Merry Christmas 2009

A few weeks ago, I tracked down  A Frightening Prospect, the creators of this powerful street poster that I saw on Houston Street last fall during the weeks surrounding the US Presidential elections.  Unfortunately I was driving too fast in rush hour traffic to stop or even take a picture of it.  These posters were really difficult to find on the streets, undoubtedly b/c they were such a hot item.  The artists kindly donated one to me, however, and I offered to have SLU buy another one for the Permanent Collection.

Shepard Fairey

The NY Times ran this article in March 2009 about Shepard Fairey, which provides a useful bio and overview of this ne’er-do-well’s career.

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.

Thor #2

Another Thor Steiner reference to what has been attributed as neo-Nazi politics (see post from 11.03.09).

I also just came across a post by John Collins on The Weave entitled Fascists-For Real, in which he discusses contemporary fascist politics in Spain during his year-long sabbatical.  I wonder if he’s come across anti-fascist street art to the extent I have in Berlin.  John’s analysis on various topics is always spot on.

Stroke.02 Munich

Stroke.02: International Urban Art Fair, May 2010, in Munich.  Must go.

Planning Berlin itinerary, November 1-10, 2009

I’m sorry to miss the Stroke.01 Urban Art Fair in Munich, October 30-31, 2009. 

Hatch Kingdom Sticker Museum.

JUST – “JUST TAKING PICTURES” at the ATM Gallery Berlin.

Urbanartcore.eu

From Berlin:

Urbanartcore.eu is a new independent street, design, urban art & photography blog. It’s the successor of the german street art blog Berlinpiraten.de and was launched on August 14th with an international photo-contest.

The Urbanartcore-team will be pleased to present you international news about urban activities, interventions, arts, design, photography and a lot more of fresh thing from the metropolises around the world.

Another goal of our blogs is to become a small, international authors-collective. So if you are familiar in urban areas and have some blogging experience, write us!

We like:
urban art, street art, graffiti, parkour, freerunning, photography, urban inspired design, typography, calligraphy, modern architecture, and a lot more topics around urban environment

We don’t like:
haters, fascists, buffers, sexism, spammers…we don’t want to talk about bad things

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.

Catching up.

My blog stats are jumping.  I think I had 8-10 hits this past week.

Anyway, I am finally starting to buckle down and work on the Stickerkitty has a Posse database, with help from Kevin, Tsewang, and Nathan–the crack team from last summer.  May drag Caleb into this, too.  I have a few hundred new stickers from Berlin to add.

Here is a photo of the entrance to the Anne Frank Zentrum in Berlin.  Right next door is an amazing bookstore and gallery called Neurotitan.  I bought one of the We Dream of Meat plushes there.  Turns out they are more difficult to find than I expected.

theGREAToutDOORS

From the Wooster Collective today (check out these artists’ names):

If you’re in New York, and haven’t made your plans for the evening, check out theGREAToutDOORS, a show that celebrates “the door as canvas” at the Artbreak Gallery. Curated by luna park and billi kid the show features work by Blanco, Broken Crow, Buildmore, Cake, C-Damage, Celso, Cern, Chris (RWK), Deeker, Destroy&Rebuild, Dude Company, Feral, Goldenstash, Imminent Disaster, Infinity, Kngee, LA 2, Matt Siren, Morgan Thomas, Peru Ana Ana Peru, Plasma Slugs, Veng (RWK), Royce Bannon, Skullphone, Stickman, Windowzoo and Yassie Goldie.

Artbreak Gallery is located at 195 Grand Street, 2nd Floor, between Bedford and Driggs Avenues in Williamsburg. Hours are Thursday through Sunday, 1-7pm.