Jef Aerosol: Shhh!

When I'm in Paris, I always find my way to the open space outside the Pompidou Centre. Its so nice to sit and relax by the Stravinsky fountain. I's like a peaceful small island in the middle of the city where the old meets the new. The fountain is between the old church of Saint-Merri and the contemporary centre of modern art, Pompidou. The fountain is inspired by the music of Igor Stravinsky. The sculptures in the fountain is colourful and funny, while others are iron figures painted black that moves like simple mechanical devices, empowered by the water it self. Behind the fountain, you'll see a huge piece of spray painted street art, a face on the wall saying: Shhh! According to the maker Jef Aerosol the message of the mural is “Stop, look and appreciate the city.” And yeah, like me, many stop here to slow down and enjoy the space and the atmosphere.

Jef Aerosol, from Lille in france, is one of the pioneers of urban art, stencil art and street art. He made his first works in the streets in 1982 and the piece on the picture above is made in 2011. It's probably the most photographed street art piece in the world. I had a good rest and was quitely appreciating the city I love so much.

Can't find a better song to accompany this post than "La Vie en Rose" by Edith Piaf (click on the link or the "play" button in the box below to listen).

The London Police: Street art Icons

The London Police (TLP) is a London based duo which paint their LADS with smiley faces all over the world. They started in 1998 and TLP is essentially built on friendship. The friendship between Bob and Chas and their mission to travel the world and make boring places into more colourful, enjoying and friendly spaces. TLP make clean, graphical and bold street art. I found and photographed this piece (above) in Berlin and it's made on a big wall facing a playground for kids. Imagine the place without that mural. I think it makes a big difference.

In 2011, TLP and other artists were in Oslo to raise awareness and funds for Human Rights Watch. TLP claimed that Street Art fans are typically more in touch with the needs of communities and are fierce advocates of the rights of all people. The photos below, I took an early morning in Oslo. In general the street art culture have always been concerned with social awareness, societal values and political issues. E.g. the Occupy movement was massively supported by street artists who helped the activists to spread their message to the world. "We are the 99%". When Banksy presented a street art piece to the Occupy Movement in London it was news headlines all over the world. Shepard Fairey did the same for the movement in US (occupy wall street). The same happened when street artists began to paint on the Israeli wall on the West Bank drawing attention toward the situation for palestinians.

TLP in Oslo

TLP closeup

I don't know if street art can change the world, but street art isa very and social attention to a number of issues. Street Art have an impact becausethe work is public and for all, and that's hard to ignore. In addition to the public availability in the urban space. Today, if a new street art piece comes up in London, Berlin or Vardø, it burns through internet almost before it's finnished and is made available for people all over the world. You may not know where Vardø is, well check it out here. Well, I think that TLP makes a difference and you may visit their web site here for news. Together with this post I choose "All along the Watchtower" with Jimi Hendrix. This song by Dylan is so so cool! (Click on the link or the "play" button in the box below to listen).

Run: Spreading Colour in Cork

Run is an italian that thinks big is better, especially in a era when the mass communication from corporate advertisements are so massive everywhere.  Tags and wall writing graffiti are almost invisible in a busy visual environment. The street artist should create a contrast.  If the background is gray, Run will use as much colour as he can.

Run has created big murals all over the world and travel all the time. I ran into Run for the first time in Cork, Ireland. I love Cork and the area around and I'm always feel at home there. The fresh air from the sea, the green suroundings and the atmosphere is calm and easy. Maybe thats just on the surface, 'cause Cork is known as the "rebel city" (a name that originates from their support to the Yorks against the Lancasters)  and my friend in Cork says that they're still "rebels", nowadays against the more influential big brother Dublin and Corkians refer to their city as "the real capital".

