Propositional Architecture

Build starting for Placeholder show. The shell is coming along nicely, windows and door handles to follow.

This installation will exist as two discrete components. A cardboard facsimile of a piece of regional architecture, surfaced with a mural.

The period building referenced is a multiuse space, with companion buildings in most suburbs of Canberra. Currently it exists in Aranda as a Scout Hall and Dance Studio. I was drawn to this space for its history of uses - both formal and unsanctioned.

The mural will coalesce from my ongoing studio research, which includes field-test paintings as extensions of my notebooks in urban and suburban spaces across the city.

These paintings are the detritus of my efforts at coalescing a visual language, which echo the mixing, matching, shuffling, repetition and searching of journal exploration. 

A nice (though not entirely well missed) cloudy wall in Civic. I used to try to steer this kind of buff, and ESPO has been known to overbuff to make large odd letters. There was a guy in middle Europe working with tape made pieces/works looked like these too, ubik maybe, his fotolog's disappeared.

travelling

The Meeting of Styles is an annual gathering of writters from all over, i recognised stuff from Brasil, Brussels, Russia, America, Italy.Apperently it began in Wiesbaden and then outgrew the communities support for the venue. Twas an old slaughterhouse, ignored locally until they realised it seasonally filled with vandles. Local politicians got involved and so, the venue is being gentrified. And the MOS doesn't really happen so much in weisbaden no more, but for this quiet underpass near the local beach( man made beach on the Rhien river).

So the images start at the old slachthof with fresh work and then MOS 2009 fading away (Peeta outa Italy for Atune). Then a sense of scale for ,as a local writer described 'small wall'. And then a few bibs and bobs of interest to me...

travelling

Weisbaden clean old monied city. Cobbled streets stickers restricted to the back of signs, lots of doozer 183. as tags throwies stickers and posters. Lots of crew & cru along the autobahn and in quiet streets,once as a sticker.
These dog head characters are stenciled and painted onto gaffa tape, same with the 'neileid' flick knives.
Found the Meeting of Styles (MOS)site with some works dating back to 2009 still visable. Fading old 'peeta' and 'san1' with 'okuda','kaim', 'motor','boe',that guy who does the characters with 'does' in loveletterscrew. Heaps more at the other site, but i will talk directly to those photos...

Found at New 2 AFP DMA

found this on Hurt You Bad...take it or leave it...

Graffiti wasn’t ‘invented’ either. In the latter half of the 20th Century it just became loud enough that middle aged white people started making books and movies about it. And Subway Art is not ‘the Bible’ so please stop calling it that. The reason graffiti got to the stage where people couldn’t ignore it? Technology. Without the train, the telegraph, guns and poison gas, there wouldn’t have been a Holocaust (sorry for mentioning such a subject in this glib way). Without the aerosol can and photography there’d be no ‘worldwide graffiti movement’, but people would still be writing on shit as they have done for thousands of years. Have you never been to a neighbourhood on the ‘wrong side of the tracks’ and seen the graffiti that kids do? Kids that have never seen Style Wars or NYC graffiti. Have you noticed the stylistic conventions such as bubble letters(!), smiley faces, arrows, stars? Have you ever watched footage of graffiti in the 1950’s and earlier? Are you actually fucking blind?

Graffiti is not illegal. Graffiti only became an offence with the advent of property laws. When Europeans settled in what is now North America the First Nations people were bemused by the idea of ‘property’, i.e. owning land. It would be like some random guy coming up to you and saying, “I’ll give you money for that cloud.” Well you ain’t gonna say no are you? Prehistoric people had no concept of the absurd notion of owning land, but after the “birth of civilisation” in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) when something went horribly wrong in our psyche and we embarked on a murderous rampage that continues to this day, competing for property and killing people were suddenly the shit. Unfortunately the inner need to leave your mark on your environment in some small way doesn’t fit in with this new way of thinking. Oh well it’s everyone else’s loss, they’re in denial of their own humanity. By the way, ex-writers who look down on tags are fucking brainwashed scum, don’t listen to their worthless opinions.

