Hit Shot Walls March 2013

All photos: NoLionsInEngland

Not making any promises that this will become a regular feature but....here are some musings on and pics of street art and graffiti which happened to catch our eye around London recently.

Sweet Toof and Insect knocked up some gorgeous paste ups and papered a broad swath of London’s East End. Choosing photogenically distressed spots to get up, Sweet Toof went for a slightly less lurid pink version of his characteristic gums whilst Insect churned out a range of floppy eared mouse characters with colourful highlights, a reprise of a Hendrix zombie and a barcode coffin wake.








OBIT is on a roll and you can find his stickers and paste ups all over London but in the past week he took on the shutters on a well known bric-a-brac den on Brick Lane, his subject matter reflecting the three organs which come to most harm in Graffoto's obsession with the wondrous beauty of street art (and lavish art openings with free beer).


KGS, Allintha, Obey (modified),Obit


What was interesting to see was KGS getting the crew name high and loud in this street art central location, more power to them. In a world gone mural-loco with several organisations competing to pass permission slips into the hand of any visiting artist who is willing to play the mutual promotion painting game, illegal street art has really been marginalised over the past 18 months. Good to see people willing to grow a pair and get up high and illegal along this mural mile. Compare the above shot with the same spot just a few days earlier, noting by comparison KGS’s comedy modification of the Obey at the far end.


Kata, D7606/Gee Street Art, Unknown, Mobstr, Unga, Allintha, Obey


ACE’s London centric paste-ups have been a firm favourite with Graffoto for many years and despite hectic preps for a recent solo show in LA, ACE managed to add many prime specimens of his mashed up beauty to walls around London






Graffoto first came across Italian ALO one cold evening just over 2 years ago as he put up a few modest paste ups on his first outing to hit the streets of London. While his the energy of his vibrantly coloured portrait imagery was evident even on first sighting, he has recently been finding quiet spots to paint and paste in situ on larger scale to beguiling effect. This particular shot captures the chance moments that crop up as a photographer; with my non viewfinder eye open I could see this girl approaching and thought she’d add interest to the shot but I never imagined her lips, teeth and particularly the grey hat would so magically mirror ALO’s portrait, a lucky bonus. With slogans such as “Deceit”, “Loser” and “Frustration” juxtaposed with his female figures, we wonder if the young, male, Italian artist is allowing some biographical detail to influence his imagery.


ALO (modified/dogged by Endless)





We’re not sure if Kate hangs out in the East End but, avoiding the obvious gag with the juxtaposition of the two paste ups here, we like to think that our favourite screen printer Aida is reflecting on the post Olympics legacy with her modified message here.




Dee One has kept up a high output, I particularly liked this mashed up portrait of Cameron with Dee Devils for brains.


Dee One, D7606/Gee Street Art


The telephone boxes in the shot above started appearing in London late last year. Iconic females including Liz Taylor, Princess Diana, Audrey Hepburn, Barbara Windsor, Sam Fox and errr, Rhianna amongst others are trapped within pop art multiple telephone box paste ups (and the occasional tardis) that look lush on the street. The guy has his mojo and is rocking it hard. Collabs with street artists such as Gee Street Art and 616 seem to be his latest twist not to mention an increase in size as can be seen in the earlier shot of the Brick lane bric-a-brac cabin.




D7606/Gee Street Art, St8ment


Mentioning Gee Street Art, he/they have been among the hardest working street artists over the past winter. At the moment he is mostly making his mark with paste-ups though this multilayered stencil with its free hand reflection is just the way street art should be. He has also put on a street art show out in the provinces which opened this week, sadly we couldn’t make it.




616 doesn’t seem happy unless he has at least 1 new idea each week and recently it was a delight to find him putting up small captioned Polaroid collages, you don’t need permission and a 30 by 8 foot shutter to make an impact round here.






Last year the only 3 warm weeks we had outside the Olympic period were reserved for Jo Peel’s Holywell Lane stop motion mural. This year inside the Foundry Car Park she had to endure 3 weeks of finger freezing weather, hats off to anyone prepared to work outdoors high and hold cold cans for that length of time. We look forward to seeing the resulting stop motion this year, assuming camera operators’ shivers didn’t blur the photos.