The city is divided by the river Lee and it was on a walk along the canal i discovered these strange figures and human like wall paintings. Like Run him self, the figure on the photo spreads colours from his hand. His style is unique and easy recognizable by the way he paints faces and hands. His figures are colurful and supernatural. Run have his own motivation for painting and says in an interview: "Let’s just say that I paint because I want to travel.  There’s no better thing than to see another country and culture and possibly work during the trip.  If I can keep my travel wheel spinning that’s enough for me to be happy". I think that's a really good idea. Run is hard to reach. but have his own website for for followers who wants to know whats going on, here. Fairport Convention with "Who Knows where The Time Goes" follows this post (click on the link or the "play" button below to listen).

Steve Powers: A love story in the streets

In 2008 Steve Powers also known as ESPO spent about six months in Ireland, in Dublin and Belfast. Steve Powers is from Philadalphia US, and have a history of being a notorious graffiti maker and a writer (one who makes tags). In 1994 he moved to New York and became infamous for painting his signature boxy letters in daylight on shuttered storefronts. His work led to his apartment being raided by the police’s vandals squad in 1999. With six felony charges in Manhattan and Brooklyn for criminal mischief, he eventually accepted a plea deal in which he did five days of community service. In an interview Steve Powers explained his decision to stop painting illegally: “I wanted to find a way to grow out of it while succeeding at being creative.”

In 2008 he was granted a fulbright. His idea was to create public artwork with the help of teenagers from troubled housing projects in Dublin and Belfast. The theme was " a love story in the streets". The fulbright primarily go to scholars and professionals who go abroad to pursue research and teach in academic and specialized fields. Thirty-seven Fulbright winners have also received Nobel Prizes.

“I was shocked,” Steve Powers said in an interview; “I didn’t think I would get it but I felt a few feet taller when I did.” Although a Fulbright scholar typically must have a doctorate, Steve Powers, an art school dropout, was granted an exception because of his achievement in the arts.

I first heard about Steve Powers when I saw the documentary film "Beautiful Loosers" and fell in love with him and his hair he he. A lovely personality and brimful of creative ideas. I took the photos in this blog in Dublin on a nice an windy nice afternoon together with my daughter (she is found of street art). 

Visit the online home of Stephen Powers and the ICY Sign mechanics here. Together with this I choose the song "Overkill" from the scottish born artist Colin Hay, known from the band "men at work". (Click on the link or the "play" button in the box below to listen).

An old mural in Glasgow

I have visited Glasgow once and I walked around from morning to late evening. My feet and legs were sore for a week afterwords. In the afternoon I walked along river Clyde up to the Scotland BBC centre. On my way I passed a derelict area and I "smelled" graffiti and street art. On brick walls of an old industrial site I saw the beauty among layers of spraypaint. Three goddesses, or three graces came through.  

I don't know the artist behind this, but the number three is a frequent aesthetic and spiritual structure present in mythology, religions and art: the Virgin, Mother and Crone; Sexuality, Fertility and Wisdom; Holy, Divine and Sacred. In hinduism there is the Tridevi: Saraswati (the goddess of learning, arts and cultural fulfillment), Lakshmi (the goddess of wealth, fertility and material fulfillment), and Parvati (the goddess of power, love and spiritual fulfillment). In Greek and Roman mythology the Three sister goddesses, known as Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and Thalia, who dispense charm, beauty and grace. Carl Gustav Jung described the triple goddess as an archetype. Jung considered the general arrangement of deities in triads as a pattern which arises at the most primitive level of human mental development and culture. 

I felt spritual and graced with a beautiful evening in Glasgow.

"Where the streets have no name" by U2 is a special song and I connect the song with travelling (Click on the link or the "play" button in the box below). 

 

Dolk: Girl with Megaphone

Dolk Stencil in Stavanger

Street art is a genre were the work outside on the wall is done in seconds, often at night time when darkness and shadows hides the identity of the maker. When the city wakes up, and people buzz around to work, to school, to the bus etc. their environment is changed, a wall have been decorated with something for them to see. It's not a commercial,  a poster or an info board, but street art signed by a pseudonym.

Before this happens, the street art maker have planned this process carefully. The creative process, the idea work and equipment is important. Dependent on style/technics, the street artist make sketches, drawings, prints, cut out stencils, mix wheat paste and choose the right spray paints and colours at home (street artists usually can't afford studios). The placement is important. Its important to be seen (a busy place) and is important to find a place where the work will stay for a while (not painted over or removed at once by angry owners or officials). The street artist also have to take into account CCTV cameras and quick escape routes if detected by security, police or property owners.

