communique

CHECK OUT THE ART OF CHRIS GILMOUR

It's pretty amazing! Chris makes his art objects strictly using cardboard and glue. There is no supporting structure, no wooden or metal frame, just cardboard and glue, amazing! Check out his work.

To see more of his work visit: www.chrisgilmour.com

STREET ART WARS

The Vandalism Vandal:  Who’s been splashing the city’s most prized graffiti? The hunt for the radical, young—and possibly lovelorn—conceptual-Marxist street-art supervillain.

By Sam Anderson

I. MEDITATIONS ON A STREET-ART SKIRMISH:
Graff beef! Fetishized commodities! Counterrevolutionary fucktards!

The first good look I got at one of the Splasher’s actual splashes was at a place called the Candy Factory, an abandoned brick wall at the south end of Soho that’s become, over a couple of generations, one of the most important nodes of illegal art in the city—a shabby outdoor Louvre of wheatpasted posters, stencils, and stickers squeezed between a construction zone and a parking lot. The view changes almost daily: Its prime spots are probably fifteen layers thick. On the day I went, at the center of the mess stood a Technicolor poster of an anthropomorphic pickle-shaped rainbow; above him, there was a portrait of a little Swiss-looking girl innocently playing a flute. And above her, in the upper right corner of the wall, was a sad, frowning candy corn, looking even sadder because someone had flung white paint over its face—a ragged spray that covered one cheek and part of his nose. Near the splash was a poster-size manifesto, partially torn, apparently declaring the candy corn’s crimes against humanity. It was titled AVANT-GARDE: ADVANCE SCOUTS FOR CAPITAL, and it read, in part:

REVOLUTIONARY CREATIVITY DOES NOT SHOCK OR ENTERTAIN THE BOURGEOISIE, IT DESTROYS THEM. OUR STRUGGLE CANNOT BE HUNG ON WALLS. DESTROY THE MUSEUMS, IN THE STREETS AND EVERYWHERE.

The manifesto ended with a warning: THE REMOVAL OF THIS DOCUMENT COULD RESULT IN INJURY, AS WE HAVE MIXED THE WHEATPASTE WITH TINY SHARDS OF GLASS.

So began my tortuous descent into the curious case of the Splasher—a scandal that had gripped the city’s underground art scene for months. It was a tricky case, with triple-crossed motives, riddles nested in mysteries, and loops of self-devouring irony linked together in a gigantic chain stretching clear across the city, from the most expensive Soho boutiques to the Williamsburg waterfront to the industrial streets of Bushwick. Everyone was a suspect: cops, ex-students, anarchists, petty vandals, corporate marketing execs, self-made kings of the underground art scene, even some of the victims themselves.

For the rest of this story visit: www.nymag.com

THE GRAFFITI REPORT CARD: UGLY GRAFFITI HATERS UNITE

Graffiti Report Card: A way to combat bad graffiti by shaming the writer
By Brandon Thomas Baunach

What is the Graffiti Report Card?
The Graffiti Report Card is a mechanism that you can use to judge graffiti. It’s a sticker with an arrow on it that points to the graffiti. The sticker has a number of categories you can judge the graffiti on as well as a space to write your own comments. The way you use the Graffiti Report Card is you:
1: Find a piece of graffiti you love or hate.
2: Print out the PDF I’ve included in this article (HERE)
3: Fill out the graffiti report card with your comments
4: Stick it up on the wall next to the graffiti
5: Take a picture and send it to me

What is the background of the Graffiti Report Card?
It’s a project I started a couple of months ago after seeing my neighborhood (The Mission District of San Francisco) receive an amazing amount of ugly, large, and talentless graffiti. I wanted a way to combat the ugly graffiti while at the same time give praise to the talented graffiti writers who I feel make the streets more beautiful. It occurred to me, that many of our local taggers don’t realize how ugly and talentless their graffiti is, so I wanted to give them some feedback.

For the rest of this story visit: www.designcrack.com

NY Subway Art

NY Subway has compiled a guide to the Subway art including the location, date, the name of each individual work and the artist who created it.

Chris Jordan Photography

cell phones

and Cigarettes at chrisjordan.com

Toofly’s Carteritas de Graff™ | Mini Graffiti Bags

Handmade Fashion Accessories 05' : An assorted line of NYC Graffiti mini bags in an array of colors, as well as Toofly's most popular New York City's girl mark. A little story...

Carteritas de Graff™ started as a collaborative effort between Toofly and her best friend Soraya in 2003. Both women decided to make hand-made bags the old fashion way by making it all themselves! They hooked up mom’s sewing machine and began to sew and hand-paint each bag in the traditional old school graffiti style. They painted terms like “NYC”, “B-Girl”, and “Fly Girl”, as well as Toofly’s popular “around the way girl” character. The original line made its first appearance at local street fairs and markets, as well as Hip Hop events like the Rocksteady Anniversary where they got to see first hand how much people truly appreciated their work. Toofly and her mom have since taken on a new series and plan to include history cards inside to educate people about the culture of NYC graffiti. The new line will be distributed throughout various shops and street fairs in 2005, and will make a limited edition appearance in boutiques across various cities by Spring 2006.

For catalog and availability contact: toofly@mac.com

Toofly Spotted on Roebling St. in Brooklyn

Shepard Fairey Solo Exhibition:Manufacturing Dissent

Manufacturing Dissent
Solo Exhibition at Merry Karnowsky Gallery
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 24th, 8-11pm
Exhibition Dates: September 24th - October 15th, 2005

Merry Karnowsky Gallery
170 South La Brea Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90036
www.mkgallery.com

Shepard Fairey Solo Exhibition: Visual Disobedience

Visual Disobedience
Solo Exhibition at Voice 1156
Exhibition Dates: September 9th - October 21th
Opening Reception: September 9th, 4pm - 11pm

Voice 1156 Gallery
1156 7th Ave.
San Diego,CA 92101
www.voice1156.com

Ecko Unltd. 1 | New York City 0

05 Civ. 7335 (JSR)
Ecko Untld.
Plaintiff
-v-
Michael R. Bloomberg
Mayor of the City of New York

The judge ruled that the Ecko graffiti block party must go on and that the city must reinstate permit number  MO4-042.

I went to the Mark Ecko graffiti hearing today. Ever since the Bush Monkey painting censorship ordeal I have been very sensitive to the frailties of free speech and to what a huge extent art and artists play in constantly testing the thresholds and even the common sense ideas protected in our First Amendment. This was the first time that I went to a court case that was not my own and I have to say it was quite inspirational and interesting. I was surprised that there were only around 15 people I figured more people would be there. But T-Kid was there, along with Ket and some Ecko people, but mostly reporters.

The Federal court district judge, Jed S. Rakoff was a cool and humorous judge that made the case rather interesting to listen to. I was amazed at the plainly simple language both the judges and attorneys conversed in. It made for a rather coherent and understandable example of the legal system and use of language and the law.

I am no legal scholar but basically the city argued that the Ecko event was not an art exhibit but rather a commercial event and therefore was subject to commercial speech (a narrower version) and not free speech and that the act of the artist doing graffiti on the mock subways was not protected speech because it would, in the words of the City lawyer, “imminently cause illegality.”

The judge did not seem impressed by the city’s arguments from the get and was certainly not convinced that the act of painting mock subway cars could incite imminent lawlessness.

The courtroom chuckled when good judge mentioned to the city attorny that the city was mad that the event was promoting graffiti artists since “they are the rebels that made it to the big time.”

FOR THE REST OF THIS STORY VISIT:
http://www.woostercollective.com/2005/08/bucky-turco-on-yesterdays-marc-ecko.html