Welcome to the new/updated site! The Archives and search function may look a bit different, but it is still the same good time. Since 2002, your old-school website for all things stencils. Please consider donating what you can to support the much-needed upgrade. Photo submissions always welcome. Enjoy and stay curious.

Other ways to support this site (beyond submitting pics, videos, exhibit info, etc.):

Visit the Stencil Archive Support page to purchase a copy of Stencil Nation or take a tour.
Find the Stencil Archives' best original photos on Instagram and flickr.

Stencils and Tags fm Cairo, Egypt

Here is a Flickr set of tags with at least four stencils sprayed in protest against the long autocractic rule of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and his corrupt party.

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Stencil Archive News

From Cairo, Egypt (Video)

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Stencil Videos

Pls Consider Donating Some $$ to CELLspace

If you have ever wondered what I do with all my time that is not centered around stencils, then CELLspace would be one of the things I'd mention. Started in 1996 by a group of crazy, radical, creative artists, CELL has weathered many a storm as a funky underground arts facility. It became a nonprofit about ten years ago, and over $250,000 has been invested in building out the space to (slowly) meet code compliance with all the various government agencies in San Francisco. Right now, on the cusp of CELL's 15th anniversary in March, the space is as close as it has ever been towards becoming a legit events facility. And it is still run by a bunch of crazy, radical, creative artists.

I started volunteering at CELLspace in 1998, soon after I had gotten hooked into documenting and making stencils. My love for stencils were encouraged during all my other projects at CELL, so I made stencils for shows, props, and eventually became a shadow puppetteer throwing negative space shadows on screens. I co-curated three stencil-specific shows at CELL: Negative Spaces, For the People, and Stencilada. Other artists like Swoon, Jef Aerosol, Scott Williams, and Peat Wollaeger have also added their art to CELL's exterior walls over the years.

And I have been curating and making murals on both of CELL's walls these past few years. Long before I took interest in CELL's outside walls, many artists have sprayed and painted their art. Spray graffiti has a long tradition at CELLspace, and it's former satellite annex the Mission Village Flea Market (this is where the Bike Kitchen began). There is still a bboy and bgirl night every Monday at the CELL.

Right now, San Francisco is cracking down hard on any space that is not 100% legal. The locals here call it the War on Fun, which has been waged for the past two years. Add a shitty economy and an internal re-organization (CELL transformed back into an all-volunteer run space about three years ago), and you have an amazing warehouse space in a tight fit.

And we're so close!

Below is the email that we are sending out to help raise $$ for the space. I hardly ever ask for your financial support (beyond the book links at the top of this page), but now is the time to help an amazing art project get over the final hump. I have already written a check and $6,000 has been raised so far.

If I ever had an inspiration to be an artist, then it is the CELLspace and all those amazing people who have walked in the doors (David Byrne, Extra Action Marching Band, Flaming Lotus Girls, Dave Eggers, Perry Ferrell, Bassnectar, Yard Dogs, Bishop Joey, Matmos, Point Break Live, Michael Franti, Chicken John, Cardboard Institute of Technology, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Art and Revolution, and many many more).

thanks for all your support,

Russell

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Stencil Archive News

CALL FOR ART: Spraygraphic 3rd Annual Vinyl Art Show

CALL FOR ARTISTS
Spraygraphic: THIRD Annual Vinyl Art Show, FILL IN THE GROOVE

Spraygraphic.com is calling for artists and designs grab an old vinyl record and be creative with it. Take the record and turn it into a piece of visual art for all to see.

We expect to end up with a gallery full of diverse, compelling, and fresh vinyl records from all over the world.

The show will be at Hoodlums Records in Tempe, AZ on FEBRUARY 26th, 2011!!!!!!!!!

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Call for Art

Buy "The Identity of Banksy" on ebay [u]

could it be a hoax??

http://cgi.ebay.com/Identity-Banksy-/260720844294

current bid: $999,999

ENDS: Jan 19, 201107:22:22 PST

If you win this auction I will mail you a piece of paper revealing the true identity of "Banksy".

I have uncovered his identity by matching up the prices of his sold pieces to corresponding tax records. I will reveal no more details.

The winner of this auction is the only person I will ever share this information with. The piece of paper will say his name, nothing more.

