His tour around New york city took him to Bushwick Collective Art , the Bushwick collective Art is an outdoor Gallery of artists from all over the world. The Bushwick Collective is a bit harder to find since it’s spread out over a few blocks ..street art culture is alive .
The street artist Jay Shells has painted a mural in Brooklyn featuring lyrics by the hip hop artist Mos Def, Complex Magazine reports. The mural is a continuation of Shells’ Rap Quotes project, in which he installed street signs with rap lyrics. In a video, Shells explains that the project “plots the…corners and very specific locations mentioned in rap songs.”
“I was always hoping that the street sign project would open the door for something more permanent,” Shells told Animal. “Although I realize it wouldn’t always be possible to do a wall or a plaque on the floor for every single [rap quote], I thought it would be great to get a good handful of them to be more permanent.”
The mural, located near the intersection of Broadway and Myrtle Avenue, says: “I’m blacker than midnight on Broadway and Myrtle,” referring to the location that Mos Def mentioned in his song Mathematics. “I have found that this is an interesting way to interact with the public, to get a message out and to hear back what the public is telling me,” Shells toldComplex.
Shells first started attracting attention with his Subway Etiquette project, in which he put up screen prints and posters in New York City’s subway stations, trains, and platforms, urging New Yorkers to be respectful to each other while using the public transport network.
Culled From artnet
The renowned street artist Stik has completed the tallest piece of street art in the UK: a 125-foot mural covering the side façade of a soon-to-be demolished block of council flats in the London area of Acton. The enormous work is “aimed at raising awareness about the lack of social housing in the area,” the Independent reports.
The piece, entitled Big Mother, depicts a mother and child in Stik’s signature stickman drawing style. It took a year of planning and one month of painting to execute, much of which Stik spent perched on a crane, 38 meters (125 feet) above the ground.
“The mother and child symbol are a representation of the families that live in this block,” Stik told the Independent. “The figures that I have painted are looking down sadly at their neighborhood which is being developed with luxury apartments and this building is being demolished.”
The mural can be viewed across west London, and is visible from planes departing and arriving at Heathrow Airport. “It’s great that as people arrive in the country they can see the mother and child looking across the expanse of private development,” the artist remarked.
Stik painted Big Mother for free, as part of a project “to get local street artists to brighten up the area,” explained Rachel Pepper, project manager for Acton Arts Forum. “There are some dark and dingy parts on the estate and we now have about 15 or 16 pieces of artwork that people come to see especially,” she told the Independent.
Visit Stik for more info
Culled From artnet
Sheffield-based muralist and artist Phlegm just unveiled this awesome mechanical shark mural for PangeaSeed’s Sea Walls: Murals for Oceans festival in San Diego. The piece is done in Phlegm’s signature black and white illustrative style that often depicts shady masked figures manning the controls of unwieldy machines or contraptions. The Murals for Oceans project involves a collaboration with internationally renowned artists in an attempt to focus attention on major environmental issues involving the ocean. You can see many more pieces by Phlegm spanning the last few months on his blog. (via StreetArtNews)
Here’s few fun pieces by UK street artist JPS who creates small and large-scale stencil works, paintings, and installations in urban areas. While most of his work seems greatly influenced by pop culture icons, horror movie characters, and comic book heroes, I tend to enjoy these one-off pieces a bit more. You can see more over on his Facebook page.
Photo Credit: JPS Facebook Page
I’d like to invite you to take a closer look at the world you live in – the world of friendly plaster beings!
Here are lots of ragged building fronts and spilled asphalt paint with which I love to create illustrations with. I take photos of urban decay with old plaster, asphalt holes, and torn wallpaper, supplementing these forms with illustrations and turning them into pictures with friendly creatures.
Our imagination is our most powerful instrument, which is always ready for use. It allows us not only to draw the future and the past in our minds, but to change the present as well.
The abbreviation of my full name is myo. I enjoy the strong Russian weather and live in the beautiful city of Saint Petersburg.
More info: myomew.tumblr.com
BoredPanda
The early years of Prague’s John Lennon Wall (circa 1983). Photo: David Sedlecký, via Wikimedia Commons.
Prague’s iconic John Lennon Wall, a graffiti magnet since the musician was assassinated in 1980, has undergone a reset, erasing decades of accumulated street art. An artist collective known as Prague Service whitewashed the wall on Monday, leaving the message “Wall Is Over!” on the suddenly-blank canvas.
Prague’s John Lennon Wall, whitewashed (2014). Photo: @rickchan66, via Instagram.
The bold action marked the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the 1989 Velvet Revolution, and thus the non-violent transition of power that led to the end of communism in Czechoslovakia. In a Facebook post, one of the artists, Jan Dotrel, insisted the whitewashing was “an art project,” not an act of vandalism. Unintentionally, however, Prague Service has followed in the footsteps of Communist authorities, who routinely censored the landmark back in the day.
A girl lights candles at the John Lennon Wall in Prague (1996).
Public street art havens are somewhat of an endangered species these days: the Prague whitewashing took place almost a year to the day after New York’s Long Island City graffiti mecca, 5Pointz, was painted over by developers looking to tear down the complex to build condos (see “Destruction of Graffiti Mecca 5Pointz Is Underway“). The demolition is still on going, but the 5Pointz name may live on, if the developers’ attempts to trademark the name for the new project are successful (see “Developers Who Razed 5Pointz Seek to Trademark Its Name“). Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, the future of a Post-it note version of the Lennon Wall remains uncertain (see “Is Hong Kong’s Protest Art Worth Saving?“).
