B.N.E.

Check out this story about B.N.E in the NY Times today, forwarded by the tallest ninja in the sticker posse, Grant Cornwell.

From the article: “Peter F. Vallone Jr., of Queens, chairman of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, condemned the show. ‘This isn’t even someone who’s decided to go legitimate,’ he said. ‘This is an unrepentant criminal who has cost honest taxpayers a lot of money, and he’s profited from it’.”  Sorry, Pete!!

B.N.E. uses a “serious-looking Helvetica Neue Condensed.”  I just watched the film Helvetica a few days ago, which describes the way the font was developed 50 years ago and how it has been used in a variety of social contexts.  One person said, “Helvetica is the perfume of the city.”  I guess B.N.E. is having  love affair with the urban environment.

Metadata madness

After Kevin’s new sticker scans are loaded, I’ll need to figure out how to identify these sticker pranksters without repeating what others have done.  Others have done a lot.  A catalogue raisonne’ might do the trick.

I can’t do a catalogue raisonne’.  There are way too many out there, though everything I’ve seen is online.

Cedar Lewisohn’s STREET ART book is unparalled.  Check him out on Facebook.

More, more, more

Obama graphics everywhere.  Not sure if I love it or hate it.  No, I love it.  Here’s a poster from Smack Mellon’s inaugural ball.  Is SF asking for or making any money on these remixes?

JR public art project in Kenya

From the Wooster Collective:

JR Finishes His Most Ambitious Project Yet In The Slums In Kibera, Kenya

Exciting news from our friend JR who emailed us just a few moments ago from Kibera, Kenya – on of the largest slums in all of Africa.

Today, after more than a year of planning, 2000 square meters of rooftops have been covered with photos of the eyes and faces of the women of Kibera. The material used is water resistant so that the photo itself will protect the fragile houses in the heavy rain season. The train that passes on this line through Kibera at least twice a day has also been covered with eyes from the women that live below it. With the eyes on the train, the bottom half of the their faces have be pasted on corrugated sheets on the slope that leads down from the tracks to the rooftops. The idea being that for the split second the train passes, their eyes will match their smiles and their faces will be complete.

This new work, by far JR’s most ambitious to date, can be seen from space and will be seen in Google Earth.