An artsy April Fool

April Fools, the Exhibition 1 - 30 April 2009

April Fools' Day, although not a holiday in its own right, is a notable day celebrated in many countries on April 1. The day is marked by the commission of hoaxes and other practical jokes of varying sophistication on friends, family members, enemies, and neighbors, or sending them on fool's errand, the aim of which is to embarrass the gullible.

Urban street art has fast become a cultural phenomenon sweeping the UK and Europe with its audacious challenging of authority and cultural norms. Public but anonymous, these artifacts of clandestine performance by artists operating outside the established channels of exhibiting and selling their art, has contributed greatly to the dialogue of the enduring question,

“What is art"?

Taking the ethos of the hoax into consideration, an eclectic collection of contemporary urban art will be exhibited in London during April, and sold off the walls, which be constantly changing throughout the duration of the exhibition to create a curiosity with the viewer. April's Fool exhibition showcases a collection of international artists who examine the genre's explorations into art in mediums that range from painting, wheat-pasting, and collage to drawing and sculpture.

One of Sirdab's favourite artists, Pure Evil will be partaking in this exhibit.

Flyer by Beatrice Brown

Street Shots

Martha Cooper has been photographing creative kids in action on city streets since the mid-1970s.
In 'Street Shots,' opening January 16th at Subliminal Projects --a gallery located in LA and owned by Shepard Fairey-- her photos reveal the imaginative children of pre-renewal New York City as they mined the abandoned lots of the city to create toys from trash.
Cooper, renowned for her graffiti and hip-hop pictures, brings those classic images together with ones depicting inner-city kids building forts from scrap, catching flies in cola bottles and racing homemade go-karts—all without adult supervision.

The opening of 'Street Shots' also marks several debuts: Cooper’s new book, 'Going Postal,' a collection of photos of postal labels bearing street art; her image collaboration with Shepard Fairey, available as a screen-print poster; and her own Obey line, with photos printed on clothing, bags, and skateboards.

Martha Cooper is a documentary photographer who has specialised in documenting urban vernacular art and architecture for over thirty years.
In 1977, Martha moved to New York City and worked as a staff photographer on the NY Post for three years. During that time, she began to shoot graffiti and break dancing, subjects which led to her extensive coverage of early Hip Hop as it emerged from the Bronx.

Martha’s first book 'Subway Art' (with Henry Chalfant), has been in print since 1984 and is affectionately called the “Bible” by graffiti artists worldwide. The 25th anniversary of Subway Art will see the release of a new edition to be published April 2009.

Her next book, 'R.I.P.: Memorial Wall Art' looks at memorial murals in NYC and 'Hip Hop Files 1980-1984' contains hundreds of rare, early Hip Hop photos.
'We B*Girlzis' an intensive look at girls who breakdance worldwide, and 'Street Play' and 'New York State of Mind' are her collections of NYC photos from the late 70’s. 'Tag Town' shows the evolution of graffiti style from early tags to complicated pieces.
Her latest book, 'Going Postal' contains hundreds of images of graffiti and street art on postal stickers.

Martha’s work has been widely exhibited in museums and galleries and published in numerous magazines from National Geographic to Vibe.
She lives in Manhattan where she is the Director of Photography at City Lore, the New York Center for Urban Folk Culture.

Go to Hell

London artist Eelus has only been producing graffiti art for two years, But in those two years he has achieved what many artists only dream of. After moving to London three years ago and seeing how the city had been turned into a big blank canvas Eelus was instantly attracted to the urban art movement. He saw his perfect chance to get his work out of his sketchbooks and out there for a wider audience.

Over the last 2 years Eelus has sold hundreds of prints along side Banksy, Invader and many more big names. His best selling print to date was the "Shat at". We will see big things from this artist over the next few years.

Hand sprayed stencil deep stretched canvas by Eelus. Edition of 10. Signed and numbered in hand by the artist.

"I also love the subversiveness of it all, the powers that be see us as criminals, vandals making a mess of their grey landscape, so there's that excitement element to it. That rush you get when you're out there at god knows what time in the morning, about to spray a piece that you've poured your heart into for X amount of hours, just to make this dull environment more engaging and entertaining, i reckon the majority of the public would be on our side anyway to be honest."

The Tunnel

This is tunnel, where the best street artists of the world, gathered for spray street battle.
A photo that constitutes a piece of art by itself.
Found on Pure Evil's site.

