Squidge Magazine » street art

A love letter for you: graffiti project

The Teaspoon — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 21:18:28 +0000

‘A Love Letter for you’ is one of those projects that you wish you had thought of, it features the murals that are remarkable sweet and touching. They feature short poems and quotes , reminiscent of old school soul lyrics. The murals are across the skyline of Philadelphia, evocative of the old advertisements painted on the sides of houses. The idea is simple the execution is genius, designs that work with the landscape and culture of the area to create truly surprising pieces. The best kind of street art is the kind that catches you off guard and just makes you smile and this definitely does that. So I dropped a line to the lovely Steve who agreed to answer a few questions about how the project all got started.

What was it that originally inspired the ‘a love letter for you’ project?

Being on the train as a youth and seeing girls look at the graffiti on the rooftops facing the elevated. Even though they always looked at the graffiti, they weren’t all that interested in talking to me about it, so I thought about creating graffiti that girls would want to talk about, for the lovers who’d want to talk to them.

The murals are both romantic and inspirational, did you want the pieces to have a deeper message to society or were they more designed just to make people smile?

Yes to both

The pieces are more like the painted advertisements of the 50′s than conventional graffiti do you think that you would have had the same kind of acceptance for the project if you had gone down the route of conventional graffiti?

Graffiti is only graffiti if it’s non-conventional. Once graffiti coalesces into convention its just decoration. My graffiti defies convention, pretension and prevention. The guiding influence in Love Letter are two distinct schools of painted American letterforms, Sign Painting and Graffiti. I’ve painted graffiti that looks like signage and vice-versa. In Love Letter, we followed the basic rules of sign painting, but we used spraypaint and graffiti’s palette and speed in order to maximize the impact and fun.

Other graffiti artists such as Banksy have taken their artwork out of it’s original location and taken it to other cities around the world, would you ever try and recreate the love letter project somewhere else?

I started Love Letter in Dublin and Belfast. Letters like these overcome all distance. It might be the distance that gives them power

You have had some interesting comments about the murals one women commented ‘If someone did that for me I’d like it better than being taken to Red Lobster’ what is the most interesting comment you have heard about the project so far?

I don’t know, is busting out in tears a more interesting comment?

You can find out more about the ‘a love letter for you’ project on their website, I have picked a few of my favourites but essentially they are all awesome.

Mark Jenkins – Street Installations

The Teaspoon — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 17:30:53 +0000

I found these images on StumbleUpon and I think they are awesome. I love it when artists play around with the street, and create art in the everyday situation. Particularly as it forces art into the everyday, I confronts you as you are on your daily commute or when you are pushing past shoppers and tourists. It is one of the wonderful things about living in a city like London, round every corner there can be tucked away pieces of art. Whether it is the form of graffiti in Shoreditch or installations on the South Bank.
I think these pieces are both wonderfully comical and poignant. At first one is amused particularly by those images of figures impaled on street signs. Then underneath this there is something darker, a comment on the attitudes of society our ability to walk past situations on the street. The seedy dangerous underbelly that lives within each city. The installations of people stood on ledges and stuffed inside bin bags; suggests the of the waste of life. The ability for those in urban occupants to ignore those around them, the disarming of diffused responsibility. There is something chilling when we can see pedestrians walking past these figures, either oblivious or simple choosing to ignore them.

The cellotape figures are equally fascinating. These fantastical images of animals and figures opaque and ghostlike. You can only imagine what it must be like to come across one of these sculptures when walking down the street.

These sculptures both illustrate the ridiculous as well as having a deeper layer of the sinister and hidden nature of cities. In the same way that Richard Long plays with the natural environment to create pieces of art that may stand untouched for years. Artists like Jenkins and Banksy create a urban version with a shorter lifespan. As fast paced and transient as urban life, these pieces are unique in their nature because no one expects them to last.

You can find more of Mark Jenkins work at his website check out his storker project, equally creepy and entertaining.

