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Street Art

Diggin In The Archives Pt 10

When I first began to explore street art one my favourite artists was and indeed still is French stencillist Jef Aerosol. This Aerosol masterpiece was on Hanbury street and marked more or less a the time that this wall was just beginning to be used for permissioned murals. Jef Aerosol 2010 Shoreditch street art was […]

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Street Art

Diggin In The Archives Part 9

All photos: Dave Stuart In the week we discovered new ways to test your eyesight, the photo archive continued to exhibit 20/20 hindsight with visual crackerjacks from the past. Mr Cenz has a spraypainting pedigree that stretches back over 30 years so it is not surprising that his style has evolved considerably. He is famous […]

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Street Art

Diggin In The Archives Pt 8

This week in spite of the latest official guidance to follow unofficial interpretations of the law, there have been no trips to Durham. I have followed my instinct to remain at home to see what scum is floating on the surface of the street art photography archive. Ludo first put his art on London streets […]

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Street Art

Diggin In The Archives Part 7

Never in history have the words “relax lockdown measures” been so badly abused. Please stagger your viewing of this post and share with only one person outdoors. Here are this week’s street art little gems from the past. Jorge Rodrigues-Gerada is probably more widely known these days for his enormous land art portraiture but in […]

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Street Art

Diggin In The Archives Part 6

Is there light at the end of the tunnel? By the time you read this Boris should have made his “statement” to the nation and one suspects the tunnel will seem to be stretching much much further into the distance. Activities continue to expand to fit the time available and blowing the dust off the […]

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Street Art

Diggin In The Archives 5

“We can’t throw away all our hard work so far”. The current political aversion to trusting the general public with any inkling of lockdown planning could perhaps also be applied to the rich heritage of Shoreditch’s street art. This is the 5th compendium of the daily scrapings of the digital archive, is it really only […]

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Street Art

Diggin In The Archives 4

Diggin into the archives bring back lots of mostly good memories but some of these artists have done so much brilliant street art that picking just one or two highlights is cruelly dismissive of their street opus. Another week of suspended animation has rolled past so here we go with the 4th collection of flashbacks […]

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Street Art

Diggin In The Archives 3

Four weeks of Lockdown now, most sensible countries have extended their lockdown period for a few more weeks but don’t worry, the archive isn’t going to be running on fumes any time soon. The relationship between impact and size is not at all clear in street art. Isaac Cordal‘s forlorn concrete figures were found in […]

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Street Art

Diggin In The Archives 2

Another seven days of posting photos of street art dredged from the archives. In lockdown you have plenty of time with your thoughts and the wandering mind generates random recollections. Those which stand out lead to a photo being thrust into the limelight. So there was some kind of logical process behind the selection of […]

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Art Show Review

Jamie Reid – Taking Liberties

Taking Liberties! Jamie Reid political work 1970 – 2020 Horse Hospital, Colonnade, Bloomsbury London WC1N 1JD Opened March 6th, extended to end April Jamie Reid is the activist artist who is probably best known in popular culture as the artist behind the Sex Pistols album artwork. The Horse Hospital in London has a retrospective exhibition […]

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Street Art

Digging In The Archives 1

Two weeks ago today I received a text message from the NHS telling me I had to isolate, though I had pretty much gone into a self imposed lockdown a week earlier when I returned from my Father’s funeral in Ireland. On a daily basis I have been digging through the photo archives and posting […]

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Street Art

Jace’s Small Faces

Jace is a street artist who puts up charming and idiosyncratic sculptural faces on walls, usually not troubling wall owners with requests for permission. At the turn of the decade, three weeks ago, Jace revealed he had put up 253 faces in an impressive 47 cities in a staggering 21 countries. I can relate to […]

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Art Show Review

Winter Lights 2020

Winter Lights Canary Wharf, London 16th – 25th January 2020 Dark nights and biting cold make classic ingredients for some light art so off to Winter Lights at Canary Wharf, selfie heaven in the form of 26 sculptures. Affinity, Amigo and Amigo & S1T2 Starting with our favourite, Constellation is part Dr Who theme tune […]

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The Year In Review

2019 Street Art Revisited

Time to reflect on another glorious year of street art. Time to make zero apologies for again revealing a disposition towards the small and the unexpected rather than the humongous blockbusting murals. Time to admit that this was written before all those other end-of-decade posts that have been pouring out of Graffoto over the past […]

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Street Art though the noughties

2010-1019 Wild Wonderful Inventive Street Art

As we slide through the holiday period, unsure of what day it is and absolutely no idea about the date, our only grasp on the sludge of events we are laying down and will call “history” is that something happened yesterday or 3 days ago, whatever day or date that was. The other evening we […]