Belfast, a city of walls, fences and barbed wire

At first glance Belfast is lively and peaceful city with modern shopping streets and centres. People in town are like elsewhere on a Saturday morning, drinking their coffees and look inside shop windows. However, when you look more closely you'll see that fences are somewhat higher and equipped with different types of spikes and barbed wires. Then you see murals, symbols, slogans and flags. There are two kinds of people living here: The Republicans which are usually ethnic irish catholics, and the Royalists or sometimes which usually are ethnic english and protestants.

In Victoria Square Shopping Centre, everybody shares the same ideology: Consumerism

There is a historically long and chronic conflict between the parties, and the recent history of the conflict is referred to as "The Troubles". "The Troubles" started in the late 1960s and ended with Belfast Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The warfare and violence was led by paramilitary groups on both sides. 'The Provisional Irish Republican Army'  (PIRA, or mostly known as IRA) is  internationally most known and regarded as a terrorist organisation by the Brittish Government.

When IRA let down their weapons in 1998, the 'Loyalists' put up this mural sending a message that they did the same.

Both parties and their paramilitarian groups uses murals in their propaganda which still are highly visible in the city.

UVF is the most known and violent 'Loyalists' paramilitarian gorup

Bobby Sands was a PIRA leader who died in prison after hungerstriking for political rights  

Wall separating Republican neighbourhood and Royalist area are painted with graffiti

When walking in parts of Belfast, one is constantly reminded of the conclict. There are huge areas of 'No Mans Land' or peace lines between Republican neighbourhoods and Royalist areas. These areas is frequently patrolled by heavily armored police vehicles. In addition the government have set up huge gates around which easily can be closed and separate people if something should happen. 

Belfast Police car, made for 'peace keeping'

The walls are perfect for graffiti, and artists and organisations from all over the world have decorated the peace lines with graffiti and street art, often sending a message to the people of Northern Ireland.

International organisations for peace and human rights works for stabilizing and develop the peace

There is relatively quite when it comes to political violence in Belfast nowadays, but it does not feel peaceful and I got this feeling of walking around in a huge open prison because of the walls and fences. There is probably a very long way for the people of Belfast to reach a level of trust that could tear down walls and fences .

Street Art in Malaga and introducing Dadi Dreucol

A disney like mural with easter island statues

Malaga is the birthplace of Pablo Picasso, probably the most influential artist of the 20th century. Picasso was a painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer and a street artist. In 1937 he painted a wall in Guernica as a protest against the german bombing of the city and the coming of General Franco's dictatorship. It's an amazing mural. And if you ever go to Malaga, please visit the beautiful Picasso museum. 

The beautiful patio of the Picasso Museum

Nowadays the andalusian city Malaga is not known for street art, but when you walk around, you see murals and shutter paintings. Small shops and cafés often use murals and paintings  as part of their public image. In addition, as all cities of some size, there are graffiti artists and writers around, using the spray cans with varied skills and experience.  An artist who signed  the works with "Doger" was of the high quality kinds.

True Love by Doger

Dadi Dreucol

However, there was some quite interesting and original stuff in the streets I hadn't seen before. The style reminded me of Escif, the more internationally known brother from Valencia. Dadi Dreucol is from Malaga, but lives and study art in Valencia at the time. In the near future, we probably will see his works in all major street art cities in Europe.

He has a funny/serious characteristic style and go to his web page to see more of his works

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). 

 

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).