farenheit, 2013


The pair of birds in the next photo by artist and graffiti writer Dr Zadok are done in the swirling style which characterizes both his graff letters and his art. Alleyn Gardens habitués will note the virgin brickwork on the then relatively new North London Line.


Dr Zadok 2013


The image below shows Dr Zadok’s hand finished bookcover in aid of Joe Epstein aka LDNgraffiti’s fundraiser for Great Ormond St Hospital. More details and information about how you can to support the fund raiser and maybe win one of these fantastic prizes in the #LDNGOSHLottery is HERE. Keep an eye out on LDNGraffiti’s Instagram for further announcements of more prizes.


LDN GOSH Charity Book with Dr Zadok Cover art


Swoon again, simply because she rocks. Close to Broadway Market, 2011.


Swoon, 2011


Borondo was an extraordinary painter who lived in London for a number of years in the early part of the 00s. His impressionist murals channelled the effect of strong colours but he first appeared doing single layer portraits created by splashing emulsion on the outside surface of glass windows then etching imagery into the paint with a fork. Two artworks survive, the “11 Apostles” on the Bull in a China Shop on Shoreditch High Street is easy to find. This pair of figures from 2013 play with the window frames; the scraped paint has settled like frost on the window ledge.


Borondo, Brick Lane 2013


And now, something consigned to the archive in just the past fortnight !Things turned a brighter shade of orange across a locked down (ish) Picadilly Circus as the iconic illuminations displayed a charity digital artwork by Stik. Stik must be alongside Shep Fairey and Banksy in the ranks of street artists who most consistently use their art for deserving causes. This installation was in support of Young Westminster Foundation.


Stik Picadilly Circus June 2020


Stik is also one of the 9 street artists who have joined Joe Epstein to raise funds for Great Ormond St Hospital. Each artist has created a special version of the book by hand painting the cover, so that’s 9 unique versions of the book.

See HERE for a blogpost with more images, details and link to how to support the fund raiser and maybe win one of these fantastic prizes in the #LDNGOSHLottery and keep an eye out as well for further announcements of more prizes.


LDN GOSH Charity Book with Stik Cover art


We didn’t clap for carers in the UK this week, the mood switched more to pressurising on the government to fund the carers properly, and reward them not to mention try a little bit of planning for a change as a second wave is held likely. Seems like a good moment to shelve Diggin In The Archives, though it has been a happy accident of exploring my own archives and memories and so don’t rule out DITA’s resurrection sometime.

Check out the previous Diggin’ In The Archives weekly compendiums starting with week 1 and then hopefully navigate the index to find the rest: DITA 1

All photos: Dave Stuart

Diggin In The Archives 3

Four weeks of Lockdown now, most sensible countries have extended their lockdown period for a few more weeks but don’t worry, the archive isn’t going to be running on fumes any time soon.

The relationship between impact and size is not at all clear in street art. Isaac Cordal's forlorn concrete figures were found in nooks and cranies in London over several years from 2010. Spotting them was difficult, how the artist installed them at their illegal elevated perches was inspiring. A few survive to this day.


Issac Cordal, 2010


As a great fan of stickers it is a bit remiss not to have looked back at some great stickers of times past. PS, or "Public Spirit" was an amazing sticker artist, the examples here date from 2010 and 2011. PS was comfortable with a range of styles from fantasy illustration to op art via pure abstract geometeric but always in a very distinctive teardrop style. The first sticker in this series has a little clue how to look for the initials PS embedded in the swirling shape of the art - other than the purely symmetrical ones (so far as I can see anyway).

At least one PS sticker dating from that period survives in Shoreditch.



















Fake stencil. Fake Street artist K-Guy. Fake photo from 2017. K-Guy has total authority.


K-Guy, 2017


Burning Candy represented by Cept, Sweet Toof, Tek 33 and DScreet had the first spot on lockdown for many years. The Garage owner received a council enforcement notice demanding the piece be buffed but flatly refused. Garage now rolled over by development.


Cept, Sweet Toof, Tek 33 and Dscreet


Burning Candy at its largest grew to 9 members, the next photo features two of London's hottest #rooftop kings of that time, MightyMo and Goldpeg


Mighty Mo, Goldpeg, 2010


Otto Schade painted very intricate musing on human emotions using a stencil technique, symbolically connecting the emotions and the nervous system to external stimuli. This was one of his earliest ribbon paintings on the street, the owners buffed this very shortly after Otto finished it.