The difference between street art and more traditional gallery art is that street art often gives an immediate impression or message to the bypassers which is both recognizable and "food for thought" at the same time. Street art is often simple in style, use iconic images or symbols. Sometimes critical, subversive and satirical. The works challenge our minds, values and ideas. Street art is "anti-commercial", often using similar visual effects and strategies in the public space as the commercial industry.

I think this Paste-up by ICON I found in London is a good example of a classical street art work

However, much has changed the last decade, and the difference between street art, modern art, conceptual art, public art and commercialism is more blury. Today street art as a culture have elements that is both legal and illegal, political and non-political, figural and abstract, small and big, urban and rural, wanted and unwanted, commercial and non commercial, some works is made in seconds and some takes days etc. Many street artists do work both outside and inside (in galleries and in public buildings). What's the difference between street art and vandalism? It's not an easy question to answer because it depends on the eye of the beholder. Today, Dolks street art is highly regarded in Bergen (and internationally) and the works that are left in the streets are preserved, even if this was made illegaly in the first place and previously was regarded as vandalism.

The photo above, showing a girl with a megaphone, I took in Stavanger 2011. This girl have something important to say. To whom? Dolks works often challenge our minds, both on a personal and societal level. See also a previous post about Dolk. Together with this comes "Message in a bottle" with The Police (Click on the link or the "play" button in the box below)

Blu: Big Murals

Blu makes impressive street art all over the world. Blu started out as an graffiti maker in Italy and is now what can be called a global street artist who has worked and lived all over the world and his hallmark is huge murals, strong political statements and powerful imagery. Blu's murals are never detached from the places where they were conceived because Blu is a painter in the urban or industrial landscape. He always tries to communicate with the society which inhabits those spaces, searching for the uniqueness of each place. Millions have seen his animated street art streams on Youtube. Everything Blu does is ambitious, and he's talented enough to pull it off. He also stands admirably outside of the commercial art machine.

I took the photo above in central Berlin (Kreuzberg) and in front of the mural it was an open space where people lived in tents as quite neighbours to the busy an noisy city life. A very cheap way to stay and very central :-). This was my first meeting with a work done by Blu. The picture can't really reflect how it was to stand there and look at this wall and how huge it really is. And maybe you have to be a street art nerd like me to feel the overwhelming pleasure of this work. I travelled far to see this and other works by Blu in Berlin. Maybe the video below illustrates more the scale and how much paint it took make this:

Considering the size of his work, Blu have an impressive portifolio and you can see more of his work here. His animated street art movie Muto (Silent) have won several prizes and illustrates his tecniques and use of the urban environment in his creations:

Together with Blu, I choose Boys Don't Cry with The Cure (Click on the link or on the "play" button in the box below to play the song)

Mij. K. Do: Freedom in Berlin

In 2011 it was 50 years since the building of the Berlin Wall when the communist East closed its border, dividing the city for 28 years. Soldiers from the East began construction on the morning of 13 August 1961 and the wall fell 9th. of November 1989. During the 28 years of the Berlin wall more than 5000 people tried to escape over to the West, and the number of people who died trying to cross the Wall is disputed. At least 136 are known to have been killed but victims' groups say the true number is more than 700.

Today about 1,3 km of the wall is kept and goes under the name East Side Gallery. East Side Gallery is a memorial of freedom and preserves murals painted by 118 international artists since 1990. It's the largest open air gallery in the world. And, again, in 2011 Street Artists from different parts of the world were invited to paint concrete sections from the Berlin wall. The Berlin based artist Mij.K.Do was one of them. 

I photographed this piece above by Mij K Do on a warm august afternoon in 2012. This was my first visit to Berlin as an adult and I loved the city, the atmosphere, the street art culture and the art works of Mij. K. Do. I do not know much about the artist and there are almost no information on the web, just some pictures of works. The german president said in a speech about the wall that:"In the end, freedom is unconquerable. No wall can survive the will for freedom in the long term. The violence of just a few has no hold over the drive for freedom of many." I think that the idea of freedom belongs to works of Mij K Do.