Yesterday Graffoto had the pleasure of a couple of hours in the company of master snapper Art Of TheState. His un-erring eye sniffed out a couple of C215’s whose location we weren’t aware of, these are a couple of months old. Isn’t the year flying by.




This final flick is a piece found yesterday, no idea how old it is or who the creative genius was but it made us chuckle.




To those hardly souls undeterred by the brass monkey weather of the past few weeks, whose un-curated art has added beauty to London streets, we salute you!


Linkytron:

616

ACE
 Aida
ArtOfTheState flickr
ArtOfTheState website
C215 flickr
D7606 flickr
Jo Peel
Mobstr
Obey
Paul Insect 
Sweet Toof

Brandalism

Photos: NolionsinEngland except Brandalism where noted

On Tuesday evening (writing on Thursday) news came through of a fresh Paul Insect piece on Hackney Rd, too late to grab a photo but never mind, there’s always Wednesday. Later that night a web link took me to the slick, well laid out website of anti corporate advertising campaign Brandalism.

The objective is to rail against mind manipulation on a galactic scale by the advertising strategies of global brands. Or as Brandalism has it – “This exhibition is about trying to open up questions about the ills created by advertising, the false needs and destructive desires it attempts to instil in us, and it is about trying to reclaim some of the spaces taken from us. “.  An impressive list of 24 artists from UK and abroad have taken over billboards in London, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds to, oh irony, promote their campaign.

Ron English, “Unicorn Flesh”, Manchester – Photo from Brandalism website

You can’t help a further chuckle at Brandalism’s media savvy strategy to spread it’s message fast and far, truly it picked up the tools of its oppressor. The website, the feature on Vandalog, the mainstream media coverage in the national daily Independent and London’s Evening Standard smack of just more of the same PR planning as the mega corporate. One of the artists on the Brandalism list is Jordan Seiler whose work disrupting commercial ad campaigns has achieved global publicity in the past. In NY, a large scale campaign against illegal advertising eyesores was hugely successful, who’d have imagined in a locked down hood like NY such a problem existed. Graffoto also shares and applauds his pops at the most successful anti establishment media manipulator Banksy. Brandalism channels the spirit of NY PublicAdCampaign best with this hoarding by Space Hijackers pointing out the ruthless and grotesque control by the Olympics Committee, using he law to crush un-licensed use of phrases it deems itself to have exclusive monetising rights over, plus – if true – the allegation that this site is actually illegal too. You could hurl a javelin from this spot into the Olympic park at Stratford.

Space Hijackers, London – Photo from Brandalism website

The first flaw in the campaign is that complete obliteration of the existing paid-for ad means that there is no sign of who is actually being targeted. You want to see a bloody nose but this looks like a punch thrown against a shadow. As evidence of the evil corporate is missing this begins to look like artists advertising themselves. The work of Poster Boy, Zevs, Dr D, Ludo and Cut Up Collective (are they still active?) covered this angle by modifying the original advert leaving little room for doubting the corporate target.

Bill Posters, Manchester – Photo from Brandalism website

The media blitz and consequential high profile may have been Brandalism’s undoing. Wednesday arrived (AS PREDICTED, HERE, ON GRAFFOTO) but the Paul Insect piece hadn’t lasted, papered over by an “official” ad for Macmillan Trust. Damn.

Paul Insect, former site of

As it was – “Jamphel Yeshi”, Paul Insect

FYI – Jamphel Yeshi, Tibetan living in exile in India, burned himself to death in protest against Chinese rule in Tibet.

KennardPhillips survived the day, beautifully juxtaposed with an un-holy alliance of two brands currently exerting a vice-like legally enforced grip on public messaging space in London.

KennardPhillips

Leo Murray had gone the same way as Paul Insect, covered over with the same MacMillan Trust ad.

Leo Murray – gone already

Leo Murray in situ – Photo from Brandalism website

Artists annexing public space without permission are exposed to the charge that they are in effect advertising themselves, that is nothing new. Broken Fingerz’ stunning piece is signed in his usual style by UNGA, unintentionally ironic in a campaign against excessive brand promotion.