Urban taggin' -3 MUST HAVE BOOKS

Piecebook: The Secret Drawings of Graffiti Writers by Sacha Jenkins, David (Chino) Villorente

Publisher: Prestel USA (April 30, 2008)

Original in concept and design, this living history of the graffiti movement mimics the actual sketchbooks graffiti artists use to perfect their work before it goes public. Before it hits the wall, graffiti is often painstakingly planned out in a sketchbook or piece book. Well-worn and dog-eared, these books are passed along from artist to artist as a way of sharing ideas and offering instruction. Here hundreds of drawings, most of them never before published, are reproduced on uncoated paper to resemble the pages of an authentic piecebook. Bold and beautiful works from graffiti history s most important sources or seeds Zephyr, Dondi, Daze, CRASH, Lady Pink, T-Kid, CAP and Ghost, among others represent a dizzying array of techniques. The authors, former graffiti practitioners themselves, offer biographies of the artists and an introductory essay on why piecebooks have become such valuable historical records. Fans of graffiti will find this an irresistible inside look at how their favorite artists perfected their talents.

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Street World: Urban Art and Culture from Five Continents Around the Globe

by Roger Gastman, Caleb Neelon, and Anthony Smyrski

The authors of Street World have put together this rich collection showcasing over 1,000 images and authoritative text, highlighting street art and life in cultural hot spots around the globe. Street World: Urban Art and Culture from Five Continents Around the Globe follows skateboarders in Japan, hunts down graffiti artists in San Paolo, Brazil, and exposes the newest Pakistani truck artwork in the world.
At almost 500 pages, this book, with its rare images and in-depth commentary, is sure to become a staple in libraries of any true street art fan.
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SOON TO GET PUBLISHED-PRE-ORDER IT NOW!

Written On The City: Graffiti Messages Worldwide
Axel Albin, Josh Kamler
Publisher: How (September 2, 2008)

Newsweek, Aug. 18-25, 2008
"Poignant ... funny ... thought-provoking ..."

Written on the City is a glimpse into a vast conversation happening illegally and in public. All over the world, people are writing messages on the walls and sidewalks of the cities in which we live. They are staying up late, breaking the law, and taking risks to say something to you. Some of it is funny. Some of it is beautiful. Lots of it is upsetting, crazy, and brilliant at the same time. And all of it is important. This book continues that conversation through the eyes of photographers who recognized the importance of those words on the walls and shared them with us.

ashekman

ashekman
Originally uploaded by Sugarpoppy

graffiti work from Beirut...good stuff!!

The Cans Festival

"Graffiti belongs to everyone and no one. On a section of a condemned wall, I put up a graffito. . . (A) bank director stopped the construction work, had my carving cut out as a fresco and inlayed it in the wall of his apartment."
- Pablo Picasso

Art is Art & Street Art is Art plus

Modern graffiti has its roots in 1970s African-American hip-hop culture, in which graffiti "tags" the term for the heavily stylised signatures and symbols that compose a lot of graffiti, were a form of vandalism and protest, a declaration of personal and cultural identity, and a way to reclaim neglected spaces.
Now practiced as much by white skate-punks as by black youth, some graffiti has achieved remarkable beauty and skill—even making it into art galleries—while remaining vandalism in most places.

The Cans Festival, a stencil art street battle, took place last month in the Leake Street of London, where a line-up of renowned graffiti artists made the street explode with colours and powerful social messages. The event dubbed the Cans Festival, which took place in the UK, grabbed the attention of a wide audience.
The disused road tunnel, in South London, was turned into a giant exhibition space, for some of the world's graffiti artists who dabbled with their paints in front of an enchanted enthusiastic audience. The in a half-mile stretch of the tunnel in Leake Street, Waterloo was transformed from a dark forgotten corner to a cutting edge exhibition space, with stencil graffiti on the walls and 3D art installations. Artists who took part are the reference in their field. To name a few, Blek le Rat, Pure Evil, Jef Aerosol, Banksy, Logan Hicks, Eelus, as well as members of the public, who were also invited to join. The pictures featured in this page speak loud the kind of atmosphere that prevailed at this major street art event.

The Tate Innovates...

Design by Edel Rodriguez

THE TATE MODERN'S STREET ART EXHIBITION

The label Street Art has been used since the late Seventies, and the work, by its very nature, is in constant flux and hard to categorise. Broadly speaking the term has come to define the more visual and engaging urban art as opposed to text-based graffiti and tagging.
Today & for the first time ever, the Tate Modern --The Tate Modern in London is Britain's national museum of international modern art-- has commissioned artists to paint the facade of its building along the Thames, signaling the project as the first major public museum display of Street Art in London.