According to the collective’s official statement, Prague Service hoped that returning the Lennon Wall to a state of tabula rasa would “offer a free space for the messages of a rising generation.” Indeed, within a short time, “Wall Is Over” (a reference to the popular John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band song “Happy Xmas [War Is Over]“) was joined by a round of fresh tags such as “The wall is never over! Just imagine. . .” The popular tourist attraction, located at Grand Priory Square near the Charles Bridge, was also painted green in 2000 by another art group. Nevertheless, the Order of Malta, who owns the site, is reportedly considering legal action against Prague Service.
A street musician plays in front of the John Lennon Wall in Prague (2014). Photo: Petr David Josek, courtesy AP Photo.
The John Lennon Wall in Prague (2014). Photo: Steven Feather, via Flickr.
THE WALL IS NEVER OVER
13th of November apparently, is the official Guinness World Record Day, and people are celebrating accordingly. As per to the Daily Mail, various record-setting attempts took place on thursday, including those for the farthest backwards basketball shot and the most people eating breakfast in bed. Kicking off the festivities thursday night near London’s Tower Bridge was a gathering of the largest-ever crowd of people in penguin costumes. As for records in the visual arts? We had you covered with a round-up of the best art-related Guinness World Records.
Syrian artist Moaffak Makhoul and his team pose in Damascus with Guinness World Records award for the largest recycled material mural, March 31, 2014. The mural, seen behind them, measures 7,750 feet. Photo: Louai Beshara, courtesy Agence France-Presse.
Largest Mural of Recycled Materials
Moaffak Makhou
Earlier this year, Guinness officially recognized this gorgeous Damascus mural, a 7,750 foot-long marvel created by Makhou and his team from bicycle parts, mirrors, cooking utensils, soda cans, and ceramic shards (see “In Syria, Mural Sets New World Record“).
Menahem Asher Silva Vargas with part of his Guinness World Record-holding Harry Potter memorabilia. Photo: Rebecca Blackwell, courtesy AP Photo.
Largest Collection of Harry Potter Memorabilia
Menahem Asher Silva Vargas
Based in Mexico City, Silva Vargas shattered the old record of 807 with his 3,097 pieces of merchandise related to the Harry Potter book and film series (see “Guinness Honors World’s Largest Harry Potter Collection“). Though a world record is rewarding, the cost of collecting on such a scale adds up quickly: “My salary, my bonuses…it all ended up here,” he told the AP.
Graffiti from CBLOXX in London’s Leake Street Tunnel is part of Femme Fierce’s record breaking mural.
Photo: Street Art Utopia.
Largest Spray-Painted Mural By Multiple Artists
UK female street art collective Femme Fierce
This March, to celebrate International Women’s Day 100 female street artists, hailing from the Middle East, Africa, South America, and Europe, took over London’s Leake Street Tunnel. Femme Fierce transformed the street, a legal home to graffiti famously tagged by Banksy, into the world’s longest spray-painted mural by multiple artists (see “Women Street Artists Set New Guinness Record for Largest Mural“).
Map of the “World’s Longest Painting” route in Ann ArborWorld’s Longest Painting By an Individual
SinGh
The Transcendental, an 11,300-foot long painting the Kalamazoo-based artist SinGh, was created for the 2013 edition of ArtPrize. The record, however, came with a price for SinGh: a lifetime ban from the popular Michigan art show (see “Artist Banned From ArtPrize Forever“).
Contemporary artists have discovered that street art is not only beautiful to look at, but that it can also be soft and smooth to the touch. Moss graffiti is Eco-friendly as it doesn’t use any aerosols; what the “painting” needs is just a dash of water to thrive. Here is a recipe for how to make your own moss graffiti. Just bear in mind that choosing the right space for street art is very important too, as, in any case, vandalism is a crime.
To get started you’ll need:
3 cups of moss (washed, clean of soil)
2 cups of buttermilk or 2 cups of yogurt (should be plain yogurt)
2 cups of water or beer
1/2 tsp of sugar
Corn syrup (optional)
A blender that you probably don’t want to use other than for this
More info: wikihow
Image credits: wikihow
Image credits: webponce (artist Anna Garforth)
Image credits: Edina Tokodi
Image credits: Jaime Rojo (artist Hugo Rojas)
Image credits: Anna Garforth
New York-based artist Joe Mangrum has spent the last 8 years drawing beautiful, hypnotic patterns and designs on the streets and squares of New York. But chances are you probably won’t see any of them, because they tend to disappear.
Mangrum draws his impressive and expansive works by pouring brightly-colored sand from his hands. The circular geometric forms he uses, as well as his use of colored sand, makes his work resemble traditional Buddhist mandalas, but he also mixed in marine biological design elements and other to give his work a unique look. The artist writes that his “paintings are influenced by an abundant world of undersea creatures, carnivorous plants emanating electrical impulses,… [and] cross-cultural metaphors from many years of travels around the world.”
Even more interesting, however, is the impermanent nature of his work and the philosophical questions such art raises. If the paintings you spend hours creating can be blown away overnight, do they lose or gain value? Could it be that we are over-attached to things that provide us with fleeting moments of emotion or beauty? Is losing such a beautiful work of art to the wind wasteful or sacred?
For more excellent example of art created with sand, check out these beautiful and impermanent works by Andres Amadorand the Sand In Your Eye gallery by Andy Moss and Jamie Wardley.
Prints: joemangrum.com | See works in progress: Facebook (via: thisiscolossal)
ArtRubic 