News Articles

Elusive graffiti artist accessorizes for work

Original (with photos) here: http://blog.sfgate.com/cityexposed/2013/10/06/elusive-graffiti-artist-a…

“She found us. She came in here and asked for permission. She’s taken over,” said Anissa Malady, the center’s librarian, who has watched the artist’s work evolve for the past two years.

“She is definitely a San Francisco eccentric,” Malady said. “I’ve never seen any other street artist in high heels.”

She’s known as Eclair Bandersnatch – the last name is a fictional creature in several Lewis Carroll works, elusive and hard to catch. They’re traits that San Francisco’s Bandersnatch also possesses.

She won’t tell you how old she is, where she’s from or where she lives now. Her stencil-art pieces pop up all over town – up and down Market Street, on Haight and throughout the Mission. Some of the largest examples are on display at the Grace…

1,000s of Stencils Mark Peace Day on Normandy Beach

Haunting reminder of millions of lives lost in war as artists stencil 9,000 bodies onto Normandy beach to mark Peace Day

British led project covered the famous coastline in poignant silhouettes
A team of 500 artists and volunteers contributed the moving installation
The 'fallen' were left to be washed away by the tide at the end of the day
By Aaron Sharp

PUBLISHED: 08:05 EST, 23 September 2013 | UPDATED: 12:20 EST, 23 September 2013

Source (and more photos): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2429903/Peace-Day-Reminder-mill…

A pair of British artists have created this stunning installation of 9,000 silhouettes on a D-Day Landings beach to…

Graffiti Conference Seeks Public's Help

Graffiti conference seeks public's help
S.F. CRIME
Neal J. Riley
Published 4:51 pm, Thursday, January 17, 2013

Graffiti is a more than $20 million-a-year problem in San Francisco, and though city officials put out a call Thursday to eradicate graffiti blight, there's still disagreement on how vandals should be punished.

At the first Zero Graffiti International Conference, hundreds of people from around the world gathered at St. Mary's Cathedral to discuss fighting graffiti and browse products to take spray paint and markers off any surface.

"Graffiti vandalism is a drain on our city's resources, impacting our neighborhoods and quality of life," said George Gascón, San Francisco's district attorney. "We ask the public to help out by reporting graffiti crime."

Split over penalties

Mohammed Nuru, the Department of Public Works director, said his agency takes an average of 3,000 calls a month about graffiti and has seen an…

Alcatraz Historical Graffiti Restored

Alcatraz pays tribute to Indian occupation
Carl Nolte
Updated 1:48 pm, Monday, January 14, 2013

The National Park Service does not usually approve of graffiti. "It's a federal offense," said Marcus Koenen, site supervisor for Alcatraz, the former prison that is now part of a national park.

However, the government has made an exception for graffiti left behind during the Indian occupation of the island - and it helped restore signs painted by hand on a landmark water tower.

"PEACE AND FREEDOM WELCOME HOME OF THE FREE INDIAN LAND," the writing says in red letters 4 and 5 feet high.

"We restored it because it has a social significance," Koenen said recently. "It is part of what this park is all about."

Most of the 1.5 million people who visit Alcatraz are drawn to the island by tales of its dark past as America's most feared prison, the dead end of the American justice system.

But Alcatraz has more than one story - and one part of…

Banksy's Haight St. Rat Turns Up in Miami

I sell a rat

By caitlin
Created 12/18/2012 - 6:02pm
Public street art as private purchase? Banksy's Haight Street rat turns up in Miami

STREET SEEN Like many of his Bay Area art world peers, the beret-wearing rat that Banksy stenciled on the side of Haight Street's Red Victorian hotel in 2010 was in Miami for Art Basel week.

But sadly, our stenciled friend wasn't available for air-kisses. The rodent-adorned chunk of wall hung behind a velvet rope and its own security guard in the VIP lounge at Context, a new-this-year contemporary wing of the sprawling Art Miami art fair.

