|
|
Time-lapse video of the installation and disintegration of Women are Heroes, a public work by JR: One of the passers-by interviewed for this video says: “I hope that it will last a long time. At least long enough for me not to notice it anymore.” This is as profound a comment on public art as you’re likely to hear. (via) Mugshots in the Snow by Mark Michaelson:
Here in the Mid-Atlantic region, this is how everybody looks these days. (via) The Los Angeles Times has a look at Exit Through The Gift Shop, the new “Banksy” “film.” (Do ironic quotation marks function like a double negative?) The picture debuted at the Sundance film festival and the trailer has been everywhere. 
That trailer is likely to cement your opinions about Banksy, one way or the other. Similarly, one imagines Gift Shop will change few minds. Still, it sounds more interesting than a simple documentary:
For more about the film, here’s the official website, a review from The Independent, and some recent posts at Vandalog.
Speaking of street art… we’re not exactly sure if Enjoy Banking is a street artist or a group of street artists. Is it a faux-subversive ad campaign, an ironic critique of financial practices, a bubbley condemnation of consumer apathy, or all of the above? While the messages are funny- “Enjoy Credit Crunch,” “Enjoy Bailout Package,” etc.- the stickers are pretty slick and so is the website giving the campaign a somewhat calculated feeling. When the streets of major cities are covered in visual detritus (as Amze’s recent post documents), it takes a focused concept and a unique look to break through the noise. In the same way that museums have shifted to blockbuster shows to compete, is the era of blockbuster street art upon us? Or should we call it a “printervention”? Guerrilla strategies and pro bono works aren’t new things in the design world and they certainly aren’t mutually exclusive. Cardon Webb is a designer that’s taken to merging the two. His Cardon Copy project casts Webb as an uninvited aesthetic repairman. To paraphrase his statement, he hijacks unconsidered flyers, overpowers their message with “new visual language,” and places the redesigned version into the original environment.
(Thanks to Pete Rangel for the tip.)
M-City is an elaborate stencil project started in 2007 by Mariusz Waras. It consists of about 100 separate graphic elements (“buildings, infrastructure, organic elements, people, and heroes”). M-City combines these components in a variety of forms: murals, billboards, installations, stickers, canvas, postcards, cars, illustrations, posters, “trash,” and other products. The imagery was originally created as stencils:
During the construction of the largest works, the artist enlists friends and bystanders:
Online, M-City takes it to the next level with “an interactive application for constructing the cities on your own, from the same elements as were used in the real world. The constructor came to life to prolong the life of Cities when they cease existing in the real world.”
Careful: if you start playing with the online city constructor, you might lose a few hours. (via the excellent Vandalog)
Has anyone else noticed the similarities between the large-scale figurative woodcuts of Leonard Baskin and many of today’s most popular street artists? Swoon, Gaia, and Elbow-Toe are just a few of the artists using antiquated print media to disseminate their imagery across the metropolitan landscape. And that imagery is strongly reminiscent of Baskin’s monumental prints (pictured above Baskin’s Hanged Man & one of Swoon’s paste-ups). Continue reading Leonard Baskin: Foreshadowing a Street Aesthetic |
|
|||
|
Powered by WordPress & the Atahualpa Theme by BytesForAll. Discuss on our WP Forum |
|||||