Graffiti is as natural as breathing. Don’t ever forget that other forms of expression have been banned by modern man, like certain types of music and dancing. The stuffy, sexless Victorians were the most perverse people ever, and their presence can still be felt by most of us. Being ashamed of the human body, get the fuck out! Anyway like Skeme said, graffiti is for us. Men lift weights to impress other men. Women wear the latest fashions to impress other women. Writers write for other writers. Don’t ever be ashamed of that, or let some artfag tell you that you should be doing pretty characters just to please Joe Public (by all means do characters if it helps you get over).

Graffiti is freedom. Freedom is illegal. Back in the day, prior to the world’s first police force being created in the 19th Century, but anterior to the birth of our fucking scumbag forefathers (before those cunts came along disputes were settled symbolically), if someone stole your shit or tried to fuck with your family, you had to man the fuck up. In other words you had to flex your Alpha male muscles for all they’re worth, whether you were an Alpha male or not – and chances are most men weren’t. Alpha males still exist today in organised crime and politics, they are men who are either powerful enough and/or ruthless enough to live outside the law. For everyone else, ‘Proxy Alpha males’ have been established in the form of the police and the government. However the graffiti world polices and governsitself. The best writers are the ones who exercise their Alpha tendencies to the fullest, you can’t exactly call the cops if someone goes over you so if you’re not willing to physically fight you will only go so far in graffiti. Graffiti writers live outside the laws of society – until they’e caught, obviously – thus they are free, thus true freedom, the way humans once enjoyed it, is illegal. Don’t squander it while you have it, by doing pointless shit like writing a blog on the internet.

All of the above was written off the top of my head and only checked for spelling. If you disagree with anything, please don’t get in touch, I couldn’t care less. Fuck this shit I’m gonna go and listen to some Nick Drake…

photorealism

TERMS(or what I mean by the use of.)
    Post Graffiti    =art produced in public spaces, though predominantly street or urban spaces. Occupying the physical space graffiti would , but moving beyond graffiti’s motivations.
     Graffiti          =aerosols used to make paintings. Trad.Graffiti = writing your name.
     Art                =Message/insight/information embedded in an action or object.
     Craft             =Skill set. Technique.
     Stencils        =aerosol paints sprayed thru templates. Basically       a high effort, high craft, frequently low result highly portable printmaking medium.

North Ainslie Primary School

Lets start by saying that Art re-presents the world. That a piece of art reframes some aspect of the world.
Standing on the shoulders of these proclamations, what place has photorealism? As a single work/piece viewed in isolation, how does it move beyond a technical exercise? How does it reframe what it re-presents, for some wordy gain? What is the art element to this otherwise craft heavy exercise.

Green gang-gang

Saraton Lane Civic

Lets say that a work of Art is something that stands up to repeated viewings.
Lets say that a work of art is sum of its  parts, equally technical and intellectual. Art should extend Craft. (I look here towards the laboured production of photorealism, not that of a mechanical nature.)
So what is the intellectual action of photorealism? Disassociation? Re-contextualisation? What fresh insight achieved through a slice of world? A world in multiples? What point the labour of capture and reproduction?

David St Turner

Okay so there is a long history of re-presentation in art and a relatively short history of Art in Post Graffiti. But re-presentation is troubling. The mechanical (potentially mindless) act of reducing a 3d world to a 2d segment isn’t enough. I guess this is the weakness of photo style Stencil reproductions. A direct technical exercise does not art make. I wonder too, if my distaste for Stencilled photorealism is more closely linked to the very real potential of mechanised process. Logan Hicks built a practice around emotively colouring photographs as stencils, but is now moving towards building both the image and stencil.
It is becoming popular (allowable) in Trad Graf too. And again simply substituting a piece (name in letters) for a figure/fragment/character isn’t enough., or by my measure shouldn’t be enough. But why? And what extension of these is an improvement?  Artists like Best Ever , Herakut and ECB fall on the outside edge of this conversation. As they use mess and noise within their compositional repertoire over pure reproduction.
The Craft of image making has naught to do with Art making.

Mort St Braddon

Girraween St Braddon

House keeping

 Some of these sites are sitting idle and some are no longer relevant.Those which live on, for the most part will redirect you anyway. Interestingly a lot of these cats have now set up blogs. Make of that what you will about targeting audience and attention spans in general.(chance here for more words at a later date).
Im just putting them aside so i can change those on the sidebar to reflect what im reading more regularly now. Not being immersed enough to get the etiquette of linking , i figure it to be a further referent of my taste. Sure i will put links to mates in there, but only if im a regular/appreciative reader.