Dirty Beards – Broken Fingerz

Brandalism’s associated media campaign ensured its own demise, they tweaked the tail but then hung up neon signs saying they’d chopped the head off. The billboard owners couldn’t let such high profile annexing of their lifeblood run, they had to act immediately. Advertising industry suits barked that they would not let the blighters get away with things, as covered at length here. As one says: “"We want to squash it as quickly as possible and return to normal", adding that the OMC took the activity very seriously and was prepared to issue a cease-and-desist order.”


Intriguingly, the mad ad men are forced to admit that their clients are guilty of using the same space ambushing tactics as Brandalism “Nike is a brand sometimes associated with ambushing. Now they [Brandalism, I think] have ambushed the ambusher”. In fact, this “borrowed guerrilla” approach has been recently used by a shopping website in an ad which fooled us less well informed street art fans into pondering if the ad was in fact dogged. You take their spots, they bite your style!




With a little less of their own media blitz perhaps the art and the idea would have survived longer. This opportunity has been lost in favour of a high viz short sharp shock approach.

The radical is the new conformist, a career in marketing awaits.

Graffoto Round Up of the Year - Part 2

Part 2 of 4 in the round up of my favourite graffiti and street art action in 2011. Already a few days into the new year, this all feels so last year already. . .

All photos by HowAboutNo except where stated.

Probs

Various

Blam repainted his famous Oscar the Grouch piece (and possibly one of the longest lasting pieceof street art, it was up for nigh on 6 years, but was unfortunately buffed quite a while ago now) I think we all knew this one would never last as long. Painted on a legal spot in Brick Lane that had a lot of visitors this year.

Pablo Delgado proved to be an interesting newcomer, a slightly new take on stuff that could have just been tired and forgotten about, he made sure that he placed them in enough spots to be seen and at least he was an artist that was getting up regardless of any print release of self marketing campaign. (his work is available at Pure Evil I realise, but small hand limited editions only.)

Stik

A.ce

A wet weekend at home in East Sussex in May. Being at home means usually not much to be seen in the way of street art or graffiti - so I took up "urbexing" to fill in some down time. I thought nothing of seeing the odd bit of graff here and there in the derelict buildings....but was amazed to find my first real Paul Insect piece in an old abandoned girls school. . . . .

Myne

Back in January, a chance encounter with a young man on the streets was our first introduction to the colourful and angular world of ALO. Before too long ALO was getting up with spiky, twisted characters on board

Photo: NolionsInEngland

Raise a glass to Bortusk Leer who did more than his share to brighten London's corners with mad-cap fun.

Photo: NolionsInEngland

In April we got our first introduction to a man who came to pretty much own Shoreditch shutters before the year was out. Malarky continued to have a big impact throughout 2011 with High Roller Society hosting a Malarky presented Gocco Printing workshop workshop and a prestigious interview in VNA issue 17, still available here

Photo: NolionsInEngland

We lost two HOFs during the year, the second comes up later but regardless of the arts council lumberjack fest, nothing in the UK matched the cultural desecration the demolition of The Pit, RIP, wrought on an un-broken line back to the very beginnings of London graff.

Photo: NolionsInEngland

One of 2011's most brilliant street art campaigns was by the old master Ron English. Judging by the huge numbers of human-free photos that surfaced on the net it seems not many spotted that the speech bubbles were meant to interact with passers-by, as revealed on Graffoto here.

Photo: NolionsInEngland

Ad Skewville was over in the Spring. Apart the brilliant "Slow Your Roll" show at High Roller Society, Skewville dropped a number of stunning shutters on Roman Rd and Bethnal Green Rd including the pair above exchanging honest Brooklynite greetings across the street.


Photo: NolionsInEngland

Part 3 to follow soon which will cover the months of July to September.

Day Off Urbexing

So, I had a rare free day planned a week in advance to go to a few abandoned sites around East Sussex - namely a closed technical college on the sea front. . .







And then on to a long closed private school in the countryside





Now whilst on these trips I do expect to see the odd bit of graffiti, I certainly wasn't expecting to find my first two full on Paul Insect pieces!

This stencil firstly:



And then this "life sized" Mickey Mouse:



Originally questioned by a few Flickr contacts, to which I said "nah he wouldn't come out here to paint that surely"? Then contacted and had it confirmed by the gallery.

So much for a day off. But I really wasn't complaining!