Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: art, street art, public art, ☭☭☭, other, troy lovegates, crimethinc, trains, palace of the people, romania
I dislike that Crimethinc has so permeated that I immediately associate freight train hopping with them along with indulgent dropout-yet-be-a-capitalistic-parasite and mountains of stale bagels. To me it feels more like a subculture than a social movement, kind of like playing a video game revolution. Not to rehash the perhaps tired body of Crimethinc criticism (and indeed there’s a lot that could be learned from their media machine), but I do rather like Anarkismo’s “Rethinking Crimethinc”
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: art, cars, credit crisis, eggs, global warming, henk hofstra, netherlands, public art, urban river
On the 23rd of October, Dutch artist Henk Hofstra created a 20 car pileup in the middle of Rotterdam’s Ahoy Square, to symbolise the worldwide credit crisis. Nineteen of these cars are painted red - for in-the-red ledgered debt , with the sole blue car symbolising the few that are still ding okay. Pretty amazing right? And this isn’t the first time he’s used painted cars - take a dekko at his kilometre-long blue road/ urban river from last April. Eight metres wide, the Het Moleneind road in Drachten, Holland, was painted blue to form an urban river (with the text ‘WATER IST LEVEN”) in the place of a waterway that used to run there. This year they will start digging a new canal there. The goal was to get it on Google Earth; not sure if that was achieved. [via wooster]
MORE: environmentalism, sunny side up?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: art, capitalist casualties, cities, consumerism, d*face, macdeath, public art, street art, surveillance society, tattoos
Street improvements of the best kind? This is from D*Face in London, an artist who seems to tread the line between street art and commercial graphic design. I wonder if one always comes before the other? Some of his work is really sick though:
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Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: art, china, inversion, li wei, performance art, public art
These images from Chinese performance artist Li Wei are pretty sick. According to the aesthetic poetic, it’s all mirrors, metal wires and scaffolding to create these illusions. Maybe it’s unfortunate that in pictures, they could pass as being photoshopped; I’d love to see this in person. Someday?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: balloons, brooklyn, cartoons, electrical tape, nyc, onomatopoeia, public art, street art
I’ve never seen anything like this before - onomatopoeic street art, and made with balloons? Presumably with added pop!s or maybe whizzzzes at the demise of the balloon. From Brooklyn based artist DBILLY. This seems to be the first work he’s done with balloons, but theres some sweet illustration based stuff. And something else I’ve never seen - though it’s probably been done before - words made with electrical tape. Interesting in that it looks photoshopped, but isn’t; I’d love to see this from afar.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: anamorphic art, art, billboard, caetano ferrer, korea, optical illusion, public art, seoul, street art, tracy lee stum, trees, trompe l'oeil
At that, each piece of public art probably develops an associated collective pose. Like someone struggling under the presumable weight of Noguchi’s Red Cube in Manhattan’s Financial District. Or holler-riding the Wall Street Bull, for example. I guess it’s not a bad thing.
Filed under: america | Tags: public art, july 4, sonic youth, the feelies, thurston moore, kim gordon, ballet, swan lake, fireworks
[photo by cverwall] I wasn’t actually madly impressed by the NYC fireworks on the Fourth of July. Maybe they would have been better from a different viewing point - we were aiming for the South Street Seaport, but ended up in a bit of a dead end on Pier 36 when they started. Apparently they’re the largest display of fireworks in the world, when all four concurrent segments are put together. That’s an interesting label - maybe attached because one centralised city authority covers the firework display for the entire city?
As opposed to maybe Dubai where almost each hotel will have ridiculous displays on New Year’s Eve (not so much the 4th July..). A friend from Hong Kong mentions a similar effect. Overall the display is far larger, but I suppose they’re technically many smaller displays happening at the same time. Not so technically, I suspect there’s a good deal of American-centrism and pride in this statement too.
MORE: SONIC YOUTH AND FIREWORKS AS THE MOST ACCESSIBLE FORM OF PUBLIC ART
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: appropriation, art, dubai, german panther, germany, inges idee, public art, street art
It’s pretty interesting to see public art done from (someone who works commercially as) an artists, as approached to a more street art approach. I can’t tell if these projects were commissioned or their sites granted, but it definitely seem to have a rather more polished, less clandestine approach. Similarly, it seems rather more based on aesthetic theory than the maybe politically or ideologically motivated street stuff. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing. Still, how possible is it to depoliticise public art?