Ashley Wood; Aussie illustrator

        

Sat;get the book

        

pictures and another list of distractions

        

UTR,but mostly cause i don't have this address written down anywhere else

        

HNT; minimal detail maximising spaces

       

Tumor; fun with simple letters

        

Dave the Chimp;do i need this here, dudes not hard to find

       

Erosie;achive of what you shoulda been lookin' at.

       

amose; characters and drafting excitement

       

ekosystem; or Wooster you know how it works

           

Flying Fortress; a man a plan an aesthetic

       

Shida; cause you aught ta be lookin

     

HOOKED:mjar knows what's going on

        

Viagrafik's crew; design and street sharps, dig around for the old graf site

STICKERS

byrd Woden

Its about Art making. It’s about the maker. I prefer hand made stickers (not that I dislike vinyl stickers).

byrd Dickson

But a well made sticker, surrendered to the world by one, found by another is a choice thing. The effort of production and distribution being met by the effort of discovery.

Tags and Fashion advertising(Das Monk) Braddon

So to my mind there is a difficulty in settling on a single sticker and reproducing it ad nausea for years. Finding a balance between leaving enough to signify a brand, and being able/bothered to produce the numbers. Being in a sense stuck with this image while pursuing others relentlessly.

Happy1 Civic

FlyingFortress achieves this in broad nuanced strokes. Framing his ‘brand’ as an army of bears, leaves room to vary production, share exploration, and include artistic growth.
Shepard "Obey" Fairey has moved in this direction, but began by the drear process of ‘branding’ an aesthetic by repetition.

byrd Belconnen

Locally Shida was doing a great job of balancing repetition of style and variance of content round Brisbane, back when i was paying closer attention to that scene.
And as for noise right close locally, Sydney syder Mini Graff has volume and variation on her side. While the Sly Crue seem busy with pure text and a very workman like approach.

looking backwards moving forwards

Image from a project in Winter '07.
For want of a fresh start, im going to try re-invigorating this blog. More words better pictures, more about me and the local scene (or perhaps a balance of wide viewing and local stuff). no core promises no expectations.

Un web site refering ju to another

byrd

now showing

jas hugonnet galley www.hugonnet.com.au



media release and invitation



In my anecdotal marriage, byrd presents a new body of work in contrast to the transient nature of his street art.

Crafted from old socks and cultural detritius he makes waste wanted and the potentially abject desirable.

These tactile soft characters form a personal diary of ideas where the artist explores independence of character and the versatility of the handled object.



to arrange an appointment to view, please contact the gallery via the website



Image

with a crop of inextinguishable regrets (comes with the added luxury of disorientation)

550 x 90 x 200 mm

Other peoples socks, polyester fill

good times

Fell in with these cats on Fotolog, back in the days before Facebook. They've switched it up a bit, but basically still keeellling. Actually while Titifreak's got loose, Speto seems tighter than ever. Always a big fan of watching cats work.

Paredes que Hablan :: Titi Freak from I.Sat on Vimeo.

Paredes que Hablan :: Speto from I.Sat on Vimeo.

oh and these are from a larger project.Produced by INJAUS for I SAT, “Paredes que hablan” (Talking Walls) its a series of sixteen short films showcasing street artist in three cities of Latin America: Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and Mexico City,

for the few looking the wrong way

and

Odd jobs from the vault

some old some not so old, some commissions some self directed, but mostly outdoors...

pause

Playing fotolog for now. Be back in a minute With a solid plan and the pictures to back it up.
promise

technical stuffs

Always enjoyed the pieces of Beet, but to watch the confidence of his good self working.

Art Exhibition Characters 2 Mogi/Beet/JNJ from Seoulmates on Vimeo.

from Prefuse.net

thanks brian and rob Kart

Fair criticism, but i got paid to fix it up too...

not lol cats

not a blog without a link to some cat related content now is it.(i say to myself).

Graham Annable’s Botched

Bit of outdoor work

byrd and Laurenson co-production, too many months in the planning.

chournalismo

sweet heart project with a tasty mix of British and Brazilian artists. If im useing the word right this is even lazy for chournalism. This is a taster make your own links/search, most of the features artist have been using these names for at least a decade (though in less delicate circles t-freak goes by titi freak).