Otto Schade, 2010


Stewy Stencils populated Shoreditch and Norf London with a menagerie of animals, reaching a zenith with the size of this horse. The horse appears to be tethered and getting fed, not sure if that was Stewy or a clever augmentation by someone else. Either way its great when there is a little more to the stencil than just a spot where there was no cctv. Then virgin wall, now a hotel stands on the property opposite the Pure Evil Gallery. A version of this horse closer to Brick Lane was brilliantly augmented by Saki, might have to dig that pic out later but let’s hope we aren't in Lockdown that long.


Stewy Stencils, 2012


From the days when artists did find virgin unpainted derelict walls in Shoreditch. "Plastic Bones" Best Ever v. Deadleg


Best Ever v. Deadleg, 2011


Next week, same time same place yeah?  Check out Part 1 and Part 2

Art credits and links are by each photo. All photos: Dave Stuart

Brexit Street Art

This evening the UK’s parliament voted to show that they had not changed their mind since December on a withdrawal agreement that hadn’t changed since December. This leaves the country up shit creek, a situation that hasn’t changed since, well, several years ago. Street artists have not been impressed with the political process over the past three months, nor indeed the past three years or so.


Artist Not Known, March 2019


“Bye Bye” says an anonymous artist who spotted a gate in Shoreditch conveniently painted EU flag blue. This flag with one member missing piece echoes Banksy’s enormous EU flag with a tromp l’oeil worker chipping away a star brilliantly greeting UK leavers as they depart through Dover.



Banksy, Dover 2017 (during the 2107 General Election campaign)


It was noticeable and disappointing how little political street art appeared during the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign. The most memorable from a very small entry list were these spoofs on the adverts for Banksy’s street art documentary “Exit Through The Gift Shop” lampooning Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage.


Boris Johnson, Artist Not Known, June 2016



Nigel Farage, Artist Not Known, June 2016


Since then we have seen a ramping up of the Brexit street art as the unthinkable went from implausible to likely to now pretty much unavoidable.


Brexit Through The Chip Shop - CodeFC, June 2017



Scrap Brexit - Uberfubs, 2018


In the aftermath of the referendum result the immediate targets for street art scorn and derision were David Cameron, Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson, the architects and chief pom-pom wavers for the Leave cause.


Spineless Nigel Farage, UKIP party by MCLN



Boris Johnson buffoon, fuckwit, bellend, racist, snob by Boo Who Up North



3 Brexiteers - Derek Davis (gone), Boris Johnson (now officially missing inaction), Jacob Rees Mogg by Subdude, April 2018



Boris Johnson is DUMBO by K-Guy


Now we have forgotten who the first two were and the third has decided to hide his light under a bushel and let others take the heat of what looks likely to turn into a monumental chaotic fuck up likely to please neither the leave nor the remain camps. The political paralysis and consequential insertion of heads into the sand really gained a head of steam in December.


Scrap Brexit - Uberfubs, Dec 2018


Theresa May faced a vote of no confidence by her own party after cancelling the first so-called "meaningful vote" in December


Maygo - Joe Bloggs


I was recently obliged to take a few weeks away from the walls and pavements of Shoreditch and on resuming street meanderings at the weekend I was bowled over by the amount of Brexit streetart that appeared in that short absence.

The duo Quiet British Accent belatedly brought George V into the debate.


Quiet British Accent - Bugger Brexit


Benjamin Irritant’s rabbit asks a very pointed rhetorical question, is it great again yet?


Benjamin Irritant


The Misfortuneteller has developed a witty street cartoon style in the past couple of years, this largest piece to date borrows its style from a closing down sale, its simplicity belying the fact that it is emphasizing the gap between the Brexiteer’s promises of “the easiest trade deals ever negotiated” against the visibly increasing isolation the country faces with borders and barriers hardening, no deals and inward investment evaporating.


Britain Closing - The Misfortuneteller


Subdude, producer of a lot of Brexit related art over the past few years, has deviated from his usual distinctive style of political humour on flat colour blocks to deliver a hand drawn condemnation of petty sectarian spats, photos and cartoons on newspaper pages make it clear who is the target of the jibe. Apparently Subdude has put six out on the streets but so far I have only found two, one of which overlays a political cartoon illustrating Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn both facing a common dilemma, Brexit actually threatening to irreparably split both of the UK’s main political parties. Ironically, in order to placate their parties both are having to turn away from the fact that neither actually supports the position they politically obliged to adopt, we live in weird times.


Subdude


Cigarette packet health warnings have been used as the basis for political street art for over 10 years, in fact almost since the regulations came in in 2003, think K-Guy in the mid 2000s. Wanker’s Of The World, whose mission is to identify and award that sobriquet to suitable candidates in the public eye are responsible for enormous cigarette packets mocking the main proponents of the Brexiteers. There are apparently 6, we located 5 in the past week. Ironically, the adoption of those cigarette packet warnings is actually an EU law which mandates the format, size and range of messages in all EU countries.


