Skeleton Cardboard: Not In Use

71 Redchurch St
1 August 2015, one day only

Photos: NoLionsInEngland except 71RCS where stated


Every now and again someone comes along whose art stands apart from the rest of the street art canon. A few years back quirky skeletons started to live a somewhat traumatised and confused life on Shoreditch wall. Thus began an unconsummated love affair with the work of street artist Skeleton Cardboard.

He has worked big




And he has worked small




He has done stickers




and paste ups on vintage paper










He has collaborated with other artists


Skeleton Cardboard vs Nathan Bowen



"D7606 - your cheque is in the post"


We have found even free skeleton cardboard art on the street (but of course guests on my daytime job street art tour are always given the excitement of keeping those cool free art pieces)


Sarah & Lisa, 2013


This weekend we spied an open door in a Shoreditch cottage and we were beckoned in, “this is someone’s front room but be welcome” we were told, Skeleton Cardboard was having a pop up one day art show in someone’s house.


Photo: 71RCS

Now, the idea of an art show in the home is not specially new, what is different on this occasion is that those events are usually staged in an art world “insider’s” cool loft; the owner is either the artist, a friend or perhaps a gallerist. Skeleton Cardboard’s host is no art world insider at all, merely someone living in Shoreditch who didn’t chase Skeleton Cardboard off aggressively enough and once he had a toe in the door SC made himself at home.


Photo: 71RCS


Certain influences in Skeleton Cardboard’s work are quite obvious, day-of-the-dead; Basquiat. Skeleton Cardboard re-contextualises the health & safety warnings and propaganda that we all encounter in our daily lives and with an understated intelligence and wit he illuminates previously unsuspected sinister aspects. You look at his charming skeleton characters with their "death words" and think “yeahhhh, spooky, I hadn’t thought of it like that before;”


Photo: 71RCS



Photo: 71RCS


The atmosphere inside the “gallery” was warm and welcoming, none of the snooty aloofness of the posh west end galleries or the “we tolerate you lurkers, chatters and free beer gluggers until the first excuse to throw you out because our real priority is the 10 people on our email list who actually buy shit”.


Photo: 71RCS


Rich, to whom thanks are due for the photographs that accompany this blog post, has lived on Redchurch Street for years and like your author fell in love with Skeleton Cardboard’s work. A chance encounter with Skeleton Cardboard’s work in Monty’s Bar led to Skeleton Cardboard being invited to place a mural on a garage door to Rich’s property about a year ago.




Rich has over the years tolerated and enjoyed some fantastic street art on the externals of his property including a spectacular ROA squirrel, works by C215, Elbow Toe, Anthony Lister, Jim Vision and currently Skeleton Cardboard, Cityzenkane and James Bullough. Rich is sadly moving out of Redchurch St as the home goes the way of most property on Redchurch St – redevelopment. This pop up show by Skeleton Cardboard is sort of one final hurrah for a very cool Shoreditch spirit. This event was really reminiscent of the old days when the gap between the art on the streets and the work in the galleries wasn’t the gaping conceptual chasm that it is these days. In Rich’s words “For me, this was a fitting end to an incredible time living here. And for 24 hours it felt like Shoreditch used to. RIP 71RCS”.

Couldn’t say it any better.


Photo: 71RCS

Link: Skeleton Cardboard facebook

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)

Manorism - Easter Weekend warehouse group show

Unit 4
199 Eade Road (see directions below)
London N4 1DN
(about 10 mins walk from Manor House)

Fri 3 April - Sun 5th April
Fri 1930 - 0000
Saturday 4th 2pm - midnight/Sun 5th 2pm -2300
See event page

all photos: NoLionsInEngland

Featured artists painting indoors and out: Kenor, Zosen Bandido, Vinnie Nylon, Pablo Fiasco, Lapiztola Stencil, Dotmasters, Mudwig, Paris, Mary Yacoob, REQ, Jeffrey Disastronaut, Cedoux Kadima, MNKY, Dan Johnson, Alice Evans, FiST, Box Head, Goodchild, Dazzle, Dan Rawlings

Projections to include photographs by war photographer Tim Hetherington; other films to be announced

DJ sets



Every year or two the culture of street art throws up a show which turns the spotlight on itself, doors are opened to a wider public without asking them to walk into a stuffy “proper” gallery. Pablo Fiasco (his mum possibly knows him by another name) has located a very interesting spot in North London where over the Easter weekend an exhibition of painted walls, stencils, installations, films and other assorted diversions will take place.


The location is one of those formerly industrial areas where industry has drifted away but the residual properties have yet to be anointed with essence of gentrification. Formerly occupied by a courier company, 2 sides of the building have been converted for accommodation but are separated by a bizarre irregular void for which there appear to be no takers in this economic climate, so it has become an irregular host of assorted cultural activities. You will know 199 Eade Road by the bright colourful Kenor and Zosen collaborative mural across the façade facing the road. However, the show isn’t in that building, you’ll find it down the ramp to the right of the building in the metal clad building next to 119.