Wall murals of Mij K Do placed at Check Point Charlie. Where does your heaven start?

Together with this work I choose Redemption Song by Bob Marley (Click on the link or the "play" button in the box below to listen).  

 

Aram: Colouring the world

I think this is one of the finest pieces of street art in Bergen. Its been there for a long time, at least 5 or 6 years back. In an interview Aram tells that he started with street art in 2008, but I believe this piece have been even longer on that wall. I knew about the work, but hadn't seen it my self. One day, on the bus to town, I spotted it and jumped off on the next stop to take a closer look.

The stencil is quite simple, showing a girl with a paint brush in her hands and a bucket of red paint beside her (hidden a bit behind the green bush). She has already painted one flower and there is another flower in black and white. And if you look closely, you can see a mickey mouse print on her shirt.  By time, the work is worn out and slowly broken down by humidity, waste residues from cars and asphalt dust. Street art is vulnerable and temporary, and I think this work have grown more beautiful and important by time.

I assoiciate children and colours with hope, creativity and beauty. Children and colours, in all their vulnerability, makes this world a better place. This is a common theme in the street art culture; It counterbalance the heavy, boring, functional and grey concrete environment in the city (which represent the aesthetics of the adult). For some street artists, creating this counterbalance, is their main motive for doing art outside in the city environment. 

Together with this work I choose: Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here (Click on the link or the "play" button in the box below)

Enigmatic Escif

Escif have a special place in my heart and his street art makes you think. His murals are often simple and figural. It's a message in his paitings. A philosophical comment to a actual issue or a contemporay problem or dilemma in our society.

Escif lives and works in Valencia, Spain. He makes wall paintings and murals all over the world. In an interview Escif said: "I understand the painting as an exercise of reflection that can be shared with people. I´m not looking for decorative paintings, I try to wake up viewers' minds."

In 2011 Escif visited Bergen and did several paintings. The mural above is made on "Kvarteret", the student's house in Bergen. Escifs paintings in Bergen focused on the theme "greed" and he connected this theme to our natural resources; Water, Oil and Wealth. I took the photo on a nice evening in town. The obvious thought when I saw this picture is: It rains a lot in Bergen! Thats true, but the more deeper reflection seems, for me, to be about "we have much more than we need" and the problem with that can be: "too much will ruin or ultimately kill us". So, too much fortune can be unfortunate for our spirit, humanity and happiness. It may restrict us as humans rather than enrich us. Thats something to think about!

You might see some more works by Escif here and together with Escif I choose a song from Tracy Chapman: Crossroads. (You can listen by clicking on the link or better, click on the play button in the box below).

C215: City Portraits!

I took this photo this summer (2012) in Paris. I was sitting on the tube on my way to a public park, Bois De Vincennes, right outside the centre of Paris. The train had just crossed the river Seine when I spotted this piece of street art. I forgot about the park for a while and jumped off at the next station and walked back to the river and took a closer look. The signature, C215, was familiar to me. I had seen works of this artist in Bergen, Oslo and London before. 

C215 is a nickname where C stands for Christian which is his real name and 215 is the number of the room where he decided to be an artist, full time. His full name is Christian Guemy and have not been as secretive about his real identity as Banksy. C215 started with stencil art in 2006 and uses a self developed and advanced stencil technique in making his street art. He is known for making illegal works in broad day light and work on several pieces simultaneously in the same area. This video gives and impression of how C215 works. His motives are various, but mostly portraits of humans (e.g. beggars, street kids, homeless people), his daughter and cats. Motives that fit quite well in their urban environment and he seems to avoid prosecution or other forms of sanctions for his work.

It was a lovely day in Paris and my walk in Bois De Vincennes was beautiful. My interest for street art have trained my eye to see and find art in the urban environment. I pick Downtown Train by Tom Waits to accompany this post (click on the link or "play" button below to listen).