I give you 100% assurance that it is most certainly the full name of the street artist known as "Banksy".

Ebay previously ended this auction because I was selling something that was not "tangible".

It is now tangible.

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Artist News

20 Jan :: NEW ART - FORMERLY KNOWN AS: NEW ART

Urban artists paying homage to innovators from the history of art

Judith Supine / Christian Awe / Jonathan Yeo / Helle Mardahl / XOOOOX / Kevin Earl Taylor / Anton Unai / Jaybo Monk / Adriana Ciudad / Stefan Strumbel / Marco “Pho” Grassi
VS.
Gustav Klimt, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Pablo Picasso, Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol, Pierre Soulages, Henri Matisse, Théodore Géricault, James Ensor

Preview: January 20, 7-9 PM / Exhibition: January 21 to March 5 2011 / Tue - Sat 12 - 6 PM

In this exhibition artists from all over the world take reference to some ground breaking artists of the past. An hommage to the spirit of innovation, non-conformity and alternative thinking of the older days.

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In the Galleries

BrooklynStreetArt Interviews Swoon

Jaime Rojo & Steven Harrington

Co-Founders, BrooklynStreetArt.com

Posted: January 17, 2011 08:01 PM

Swoon in Studio : Konbit, MOCA, and Liveable Sculpture

A visit to Street Artist Swoon's studio is a full immersion into her passions; meditations on humanity, the process of collaboration, and sculptures you can inhabit.

2011-01-11-brooklynstreetartswoonjaimerojo1210web6500.jpg
Swoon adding color to the busy streets of "Cairo" (Sunday Afternoon) (photo © Jaime Rojo)

In the rustic warm light of a triple height cavernous space that might have served as a town hall a score of printed artworks on paper lay scattered across the wooden floor. Tiptoeing between the images to cross the formerly grand chamber, the familiar faces of children and adults who you've met on walls across the city look up at you. Together these figures, a de facto retrospective of Swoons' last few years on the street in NYC, are burned into the retina of many a Street Art fan, and yet they lay here on this whitewashed wood-slatted floor without any ceremony at all.

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News Articles

Call for Queer Street Art

part of the 2011 National Queer Arts Festival

If you are a street artist fighting homophobia, we are looking for you. Join your urban street soldiers for the upcoming show: “The History of Queer Street Art”

“The History of Queer Street Art is a multimedia, multi-faceted show intended to shed light on the work of street artists who are fighting homophobia within the traditionally misogynistic and homophobic culture of street art. Posters and propaganda for the show will be pasted throughout the city, all work will be included in a catalog. “The History of Queer Street Art” will be on exhibit during pride week in the heart of San Francisco’s Castro district from May 1, 2011 to July 5, 2011. (There are 2 locations possible but am trying to get the 2nd location. GLBT History Museum which would be a 4 month show.)
Additional information can be found at: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/History-of-Queer-Street-Art/1727882094…

Submissions are due by February 1, 2011and must include:

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Call for Art

150+ New Photo Uploads for Jan. 2011

A box of stencil bon bons for you all to enjoy. Thanks so much for all the submissions from around the world (and for permission to grab off the interwebs)....

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Stencil Archive News

20 Jan :: A Funeral Procession for Freedom of Expression!

Protest Art Censorship from the Smithsonian to the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA)

Thursday, January 20, 2011
11:00AM
506 South Grand Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90071

Join US! A Funeral Procession for Freedom of Expression!

CSPG will join Artists and activists, along with supporters of free speech and free expression, to gather with props and posters to protest the escalation of art censorship. Join us in front of the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

Over-reacting to complaints by Republican congressional leaders, Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian Museum, recently removed David Wojnarowicz's 1987 video, "A Fire in My Belly," from a critically acclaimed exhibition about gay-themed portraiture. Clough will speak at the Biltmore on January 20th at noon as part of Town Hall Los Angeles public issues series.

Additional censorship information: Deeming it potentially offensive, Jeffrey Deitch, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) in Los Angeles, recently whitewashed a mural he commissioned by Blu, an internationally renowned Italian street artist. The mural was to be an important part of MoCA's upcoming street art exhibition, "Art in the Street." Blu's powerful anti-war mural featured coffins draped in dollar bills.

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