Monsieur Qui is a French illustrator who loves cats, dogs, working with his hands, listening to big brass bands and pasting posters up in the streets of Pari. I am loving some of his hand drawn illustration work on shoes, guitars, skateboards and munnies.
Dan Bergeron has been creating subversive, photo-based street works for almost a decade. His work addresses social and political themes and sometimes only attempts to re-contextualize the physical space it utilizes.
His ‘Face of the City’ project is one of the projects you could file under ‘re-contextualization’ but the images are striking and even more so considering the occupied space.
Miss Bugs is actually a team of two comprised of one girl and one boy. There mishmash work combines imagery from popular culture with references to street culture and graffiti. They approach their imagery graphically, using collage, stencil, silk-screen and anything else they can get their hands on. The two artists are originally from Bristol and Wales but moved to London in 2001 where they have slowly emerged as heavy hitters in the street art and graffiti scene.
I was quite taken by their work, but it is sure to stir controversy amongst artists and creatives as it again uses preexisting imagery and art similar to the approach taken by artists like Shepard Fairey. I do think some of the work from Miss Bugs is much more original though and more akin to a streetwise version of Andy Warhol. You can read an anonymous (they keep with the Banksy theory) interview with the artists at Juxtapoz as well.
There are numerous awesome typographical street murals abounding from the creative minds behind A Love Letter For You. ‘Love Letter is a project by Stephen Powers with the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program and is sponsored by the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative.‘
Mark Jenkins is responsible for some of the most highly unusual street art installations I have seen in a really long time.
Via My Modern Met.
There are some real treats in the Flickr-folio of French artist Amose, who isn’t afraid to take his work to the streets.
The Mac is a graffiti artist who has been working since the mid 90’s and has exhibited around the world with his work gracing the cover of numerous publications.
I was lucky enough to score one of his Obama posters from the Manifest Hope exhibit in Denver last year. I didn’t realize he had a website until today.
Via Design You Trust.
In case you missed it this week, the street art powerhouse Faile updated with a new site and some really stellar new work.
Banksy has updated his site with more of the kind of work that flings shit into the eyes of our overly commercialized, materialistic and hypocritical society. No use trying to cover yourself because no one is safe. Thank you Banksy.
Ron English recently appeared on CNN to explain his recent art that has appeared in the Manifest Hope show. I had to opportunity to sit down with Ron this year at the Manifest Hope show in Denver during the week of the Democratic National Convention. We were both busy putting back a few drinks that night and we talked about everything from Shepard Fairey, advertising and the government. He is a pretty funny guy and like most of us in the art and design fields, highly opinionated about a lot of different topics. It was a real pleasure to meet him as I have always admired his work. Its great to see him getting such great coverage. He’s worked his ass off for it and deserves it.
This has been circulating like a wildfire all over the net lately so it wouldn’t surprise me if you have heard already, but the infamous street artist Banksy has been busy coating the 9th ward of New Orleans with his signature brand of street art to mark the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in a way only he could. Once again all of the work is provocative and even more so when you consider that the art isn’t hanging on some gallery wall, it is right there on the street where the floods occurred and people died. The word is he is now on a tour of the south as his work has lately appeared in Alabama. You have to respect him for continuing the force people to think and confront the issues we deny that continue to erode our society. He is a man of the times and he has earned his place in art history for a reason.
As Hurricane Gustav once again pounds New Orleans today and fears are rising that loosened ships may puncture the levies, his work seems all the more timely.
Above is his latest creation and below his earlier sculptures.
Joshua Allen Harris is a NYC street artist who has been constructing some extremely unusual sculptures out of plastic bags that he attaches to the above ground vents of the city subway. When the train passes by underneath a gust of air rushes up through the vents filling and breathing life into the sculptures. You can see more of them in action at Wooster Collective. It’s an interesting combination of art and environment. I love the concept and I love that it stops people in their tracks and makes them think about where they are. It’s great when art can pull people into the moment and force them into the here and now, if only for a moment.
Back in August I uploaded Wallspankers Issue 4. The response was incredible. In one week, traffic and dowloads exceeded my hosting package (750G) so I bought another 750G (the largest package available through NetworkSolutions. They call it “Pro”. Haha!). Sure enough, one week later, WS blew the roof off again. So again, I threw more money at my host to keep the site and high-res Issues 1-4 live. And again, we blew the doors clear off. It hurt so good… but I had to lay off, so I pulled down Issue 1-3. I’ve just now re-released the full collection at print resolution. Go take advantage of your office Xerox and get busy in the streets!