A Força da Rua documentary film from Aliana Monodee on Vimeo.

post no.501

http://www.tweenbots.com/
Lovely little project. Its in the public space, its anonymous, it draws humans into it with a choice of behaviours and succeeds which ever choice they make. And it has so much potential for extension. From changes of location, to the way the message(goal location) is presented, to the look of the robot. How can you control/better define the way people react/interact. Oh i do enjoy a project that gets me talkin to myself about about it. Movies[why does the spell check want this spelt Mo vies?]too i guess, to have the thing in your head days after leaving it. To be confident to share the things existence with out fear of its value or your need to explain it.

Faith 47 and Rowan collaboration

He's got a content shortfall without her, shes gunna have every other timelaps production piece without him.

Faith47-The Cape Of Good Hope from Rowan on Vimeo.

Not entirely sure how i feel (slash mentally place the activity and therefore myself) about shuffling stuff around on the webs. You find it you share a/my path, you dont you go somewhere else interesting and we share that diversity. Mental diversity, forget comfort and familiarity. bring your head and extend/confront/contradict mine.
...So for now im goina pretend this is here so i can find it easily later and remember to check the other Faith47 stuff posted by rowan...

something else instead of sleeping

Time lapse aerosol graffiti promo video commissioned by Paramount for the UK West end movie premiere of 'Watchmen' 2009. executed by 'End of the line' artists: Bleach, Probs, Busk and Zadok. Music by Pyro
Blah blah blah, i love that they rework a space to make this muevee and nobody gets an object at the end. I wonder outloud about the throwing up of outlines, even as chalkies, are these guys so good as to block in and fill as they go? My monies on a projecter between sessions off camera. Which i dont mind. Never mind that "its not graff if you dont freehand" it, how about its not graff if anyone gets to keep it! blahblahblahblah...

belco

Action from Acton

In other exciting news, this Al Stark (link here when confirmed blog existence) was in town to produce a massive commission. MASSIVE. Dudes produced the whole thing inside a glass wall. Mind bending process, but powerful result. Check it out the back of the Parlour bar(dont know the names of the other 2 joints sorry).

Layer two in the production process, more typically 2nd to last.



The view from the artist side of the glass.

Tidy little details happening , makes for a slow process, but sweet result.

excited by this

Nothing but letters - The book
Posted by: vitostreet in book, street photos, tags: Graffiti book


Nothing But Letters est un livre de 1 kg 300, de 240 pages avec une couverture entoilée et frappée de son logo jaune.livre de typograffiti et d’expériences picturales sur le théme du spraycan graffiti art.

Le projet de ce livre est de fournir aux lecteurs une aproche de la partie du graffiti la moins compris et pourtant la plus répendue: le lettrage.La complexité de certains styles rends le lettrage abstrait pour la plupart du public initié ou non.

Ce livre est partagé en quatre partie:


History.

l’histoire des deux principaux protagonistes de cet ouvrage, Lotfi “Yko” Hammadi et Fred “lek” Malek, depuis la fin des années 80 à nos jours.Cette histoire retrace leur début, l’évolution de leur technique et de leur regard sur cet art alternatif dont ils sont acteurs.Des tunnels de metro au toiles en passant par les personnages et l’élaboration de styles en tout genre.ils sont à même de proposer maintenant cette étude de la “Lettre”.

is the history of the work of the two main protagonist Lotfi “Yko” Hammadi et Fred “lek” Malek, from the end of the 80’s to today.This account depicts their beginning, their technical and stylistic evolution,and their vision on this art movement, in which they are taking part. From subwaytunnels to traditional canvas, via characters and all kinds of styles, they now introduce this research in letters.


Alphabet.

La partie la plus importante est consacrée à cette recherche de “typograffiti”. Plus de 800 lettres sont proposées, tout l’alphabet est revisité, ce répertoire de lettres est offert aux lecteurs désirant avoir une base afin de les copier. Plusieurs styles y sont explorés. Le but est d’habituer l’oeil du non initié à mieux comprendre ces “masses de couleurs abstraites” qui sont dessinées sur les murs ou autres, c’est une voie vers le déchiffrage d’un art qui n’est compris que partiellement. Pour les confirmés, c’est une base à développer, déformer, grossir, diminuer encore plus afin de se l’approprier.