BANKSY vs. Bristol Museum

Lallie — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 09:20:31 +0000

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I have always been a fan of graffiti art as it takes art and creativity outside the realms of the gallery or museum to confront people as they go about their daily business. Banksy is probably the best known and ‘most overrated’ (taken from the Banksy vs. Bristol Museum exhibition leaflet, 2009) graffiti artist around and I have always loved his work. I admit that I have often punctuated any mention or conversation of Banksy by yelling ‘sell-out’, due to the publication of Wall and Piece in 2005, however when I heard that he had returned to Bristol to takeover the town museum, I managed to shut up long enough to visit! So one overcast Friday morning we found ourselves joining an hour-long, though beautifully orchestrated queue, clutching coffees and camera. Bristol Museum is a fantastic stone monument and one can only be pleased that Banksy decided to fill it rather than treat its facade as a canvas. In two days Banksy managed to smuggle in over 100 artworks including a full-size, bunt-out ice cream van whose ice cream had melted out of its cone and over the van’s roof. This sculpture greets the visitor as they enter the main hall of the museum setting the mood of subversive humour that permeates all of Banksy’s work. In a traditional museum convention statues in a classical style have been placed around the edges of this scene. However Banksy’s statues have been altered to striking effect; one is dressed as a suicide bomber, another titled “Angel of the North” sports wings, a mini skirt, lipstick, a can and a cigarette. Banksy uses these classical parodies to comment on the state of our culture. The juxtaposition of white marble figures, associated with canonical artists and ancient history with terrorism and binge drinking is a an effective, if shocking way of highlighting how far civilisation has come. Amongst these statues is also a large lion who appears to have eaten the lion-tamer leaving top hat and red jacket delicately at his feet. Banksy has taken over two further rooms of the gallery entirely for his own works. The first contains paintings, stencil art and hand-drawn graffiti that spans the silly, amusing, political and down-right poignant. One end of this room is given over to a model of a studio or workshop containing spray cans, gloves, artworks and ‘classic Banksy’ stencils including several versions of his monkey with differing slogans. Over this a debate is played, staged or real, in which several men debate graffiti and its status as art or vandalism. This is just one of the many debates that surround Banksy’s work, the latest perhaps being why a graffiti artist is taking his work out of the streets and into the museum which is governed by curatorial rules and conventions. Graffiti looses some of its controversy when it becomes sanctioned and is certainly less of a transgression. Indeed, although Banksy decided to hold this show in the Bristol Museum, he still feels it necessary to comment on the institution of the gallery and the ‘art world’. In one painting two stick figures discuss the fact that Banksy’s ‘art’ is on show in a gallery – “Does anyone take this kind of art seriously?” “Never under estimate the power of a big gold frame.” Here Banksy taps into the on-going debate of what does and does not count as art, and therefore, what should be exhibited in galleries (traditionally, not graffiti). As if to emphasise this point, the majority of Banksy’s works are hung in ornate gold frames. “Exit through the gift shop” appears to be a direct comment on the consumerism that has permeated the art world, and the possibility that some people simply visit museums and galleries to go to the shop and buy the merchandise – got the t-shirt! However Banksy has managed to avoid several of the conventional aspects of showing art in a museum as the exhibition is free; making it as accessible as possible, photography is allowed; Banksy does not care about copyright; and unlike other artworks in the museum Banksy has not provided explanations on white plaques next to his work. The next room is given over entirely to moving models, humourous and serious by turns. Amongst these, the monkey presenter of many of Banksy’s political slogans is resurrected in a straw-strewn cage blinking and supposedly painting a masterpiece – what does this say about art? In another cage, fish-fingers are swimming in a large fish bowl, and in another a life-sized white rabbit sits before a mirror contemplating her make-up. These are beautifully made if obvious comments on contemporary society. Throughout the rest of the museum Banksy has infiltrated his work amongst the permanent collection. Between paintings, amongst china displays and in glass cases containing stuffed animals Banksy has altered and added original paintings to the works of the museum. Here we see his art becoming more mainstream, less graffiti-like to fit in with the existing works. Thus Banksy has juxtaposed his street-art with canonical works. In several paintings he has altered the viewer’s relationship to famous traditional art works by continuing the paintings outside of the frame, in one, a worker has left the painting and sits on the edge of the frame to smoke a cigarette. Although this is a fictional scene, the lady relaxing on the frame somehow humanises the painting and allows the viewer to consider the subjects of the painting further. In some cases Banksy has seemingly vandalised the existing paintings by painting in 21st century objects such as cars and billboards to well-known paintings. I particularly enjoyed the painting that sets a Banksy rat rollering over the famous Damien Hirst spots.

One drawback to this set up is that the museum becomes the scene of a scavenger-hunt as visitors attempt to see all the Banksy works, not wishing to miss any of them. Whilst this is understandable, and perhaps when you have gone out to look at Banksy works, it is difficult to concentrate on the traditional fine art and cases of china that are also available for viewing, it seems a bit sad to rush past Bristol’s collection for the famous Banksy. Thus perhaps this second half would be much more effective if one did not expect to see Banksy pieces nestled amongst the permanent collection. Overall “Banksy vs. Bristol Museum” was definitely worth the wait. It is a stunning example of humourous art that also manages to comment on politics, consumer society and the status of art in the modern world. Banksy’s work is simple and accessible making it both effective and allowing people to engage with the pieces on many levels. This is a fantastic opportunity to see a large amount of Banksy’s work in one place. Reassuringly, all that you can buy in the exhibition shop is the aforementioned Wall and Piece and exhibition posters.

The Banksy vs. Bristol Museum exhibition is on until the 31st August 2009, and admission is free. For more information visit the Banksy website here.