Another graf legend gone gallery, LA’s acclaimed muralist Retna, get’s Desaturated by the lovely ladies of New Image Art on Santa Monica. For more on Retna as he toes the fine line between fine art and graffiti, click here.
From Steve Powers’ (aka ESPO aka Mark Surface aka ESPO ICY) beautifully heartfelt mural project to the Philly city he loves, Love Letter continues to give back to the people. To celebrate the launch of the projects’ must-have book, A Love Letter For You-Brick Valentines On The Philly Skyline (which “documents the art and the neighborhood that inspired this ambitious public art project”-purchase here), Steve will be the man around town with an art opening, book signing, and Love train touring as well as taking over the Northern Liberties Tattoo shop through this week to create the Love Letter Tattoo Shop!
From the mural master on the tattoos for yous:
“for a week (more or less depending on demand), the only artwork that will be on offer will be all Steve Powers, all week long. All your favorite icons, punchlines, poignant reminders of the futility of life, hilarious illustrations of our inadequacies, True depictions of true love from the Love Letter project, and of course, PIGEONS. Its all here, it’s cheap, its permanent. No, I’m not tattooing, no skills. I will, however, sign your arm and let one of the skilled pros on staff at Todd’s shop re-ink it, fair enough?”
So to recap (click images for detailed info):
A bit from Steve’s A Love Letter For You blog:
“Another Elebration, another storm bringing massive precipitation. In spite of the snow, Espo’s Love Letter Tattoo Shop (a division of ICY SIGNS, a subsidiary of Mark Surface Intl.) opened right at the happy hour of 5. Two excellent co-defendants stepped right up: Nick encouraged me to invent something on the spot, while Michelle chose “whats mine is yours” and got it bolder on her shoulder. WHOA, I’ve got that feeling I get when I put work in a good spot. It’s like a seeing diamond in a moonbeam. 10 sheets of flash are in the shop now, we’ll add 10 more on tuesday, 10 more on thursday, and 10 more on friday. Dont see that special piece of flash? come again, rewind till you find the fine line to put on your spine. Or if you want, you can suggest to Es what works best, HELL YES”
The brilliant Brazilian twin graffiti artists known as Os Gêmeos do D.I.Y. America for Aaron Rose’s latest installment for WKE.
Click here or the image below to see the twins in action in Episode five of D.I.Y. America.
An excerpt from the D.I.Y. America page:
“Os Gêmeos (Portuguese for “The Twins”) are identical twin brothers from São Paulo, Brazil. They started painting graffiti in 1987 and gradually became a major influence in the local scene, helping to define Brazil’s own style. Stylistically, Os Gêmeos are heavily influenced by the cryptic art of the São Paulo–based pixação graffiti movement as well as American hip-hop, which the twins grew up with in Brazil.”
Also…Flashback to 2008 for Cool Hunting’s piece on Os Gêmeos as they prepped their legendary Deitch Projects show beautifully filmed by the good man Tobin Yelland.
The notoriously elusive Banksy, quite possibly my favorite millionaire-prankster-street artist, makes his film debut with Exit Through The Gift Shop. Labeled as “the world’s first street art disaster movie”, the documentary stars Banksy himself presumably, Shepard Fairey, Mr. Brainwash and more of their fellow guerrilla artists. Making it’s highly anticipated premiere this Sunday at the Sundance Film Festival, look for Exit Through the Gift Shop to (hopefully) hit theaters later this year.
$1.99. That’s all it costs for infinite hours of hand held graffiti fun and creativity now that the best iPhone app ever has been released. It’s called DustTag (Graffiti Analysis iPhone Edition) and it not only let’s you “write” and view your tag in 3D on your iPhone, but you can also upload and embed from the virtual blackbook at 000000book.com. Mind blowing must watch video and must read details below.
From the geniuses at Graffiti Analysis:
“DustTag is an iPhone application designed for graffiti writers that visualizes the motion involved in the creation of a tag. Motion data is recorded, analyzed and archived in a free and open database, 000000book.com, where writers can share 3-D animated representations of their hand styles. All tags created in DustTag are saved as Graffiti Markup Language (GML) files, a new digital standard used by other popular graffiti applications such as Laser Tag and EyeWriter. DustTag is fully compatible with the Graffiti Analysis 2.0 software suite, which is available online for free on the DOWNLOADS page and can be used to playback DustTag creations from the iPhone on OSX, Windows or Linux desktop systems.
DustTag was created by artist and Graffiti Research Lab co-founder Evan Roth, and artist and openFrameworks guru Chris Sugrue.
Features:
* Line thickness based on speed.
* Tags rendered in 3-D based on time.
* Rotating the phone rotates the tag in 3-D.
* Multi-touch functionality for navigating 3-D environment.
* All tags can be uploaded to 000000book.com for free download.
* All DustTags can be played back in OSX, Windows and Linux desktop systems.
* Ability to tag graffiti data with keywords.
* Single line as well as multi-line drawing modes.
* Full screen animated 3-D playback of graffiti tag sequences.
Download From Apple App Store
Note: The current version of DustTag is available for iPhone OS v3.1.2, but will shortly be updated for compatibility with v3.0 and higher.”
Attention creative types: the collaborative project Artists Wanted has come up with a self portrait contest for you. Depicting yourself through “Fine Art, Painting, Sculpting, Drawing, Installation, Print Making, Graphic Design, Glass, Book Arts, Performance, Video Art, Street Art/Graffiti, Photography, Tattoo Art” and be judged by an esteemed panel of judges (Steve Buscemi?!) The grand prize winner will receive $7007 or 6 months free living in NYC. Submissions are due by January 14th, 2010.