Jacob Rees-Mogg, chair "European Research Group". Brexit Can Be Fatal



Theresa May, Brexit Causes Family Arguments (who's putting out the bins?)



Boris Johnson, Brexit harms your children



Michael Gove, Quit Brexit Now


Graffoto strives constantly to be fair, even handed and balanced in its coverage so here is a comprehensive review of all the pro Brexit street art seen since 2016:














It is hard to know what the big take away from this is. “Keep going guys, street art will change it all” or “too little too late”? Who knows what the monkeys in the chamber are going to do next, certainly they don’t!


Bansky - Bristol Museum, 2009

LINKS:

Banksy website

CodeFC Instagram

Uberfubs Instagram 

MCLN Instagram

Boo Who Up North Instagram

Subdude London Instagram

K-Guy Instagram

Joe Bloggs Instagram

Quiet British Accent Instagram

Benjamin Irritant Instagram

The Misfortuneteller Instagram

Wankers Of The World Website

All Photos: Dave Stuart

Hit Shot Wall - a wet month!

All photos: NoLionsInEngland (HowAboutNo pretending there were no trains all month from the South Coast, that's 4 x 5 = 20 days working from home, yeah!)


February has been a month of unrelenting street art activity by street artists clad mainly in anoraks and wellington boots. Going to kick our look back this month, a month where the elements really tested the longevity of paper based art, with a sculptural slant.

Love Piepenbrinck placed several new fancy dress piggies out on the streets and has teased us with a photo on Facebook captioned “Most Hidden Piggy – almost impossible to even photograph”, which we haven’t seen hide nor hair of.


“Lay Off My Blue Suede Shoes”



Camouflage Piggy



Para Piggy

French street artists delight in showing us how it should be done, Nemi Uhu has placed a series of beautiful painted tiles on the Shoreditch streets.


Nemi Uhu


Another French artist who really got up on a lot of walls was Gregos, over in connection with the Vitry Ville Street Art book signing. He does these cast selfies, they supposedly show his emotional condition each day and a lot of the London ones are poking their tongue out at us, bloody French!


Gregos


One of the weirdest bit of street art we have seen in a long while is this space hopper stuck up in a tree by 616. Not so much referencing its context as totally subverting its environment, or perhaps is it actually meant to look like an oversize orange?


616


Alex Arnell believes in giving away street art and places hundreds of hand cut and painted paper butterflies on walls. With the volume of rain we had in the month of February, Alex seems to have decided that the last place butterflies would want to hang out is down the drains and here a flock seem to be fleeing out of a manhole.


Alex Arnell aka "Sell Out"


Without doubt one of the cleverest and most exciting things we have seen this month, perhaps this year, has been Borondo’s face by the canal on Hackney Wick, already drooled over on this Borondo Hits London Graffoto blog post.


Borondo

Dee One’s Heavenly Rejects have been a delightful presence on the Shoreditch streets for about a year, his minature pieces such as devils painted on acorns is often easy to pass by. One of his most pleasing and most difficult to spot is this aquatic scene.


Dee One


Don has been out painting the wall in February and we caught him in action one afternoon painting this girl cuddling her pet goat, once again Don comes up as about the most adventurous and detailed British stencil street artist active on outdoor walls.


Don


This skateboarder by Unify is defying the no skateboarding prohibition as all good skateboarders must, though if you look closely maybe not is all as it seems with the sign! With the mooted demise of the Undercroft at its current location, I wonder if Unify has dropped this one just outside the skatepark? It's begging for it.


Unify


Ben Slow created this portrait in support of Depaul, the message is don't let their story end on the street. http://www.depauluk.org/


Ben Slow


One of the most impressive and photogenic paintings in February was this little beauty by C215, over for a show (now closed) at StolenSpace.


C215

K-Guy has been busy on the streets recently, his original Tr*ash fag packet paste ups were a delight back in the early days of my love for street art and he has now revived them with this reflection on the latest health demon – high sugar levels in food.


K-Guy


Mr Cenz has also had a highly productive month painting letters and portraits, perish the presence of all the cars in this, errrr, car park.


Mr Cenz


I can’t be sure when Mobstr painted this stencil but I only found it February, so because I love the humour and the ironic fun at the expense of social media obsessed street art fans, it counts as February in my time-warped calendar.


Mobstr


Bit late this month and a bit rushed but fun as always.