London’s Street Art scene exploded in May with BANKSY’s official “Cans Festival,” a sort of global gathering of stencil art heads unprecedented in scale. Now the organization has released an official time-lapse recap of the event from bare beginning to the inevitable endless queue…
The event’s hostess will be happy to make you more comfortable…
Opening to the public today, London’s CANS FESTIVAL saw a massive queue of thousands of fans vying for a closer look at English Street Art mastermind BANKSY’s latest offerings. Of course, over 40 other artists from around the world participated in the stencil art-only jam inside an unused Eurostar terminal at Waterloo on the capital’s South Bank including Ron English, Blek Le Rat, Bsas Stencil, Run Don’t Walk, James Dodd (dlux), Tom Civil (civilian), Vexta, Prism, Daniel Melim, Altocontraste, Bandit, Roadsworth, 3D Del Naja, Artiste-Ouvrier, Sten, Sadhu, C215, Lucamaleonte, Lex, Orticancvoodles, Kaagman, Dolk, Pobel, M-City, Vhils, Btoy, Coolture, Schhh, Borbo, Sam3, Faile, Eine, John Grider, Logan Hicks, Pure Evil, and Dot Masters. The general public is invited to participate as well, and any punter showing up with a stencil and some paint will be allowed to leave their mark within the festival’s legal boundaries. HAVE A LOOK (OVER 150 PHOTOS!): Read the rest of this entry »
Banksy’s very legal contribution to the Cans Festival…
In case you’ve been living under a rock, London is playing host to the CANS FESTIVAL this weekend, a huge show of stencil art with over 40 international street & graffiti artists participating, including movement figurehead and onetime rebel BANKSY, who masterminded the entire affair. These photos represent the first look at his work in the show. Located in an unused Eurostar terminal at Waterloo on the capital’s South Bank, the very legal festival intends to showcase one of London’s most popular tourist attractions in a safe, controlled setting. We’re not exactly sure why it’s called the “Cans Festival” instead of the more obvious “Stencil Festival,” but we are surprised Sir Banksy himself is taking center stage in the show. The gangster move would have certainly been for Banksy to shun participation in the festival while dropping an illegal bomb of massive proportions elsewhere in the city as a movement-leading show of force. Who knows, it’s a long holiday weekend in Fogtown, perhaps our man’s got something up his sleeve yet. Meantime, here’s what Banksy had to say about organizing the show: “Graffiti doesn’t always spoil buildings, in fact it’s the only way to improve a lot of them. In a few hours with a couple of hundred cans of paint, I’m hoping we can transform a dark, dirty, neglected hellhole into an oasis of beautiful art. I’ve always felt anyone with a paint can should have as much say in how our cities look as architects and ad men, so getting to cover an entire street with graffiti is a dream come true, or as some people might call it, a complete and utter nightmare.” The show is being sponsored & organized by PICTURES ON WALLS, an East End printmaker that produces limited-edition screenprints by Banksy and Faile, among others. Tonite marks the VIP first-look debut of the show with A-listers like Kevin Spacey strolling through the tunnel, cocktails in hand, admiring the Street Art in spacious privacy before the sweaty masses are admitted on Saturday with an expected 75,000+ fans expected to descend on the show. Stay tuned for more updates throughout the weekend…
Tagline: “What a lot of rubbish”
With all the mainstream news outlets presenting the “official” view of the 29th OLYMPIC GAMES in Beijing (including computer-generated fireworks and lip-synching 6-year-old body doubles), Supertouch brings you a street level look at the real haps around town from the back alleys to the 798 Arts District, you won’t see anywhere else…
As we previously reported, New York artist STEVE POWERS (aka: ESPO) has been working on a torture-themed art project for a while now and in conjunction with CREATIVE TIME as part of its national public art initiative “Democracy in America: The National Campaign,” he’s just opened the Guantanamo Bay-themed “Waterboard Thrill Ride” on Coney Island in the shadow of the legendary Cyclone roller coaster and Nathan’s hot dog stand in an empty storefront on West 12th Street. When a dollar is fed into a machine standing outside Powers’ mock jail cell installation featuring paintings by the artist inside and out, viewers can climb a short flight of steps to peer through cell bars and view an animatronic torture scene of a hooded jailer pouring water down the throat of an orange jumpsuit wearing Gitmo detainee…
Bringing the low-fi art world of BEAUTIFUL LOSERS to the big screen with a full-length documentary on the movement is director and Losers mastermind AARON ROSE, who will debut the film in NYC this Friday, August 8th (aka: 08.08.08) at the IFC CENTER. Presented by NIKE SPORTSWEAR, the film chronicles the lives and creative process of artists including Shepard Fairey, Margaret Kilgallen, Mike Mills, Barry McGee, Jo Jackson, Chris Johanson, Harmony Korine, Stephen Powers, Geoff McFetridge, Thomas Campbell and Ed Templeton, among others, whose DIY attitudes informed the aesthetics and ethos of their generation….
For those scratching their heads at the sight of the following images, in the last two decades a bizarre and violent musical subculture called Black Metal has emerged in Norway. It has its roots in a heady blend of splatter movies, heavy metal music, Satanism, Pagan mythology and adolescent angst. In the early-mid 1990’s, members of this extremist underground committed murder, burned down medieval wooden churches, and desecrated graveyards…
Talking Heads founder DAVID BYRNE has had one of the most varied and original careers in rock, constantly vacillating between the worlds of music and visual art with rare grace. Throwing yet another curveball through the rarified air of NYC’s art world, Byrne presents music as art in “Playing the Building,” his new CREATIVE TIME-sponsored 9,000-square-foot, interactive, site-specific installation that transforms the interior of the landmark Battery Maritime Building in Lower Manhattan into a massive sound sculpture that all visitors are invited to sit and “play”…
J O'Shea/Editor
Shepard Fairey
Everlast
Dr Romanelli
Lupe Fiasco
Billy Gibbons
Christian Parkes
Davey Havok
Eric White
Erik Foss
Christian Hosoi
Josh Davis
Kenna
Mark Ryden
Masa/Three Tides
Sarah/Colette
Scott Campbell
Tim Biskup
WK Interact
Donny Miller
Lance Mountain
James Jean
Andy Cruz
Adam Glickman
Ron English
Jose Parla
D* Face
Eric Nakamura
Nathan Cabrera
Kostas Seremetis
Phil Frost
Kyle Ng
Suitman