Street Art at Tate Modern brings to the fore an important aspect of current art practice and one that has influenced acclaimed artists, including Basquiat and Picasso.
So finally, street art gets a major recognition by an institution that could hardly be topped, in terms of established art: The Tate Modern of London. The works of six internationally acclaimed artists will be presented to tag the museum's façade.
The artists are: Blu from Bologna, Italy; the artist collective Faile from New York, USA; JR from Paris, France; Nunca and Os Gemeos, both from Sao Paulo, Brazil and Sixeart from Barcelona, Spain. All six artists are represented in major collections around the world and regularly shown in gallery exhibitions and biennales; but their work began in public urban spaces and remains indebted to Street Art and graffiti traditions.

Street Art at Tate Modern opened at the same time as Tate Modern’s four day festival of art and performance, where 'The Street Art Walking Tour,' an urban tour of specific art sites around the city is scheduled and presented by a group of five Madrid-based artists: 3TTMan, Spok, Nano 4814, El Tono and Nuria.
In addition to that unexpected yet eclectic & formidable happening at Tate, an interactive evening with experimental New York artists, Graffiti Research Lab, is set to reface the Tate Modern with graffiti light projections. Street Art at Tate Modern running through 23 May-August 25th 2008 at Tate Modern, Bankside London SE1 9TG.

Exclusive photos by Sirdab correspondent: Gina Mansour

Shoot d M

A10ne again from Tehran - in Bull's eye!!

A1one in VISUAL SLANG 2008
Originally uploaded by LoisInWonderland

Posted on Flickr by M_I_R_I

On a wall in Berlin, another artist subverting the giant corporation's logo that goes under the letter M & that seems to bother each & everyone because of its size; but mostly, there is nothing greater than the M to represent capitalism; an M stronger than the definition of capitalism itself!!

Pure Evil new SHOW

In 1990, PURE EVIL left the Poll Tax Riots of London behind and went to live in California where he spent 10 years ingesting weapons grade psychedelics, thinking about stuff, making electronic music and printing t-shirts. Inspired by skateboard culture and the west coast character graffiti of Twist, he returned to London and inexplicably picked up a spraycan and started painting weird fanged vampire bunnies everywhere. After having spent the past year working on new canvasses and prints inspired by 'the wreckage of utopian dreams and an apocalyptic vision of the end of time' , PE is now launching his vision of darkness on an unsuspecting world, trying to look at the BIG PICTURE... asking some tricky questions like :

*'what does evil look like?'
*'why do humans seem to like conflict and explosions so much?'

"To understand a bit about the artist PURE EVIL it is illuminating to know that he is a descendant of Sir Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor who wrote the controversial work Utopia and who was later beheaded by King Henry VIII. With this busy background (Sir Thomas was later canonised) it is only natural that Pure Evil should explore the darker side of the wreckage of Utopian dreams and the myth of the Apocalypse, a belief in the life-changing event that brings history with all its conflicts to an end. Using dark humour and twisting symbolism to create new forms, Pure Evil new show looks at what lurks around the corner on the secret streets of London and sheds light on the things under our noses that we never take the time to notice - as we hurtle forwards into the future... Take a look at this extraordinary new street artist's new originals prints on display this July at Ink_d gallery in London, and prepare to be challenged, amused and delighted." Read more here....or here.

Clean Beirut

Arofish, a stencil artist living in the UK, has tagged our funky town Beirut. Here is the Sukleen man he drew; he explains how he got inspired for this stencil graffiti. More of his work in Beirut here.

"These Syrian guys who tirelessly clean the streets here are the true heroes of the city if you ask me. I filled in the cracks on this wall and painted it white one fine morning in front of half the Lebanese army and a crowd of protesters. Tony Blair was in town for a spot of hypocritical mumbling and the city became even more of a militarized zone for the day. Martyrs Square and most of central Beirut was off limits.
Another great day for democracy. I went back home covered in crap, put on the TV and there was Caiomhe Butterly (whom I'd said goodbye to in Aita al-Shaab the day before) inside the conference hall. She was unfurling a banner about Israeli apartheid while security bustled around her and Tony stood behind, guiltily fumbling his fingers and trying to look unruffled. Next day, I did a dawn assault on the wall as I'd been clocked by a few plain clothes guys with radios the day before. Thanks go to May for writing the Arabic and for negotiating so skillfully with the roaming security guards."