Read on below or click Dali for more info.
From Artists Wanted:
“You are invited to participate in “The Power of Self” an international competition celebrating the vitality of self portraiture. A panel of judges including actor Steve Buscemi, director Chris Weitz, Guggenheim curator Helen Hsu and Flavorpill founder Sascha Lewis will award one artist a package of incredible prizes including six months of free living at The Edge in New York City or $7007 in cash. The most popular portfolio as voted by the public will also receive $1,000 cash. Your images have power. Now is your moment to reveal them to the world.“
I know I said I wasn’t going to do any sort of year end lists the other day, but there’s just something about lists that I just can’t resist. And when I can cherry pick from all the “best of” lists that suckers esteemed writers have diligently compiled on the interwebs, well it pretty much makes this list the list to look at. I mean, where else can you peruse a list that includes street art, Quentin Tarantino, NSFW music and viral videos, Manny Pacquiao, conservative conspiracies, repurposing tricks, National Geographic photos and iPhone apps all from one webpage?
So without further ado, and in no particular order other than alphabetical, I present to you my humble list of the best “best of” lists for the year 2009.
Click headers or corresponding images to see complete lists.
My homies at N.A.S.A. with “A Volta” featuring Sizzla, Amanda Blank, & Lovefoxxx. Directed by Logan featuring the art of The Date Farmers
Stephen Powers (ESPO), one of my favorite graffiti artists (or artists for that matter), is currently working on a Love Letter-an ambitious project in which he’s literally painting a love letter to his hometown of West Philly. In conjunction with The City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, Steve has been outfitting the city of brotherly love with his signature slogans in his uniquely bold style for this “public art project consisting of a series of 50 rooftop murals from 45th to 63rd streets along the Market Street corridor” which has been ongoing since July of this year.
And if you’ve seen our film Beautiful Losers you’ll have a much better understanding as to why this project means so much to the “handmade myth” known as ESPO (see how Steve eloquently puts it in the Coney Island section of the film).
Click here to see Steve’s amazing murals from the project’s website, A Love Letter For You.
Click here to see a map of the pieces via Philly’s Market-Frankford elevated line.
Also…
Keith Scharwath, one of my favorite graphic designers, recently took a trip from New York and viewed Steve’s love letters how they’re supposed to be seen: by train and up close. Click here to see Keith’s coverage at the Carwash.
(via Keith Scharwath’s Carwash)
Groundbreaking ad agency Wieden+Kennedy (Nike, Coca-Cola, EA) aims to break some internet ground with their own web-based television channel called WKE (WKEntertainment). Spearheaded in part by homeboy Aaron Rose, WKE is “an arts and culture digital content delivery platform, a subsidiary of advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy. Whose (sic) goal is to renegotiate the relationship between art, media, advertising and the consumer.” With a handful of videos already rolled out to the masses, new episodes will continue to be released every Tuesday at WKE.
Here’s the rundown of their current lineup of shows:
A serialized show focusing on leaders in the youth/punk/DIY movement. Subjects include over two decades of leaders from the skateboarding, punk, graffiti and hip-hop worlds. Assembled using footage shot for (but never included in) the Beautiful Losers film. Examples: Ian MacKaye, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Glen Friedman, Tony Hawk, etc. (current episodes on Skate and Create and NY artist SWOON both produced by BlackLake Productions, shot by Tobin Yelland and edited by Meg (Decker) Ramsay of Therapy Studios)
A series focusing exclusively on the burgeoning underground music scene in Portland. Using a combination of interviews and live footage we will expose the world to all the interesting bands, record labels and underground venues that make Portland’s music scene so unique. Featured guests include YACHT, Lifesavas, Marriage Records, Jackpot Studios and more. (Cinematography by the great Tobin Yelland!)
Embracing the concept of hybrid, music and visual label W+K Tokyo Lab has been experimenting with new forms of creative expression to bring new experiences that can only be created in Tokyo. Twenty video works are the best selection of music videos made through the collaboration of W+K Tokyo Lab and our label’s artists, such as Hifana, Jemapur and Afra. Also added two of the latest works from “Chinza Dopeness,” a new artist we released in September 2009.
A “weekly” series of web shows based on “how-to” videos commonly found on YouTube. Shot in-agency on a permanent set, basically anything goes here. How to fold a fitted sheet, how to make bacon, how to change your name, etc. Participation will be open to all agency employees as well as outside contributors.
Hits & Misses is a bimonthly podcast where W+K’s music supervisor, Shayla Hason (aka DJ Safi), tracks the latest releases in popular music.
Recorded readings of short stories by published young authors set to soundscapes.
Now that Beautiful Losers is available on DVD through Adam Yauch’s (MCA of the Beastie Boys) film distribution company Oscilloscope Laboratories, your holiday shopping is now officially over (or at least made easier). With an inspiring message of how outsiders helped shape today’s pop culture landscape, I think our film is a great gift to give this year especially if you’re interested in the arts, DIY thinking, documentary films, graffiti, good music, skateboarding, and of course, these losers: Barry McGee (TWIST), Ed Templeton, Geoff McFetridge, Margaret Kilgallen, Harmony Korine, Stephen Powers (ESPO), Jo Jackson, Chris Johanson, Thomas Campbell, Mike Mills, Shepard Fairey, Deanna Templeton, Clare Rojas, Cheryl Dunn and Aaron Rose.
Buy it now and inspire someone this holiday season!
(And no, I didn’t sign up for any back-end points, DVD residuals or anything like that when I edited the film. I just sincerely believe that we made something that is truly worthy of your time. Watch it!)
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