This week, an unfinished masterpiece, artists on Facebook, Guggenheim’s free online catalogues, Okwui Enwezor lectures on art and civic imagination, Russian space, nasty ancient graffiti and much more …
graffiti
Thanks to the efforts of organizations such as Primary Flight and Wynwood Walls, the Wynwood district in Miami is undergoing a radical transformation through art.
Graffiti in Rio de Janerio is some of the most festive, whimsical and lighthearted graffiti I’ve seen anywhere. Though the street art feels like it’s being taken seriously, the pervasive style is bold, playful, colorful, and full of bizarre scenes, stylized characters and undecipherable situations.
MANILA, Philippines — As is so often said about Chongqing, you’ve never heard of it, but with 30 million people and rising, it’s one of the largest municipalities in the world (for perspective, all of New York state has some 20 million people). Located in the heart of southwest China, a former city in Sichuan Province but now independent, Chongqing also hosts the country’s largest graffiti street, and perhaps the world’s.
After happening on several graffiti statements by the writer FADE, I realized that graffiti may be one of the most long-lasting artistic and political protests.Occupying public space and asserting the power of the individual, every tag, piece, statement or other form of graffiti is a true demonstration.
This week … insights into Ai Weiwei’s photos, photos of Japan’s gangs, aesthetics of interactive space, William Gibson on cities, fake Guggenheims, superhero costumes, art thefts in Toronto, vintage street art & graffiti spots in New York.
COPENHAGEN — Shepard Fairey’s wall mural at Jagtvej 69 in the Nørrebro neighborhood of Copenhagen may scream “Peace” but graffiti artists appear to have declared war on the art work that sits on the site of Ungdomshuset, the former leftist youth center that was destroyed by the country’s right-wing government in 2007.
Evacuated from my Lower Manhattan apartment and hiding from Hurricane Irene, I find myself thinking about anonymous street art and what it means to art-viewing practices. Different from traditional art and even graffiti, the anonymous works that are found on construction walls, corners of the street and shop grates pose a difficult yet exciting problem for the street art or historian enthusiast that comes across them.
Some call it “The United Nations of Graffiti.” Its semi-official title, spelled out in giant letters on its main wall, is “The Institute of Higher Burnin,” though you’ll also find it described as “the world’s premiere ‘graffiti Mecca’” on its website. Now there are questions about how long it will last.
Known as the self-declared King of Style despite losing an arm and a leg in a childhood accident, early graffiti writer KASE 2 passed away last weekend, adding another famous name to the roster of graffiti artists’ deaths that go nearly unnoticed by the art world press.