Wake UP & Spray IT Loud

Jef Aerosol belongs to the first French street art generation of the early 80s.
After experimenting with copy-art in the late 70s, the French stenciler went on to work with stencils.
Inspired by music, film and literature, his trademark mix of life-size actors, musicians and poets can be seen on walls in numerous cities, including Paris, London, Lille, Chicago, Venice and Amsterdam.
Jef Aerosol started stencilling in the area around Tours, France, in 1982 and has since left his easily recognisable works all over the world.

About the 'Wake up' print Jef says:

"This print is a tremendously important image for me, as it was the first stencil I ever cut, way back in 1982, from a photobooth self portrait.
It's the very first one I spray painted on the walls of Tours (France) more than 25 years ago! The Mickey ears were added later. I've already cut this stencil many times since that time and I can't imagine never using it again! It has become my "avatar" and as much a "trademark" as my red arrow, and for a lot of people who have known my street stencils since the beginnings, it is definitely symbolic of my work.
I think I like this selfportrait for its energy, its "punk" and wild aspects, the way it can be seen as a shout as well as a laughter...The Mickey ears were added a while ago and they obviously state that I belong to the "Disney generation" even though I reject "Disney Culture" and all it implies! The "Wake up" wording underlines this and means : come on, free yourself from that consumer society and think for yourself, don't be a manipulated Mickey.
I had wanted to release this image as a print for quite a long time and here it is now, in a very limited edition... Enjoy !" (Jef Aérosol, feb.2008)

BLEK a dit: ART is War

Do you know Blek? Do you know Le Rat? [French in the text]
Have you met street rats?
Yes!? No?! Oui!!

Have you ever bumped into street art featuring rats,,,
rats encore, nothing but rats...
Rat-toujours...
And, again rats, and rats; always rats...???

Well, if you've never stumbled across graffiti street art of rats' design, it either means, you're a square-minded person, who doesn't look further than his nose; since rats are just everywhere!...
But maybe you live in 1 bubble, where air is so pure, no rats have dropped by so far to say hello; and obviously, you have decided to break up with the rat race socialites and upbeat lifestyles, hence, missing out Z RAt!

Sirdab has dug it for you, as the man who inspired generations of stencil artists
(including Banksy)
is definitely worth a bubbly post,
since it's THAT kind of news Sirdab's folks are constantly looking forward to.

So, Here is the Story...

One of the most influential figures in street art, French graffiti artist Blek Le Rat made his U.S. solo exhibition debut, on April 5, as his work -- old & new-- was on display at Shepard Fairey's new Subliminal Projects Gallery, in L.A.
The show --dubbed "ART is Not Peace But War" --featured 15 canvases, photos and one big-scale installation, on which the artist has painted his trademark stencils.
Large original paintings sold like pancakes; and an appearance by the Rat himself seemed to have added great energy to Fairey's [brilliant] initiative, in choosing to feature, first and foremost Blek Le Rat, for the Grand opening of his Art Space.

An what about the whole rats' fuss--aside from being the French artist's nickname?

Blek le Rat was one of the very few first street artists to use stencil art, way back in the early 80's, where his iconic rats were massively tagged & re-tagged in Paris' urban environment.
As a result, Le Rat gained a rat-tat recognition, and followers 'shroomed' ever after, with rat-a-tat impact...

As equally bubbly, it would be noteworthy to mention here, a book by Blek Le Rat --you can check out there-- that is coming out in May 2008, published by Thames and Hudson.

A definite must buy for graffiti lovers, the book is a unique view inside the life and work of one of the most low-key, but also one of the most loved street artist of our times.
From small and simple stencils to complex multimedia events, the distinctive and groundbreaking art of Blek le Rat is to be showcased, for the first time, in "Getting through the Walls;" and as such, it will be demonstrating the fascinating development of his technique and creativity, over the two past decades.

While shedding light on the evolution of urban art, this upcoming book is said to covers Blek's motives and working methods, as well as his deep exploration along with his own comments on the meaning of his art.

Banksy has been quoted, saying:

"Every time I think I've painted something original, I find out that Blek le Rat has done it as well, only 20 years earlier."

APRIL08 - BLEK A DIT: ART IS WAR