The most important part of the book is dedicated to the research of “typograffiti”.The alphabet is revised entirely, interpreted in more than 800 letters and in many different styles, as it is also meant to be offered as a reference library for the reader. The aim is to get the amateur eye of the reader used to this ‘ mass of abstract lettering in order to be able to decipher what is actually written on the walls, which may allow to understand fully an artform which is today only partially understood.For the initiated, the alphabets are meant to serve as a playground for manipulation, a first draft to deform, exaggerate,enlarge, diminish, etc, in order to make it the user’s own.

Writers.

Après la partie théorique, nous avons mis en pratique des peintures inédites avec un panel assez large de spraycan graffiti artistes parisiens : Midi, War, Jay, Echo, Gorey, Swen, Horphé, Zeki, Cezam et bien d’autres encore, qui vont expliquer leur démarche afin d’éclaircir au plus grand nombre le pourquoi du comment. Une mise en valeur photographique de ces artistes d’un art enrichi par sa diversité et sa complexité technique.

After theory comes practise, ie. painting, and those who practise this art. We present never before published Parisian spraycan artist such as Midi, War, Jay, Swen, Echo,Gorey, Horphée, Zeki, Cesam and many more, sharing and explaining their personal views and experiences on graffiti, again maybe throwing more light onto what this really is. Photos underline the portraits of these artists, aswell as showing an immense diversity in technique and complexity.

Painting.

La derniére partie est dediée à l’élaboration de peintures, des essais sur des techniques, des mises en oeuvre des lettrages:disparition des contours, mélanges des masses, superpostion des lettres, dripping, multi-lignes….Penser et faire les lettres et les peintures differemment

The last part is dedicated to the elaboration of spraycan painting, trials on various techniques and colours, lettering, lettering without outlines, layering of letters, dripping, multi-lines..trials in thinking and painting differently from the traditional ways.

-Les inédits de Nothing But Letters.

Editeur : Editions Alternatives (19 mars 2009)
Collection : WASTED TALENT A
Langue : Français/ English

* www.amazon.fr
* www.chapitre.com
* www.Fnac.com
* www.alapage.com

This entry was posted on Friday, April 17th, 2009 at 7:27 pm and is filed under book, street photos.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

freash pants

Some work with a local school, helping the kids resurface the toilets. So that they become their toilets. None too shabby a result given the heady mix of low skills and high enthusiasms. here follows some fragments...

to watch in full later

Lot of good stuff comin outa these place.

old money

I had seen photos of two or three of these rooms, but here be a beautiful walk through of the entire job.

moving units

Pichacao skills in an LA environment.Imagine this skill set and motivation practiced by every tagger in a city...result Sao Paulo.

big bite out of wooster

One for all the artwranglers out there, probably further interesting stuff being said on their facebook too.

Sat >> Mar 14, 2009
Should Art Be Treated Like Stocks?

Over the last couple of weeks Sara and I have had lots of late night conversations with artists and gallerists from all over the world about the current state of the art market and where things might be headed.

One thing that's been surprising for us to hear is that quite a few galleries and artists are talking about cutting their prices for work from established artists.

Surprising because in the past it would be sacrilegious for a gallerist or artist who's built a base of collectors to even consider cutting prices on new work no matter how bad the environment was. For years we've heard gallerists say - "I'd rather go out of business then cut my artist's prices."

The reason for this has been that if you cut an artist's price you alienate the buyers who purchased similar sized work only months before. It's also seen a signal to collectors that the demand for the artist's work is waning.

But this year, with many galleries facing the real possibility of shutting their doors, the discussion of cutting prices has changed. Many gallerist and artists are admitting that the prices for a lot of the work over the past few years has been far too high, rose far too quickly, and now completely impossible to sustain. Seemingly overnight, many artists went from pricing their work at $3,000 to $30,000.

So what do these artists do now? That's what everyone is asking. Do they cut their prices so their galleries can try survive? Do they hold their prices and wait it out?

One European gallery told us that they were thinking of cutting prices by as much at 30% this year. They said:

"As an investment, art should be treated no different than a stock. Investments go up and down. Why shouldn't art? On the flip side - If you buy art not as an investment but because you love it, why should it matter to you if the price comes down? You bought it because you loved it, not because of it's value."

We'd love to hear more opinions of what people think. If you have some thoughts email us, send a note via Twitter to @MarcSchil, or post a message on to Wooster Collective Facebook page.
Posted by marc at 12:21 PM