The rodent was one of five reappropriated Banksy walls being shown in an exhibition that was controversial even by the standards of Basel week's art-star-big-money whirligig. A local weekly newspaper helpfully pointed out that the wheelings-and-dealings in Miami during Basel involve art worth roughly the GDP of Guyana. (Check out the Guardian's Pixel Vision blog for our full report on…

Knoxville, TN: AC Stencils DIY Bike Route Arrows

http://www.metropulse.com/news/2012/may/30/anonymous-cyclist-blazes-bik…

EXCERPT

Earlier this spring a small stenciled image of a bike appeared on the pavement at the intersection of Glenwood Avenue and Luttrell Street. An arrow painted beside the bike pointed to the right. What’s this? I thought.

Later, I noticed more of the small stenciled bikes zigzagging through North Knoxville, leading the way down quiet neighborhood streets and little-used roads near industrial parts of town. They perfectly matched the route my husband takes when he bikes our child to school in the bike trailer.

“You did this!” I said.

He denied it.

Still, it must be a personal route, I thought, marked by a cycling…

Arab Art Breaks Spell of Oppression

How Arab revolutionary art helped break the spell of political oppression

Graffiti, murals and other dissident art have transformed public spaces and mobilised public opinion in the Middle East

    Julia Rampen and Laurie Tuffrey
    guardian.co.uk, Saturday 5 May 2012 08.00 EDT
    Article found here

In January 2011 the Tunisian dictator Ben Ali fled Tunisia. Ten months later, his giant smiling face appeared on the side of a building in the busy port city of La Goulette. At first people just gathered beneath it and stared. Then they started to get angry. Urged on by the crowd, a group of men pulled the dictator's image down. The poster crumpled – and revealed a second poster: "Beware, dictatorship can return. On Oct 23rd, VOTE."

Half-ad, half-performance, this was one of the…

At 23, the Spray Man Becomes Syrian Liberation Graffiti Matyr

A Syrian Graffiti Artist, Defiant Until Death

Original Article appears here

They called him "the spray man" for his graffiti that appeared all over the Syrian capital of Damascus. But in truth, 23-year-old Nour Hatem Zahra was an activist like any other activist.

He started protesting in Syria last spring. Back then, the opposition thought it would only take a few months to get rid of President Bashar Assad, as it had in Tunisia and Egypt.

Then Syrian forces started killing protesters, detaining them, torturing them. And the people started fighting back.

But still, there was Nour Hatem Zahra and his friends — organizing protests, hiding activists from the dreaded security forces, ferrying medical supplies to those who were injured but…

Red Goat Stencils Cause a Stir in NY

March 2, 2012
How Graffiti Goats Became a Symbol of ... Something
By PETER APPLEBOME

Original is here.

KINGSTON, N.Y. — The red goats of Kingston came from nowhere. One day there were new, clunky white planters in the stockade district and then, mysteriously, in October they became canvases for about 37 stenciled goats, red on white, like ghost goats from another world.

And then the red goats went everywhere. Thanks in part to a Facebook page, the goats have become a favored form of graffiti art far from this Hudson Valley town — at the Marcy Avenue subway stop and the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn, in Missouri, Michigan and Canada, at the Art Basel show in Miami Beach.

It’s not entirely clear what the red goats mean. It’s not entirely clear they mean anything. But as an object lesson of how fast images can spread in the…

Shameless Marketing Blog Post About Movie Stencil Ad

NOTE: To see too many photographs of a legal, trademarked stencil, go here (for original posting)

We've left our mark in the name of Spider-Man. Permanently this time! Last night I was called on the phone I picked up in the Mark of the Spider-Man viral to meet up in downtown Los Angeles to participate in an incognito event around the city involving tagging the Mark of the Spidey on walls around Hollywood. It was awesome. And you can still see our work. This isn't the only city either, as groups have hit Atlanta, Seattle, Denver, and also coming up tonight, New York and Phoenix, too. Our group of 10 and the Mark crew took stencils and rode in a van around the city last night spreading the word of Spidey. Here's what went down.

Note: Before anyone says anything, this was a completely legal, virally-coordinated event involving Sony / Columbia Pictures in…