Kenor & Zosen collab


At the time of our visit, only Pablo Fiasco himself was onsite, a huge collection of paint and stencil materials and work in progress art sprawled across the floor. Pablo goes back a long way and is very well connected, which reflects in the diverse array of talent and backgrounds on view. Most of the work he will present in this show is collaged stencils, though as a teacher and filmmaker his art practice is much broader. While his signature piece is an amazingly intricate and venerably ancient stencil of an equally antique typewriter, his work includes a lot of characters with Abe Lincoln, Lenin, Lee Harvey Oswald and George Bush popping up in surreal interactions. The typewriter stencil took three months to cut and is a veteran of an amazing 500 uses, including a manifestation as a large spider in the building and a Hokusai wave break surfer outside.


Pablo Fiasco



Pablo Fiasco


Particular striking eye candy was this Picasso/Roy Lichtenstein mash-up that was lying on the floor.


Pablo Fiasco


Dazzle’s use of striking patterns borrows both name and effect from the camouflage technique used on World War 1 warships, his stencilled portraits have been seen on the streets of East London. Pablo Fiasco contributes intricate architecture doubling as a hairstyle to this particular Dazzle figure.


Dazzle/Pablo Fiasco collab, flanked either side by Goodchild


Some such as Dotmasters and Zosen who exhibited at Pure Evil in 2007 and contributed to CANS 2 in 2008 are long standing street artists. We haven’t seen this Dotmasters’ classic outdoors since it was rendered in an alleyway adjacent to some very posh London galleries in Cork St in about 2007, Pablo Fiasco comically subverts it so that Abe Lincoln is creating William Burroughs rather than God creating Adam.


Dotmasters/Pablo Fiasco Creation collab



Dotmasters 2007


Dotmasters is rolling out not just ancient history but also a completely new stuff riffing on the word “Toy” which in graffiti circles means “amateur, novice, beginner”, this follows on from the new Robby The Robot piece which appeared in Shoreditch last week.


Dotmasters


Goodchild has obviously enjoyed creating a lot of impressive geometric patterns both indoors and out at the site, here we see MNKY in the background snarling at the abandoned caravan which it wants out of the way by the weekend.


right to left Box Head, MNKY, Goodchild



In addition to the wall art, there are plans for projections including a posthumous showing of soldier graffiti captured by war photographer Tim Hetherington, “oldest and closest friend” of Pablo Fiasco killed in Libya in 2011. There will also be a bar and music with DJs mashing up music by people I have never heard of.

The space is large and the walls irregular, placement is haphazard and there is art indoors and outside, the result is a pretty exciting art treasure hunt with a lot of work prompting questions like “whose face is that?”; “which artists are collaborating where?”; “how did this surreal mash up pop into any sane persons head?” Pablo Fiasco was in full flow at the start of the week, other artists such as Nylon are expected to make their contributions over the next few days and even today more artists are being added to the roster so there remains lots to be created and discovered.




Mudwig/Paris Collaboration


Expect a very chilled vibe in the daytime, this feels like it will be the kind of event where the family could happily drop in for a bit of culture, a bit of fun and a bit of chilled out time. Maybe not the bank holiday weekend spectacular that Banksy’s 2008 Cans Festival was or the dank edgy gloom of Nelly Duff’s abandoned tenement basement “Banger Art” of 2012, perhaps something more akin to the One Foot In The Grove under the Westway in 2009 but more indoors and less flame belching steam punk monsters.

Do enjoy.


"Beware all ye taking the portal to our facilities" warns the genie of the spraycan: collab Dazzle/Dotmasters/Pablo Fiasco


Lapiztola

Dr d Extends London Open Prison and Social Cleansing Zone

Dr d., London’s top political malcontent street artist is on a roll and has been out again, this time taking over pavement advertising sites. The new version of HMP London (HMP: Her Majesty’s Prison] open prison advises us that innocent or guilty, we are all now being spied on.




Highlighting the pernicious erosion of freedoms through unwanted surveillance is the main thrust of these previous versions of Dr d's Open Prison.


(apologies for repeating an image used another recent blog post but it's relevant)





Social cleansing Curfew Zone works in a variety of way but when a van with Immigration Enforcement drove past this morning, Dr d’s subversion became a clear warning to beware the insidious intrusion of UKIP’s thinly disguised racism into mainstream politics.






Cycling around hunting for these pavement advertising boards makes you realise firstly how much you just filter these thing out of your consciousness (clever thing the brain) and then, how the hell did so many pavements become obstructed by these monstrosities. You can bet that if you blocked the pavement like this for a good cause but hadn’t paid for the pleasure you’d be having your collar felt double quick time. The authorities don’t mind the obstruction to the pavements but they do mind you doing it without their control and without topping up their counting houses.

These delicious political annexations of the mechanism and locations of paid for advertisements by Dr d is one of the un-sung wonders of London’s street art scene. Read HERE how and why Dr d declared the City of London a Central Curfew Zone.

Links: Dr d.