Shoreditch street art is a little bit different, in many ways and for many reasons, it just is. One aspect in which Shoreditch however may be a bit off the pace is the gargantuan mural. The social media feeds of many brilliant photographers of street art from around the world are full of truly epic […]
Category: Street Art
Think Shoreditch and inevitably thoughts are of clubs, parties and street art. A more considered assessment of the past 20 years would oblige image wizards to render Shoreditch in the collective memory as a place of creativity, craftsmanship, experimentation, fashion, film making, music making and art performance to name just a few. Sadly this week […]
Scarfing a bit of impromptu graffiti hunting on to a week abroad with the family was never likely to prompt delirious enthusiasm on their part. On the coach trip from the airport to the hotel that was to be our compound for a week of what turned out to be fairly British weather, our coach […]
Categories
Meeting Of Styles UK 2018
Meeting Of Styles Nomadic Community Gardens, Shoreditch 26 – 28th May 2018 At the end of May there is a Bank Holiday in the UK though really no one knows why or cares what for. This provides a marvellous opportunity for a huge array of spraypainting talent to gather in Shoreditch for a frenzy of […]
Categories
To The Power Of Three
Scale is nothing important in street art, otherwise only the biggest murals would count. A few years back curiosity was stoked by bizarre little cement structures appearing on the streets. Someone on the London scene a bit smarter and better connected identified the artist as 3x3x3. 3x3x3 has a Flickr profile, 56 followers (!) and […]
Categories
Tonight The Pavements Are Ours
One of the many justifications given by street artists for their wanton abuse of other people’s property is that it’s a response, a push back against the use of the public visual space to host corporate propaganda, known in the indoctrinating the masses trade as advertising. One of Graffoto’s favourite proponents of advertising resistance is […]
Categories
Adrian Boswell – Broccoli Man
Do you recall broccoli panic gripping the nation in Spring 2017? Something to do with the weather led to crop failure in Spain which triggered a desperate broccoli shortage in England. It is not known if the Cobra committee met to discuss rationing. Waitrose steeled itself for riots and Fortnum and Masons dusted off the […]
Categories
Ludo, Len and How Street Art Connects
Caution: regular readers may be shocked to find references to the real world in what follows. Since his street art first appeared on London’s walls in 2008, Ludo’s paste ups have been a frequent delight around London. His dark and occasionally surreal vision sees nature take up arms, what at first glimpse may look like […]
Categories
Banksy Nose Nothing
Many moons ago Banksy came up with a fairly comical visual joke involving a policeman and a line of coke, the policeman would be stencilled on wall and a meandering line of white paint would be dribbled on the streets. Wry chuckles all around at The Snorting Copper. photo: Martin Bull, 2006 One of these […]
Categories
Stik In Time
Street art is by nature generally ephemeral but every once in a while a piece of street art thrives for years so it’s informative to see how those pieces fare. Usually the things that enable a street art piece to survive are either plastic protection, as is occasionally the case for Banksy (2001) or inaccessibility, […]
Categories
Banksy on Brexit – About Time
Another year, another Banksy, at last! The port of Dover, the continent’s gateway to the UK, found itself the proud home of the latest outdoor street art masterpiece by Banksy. A huge version of the EU flag with a worker chipping away at one of the 12 stars greets inland arrivals coming into the port […]
Categories
Space Invader Strikes Back!
Interview with the UK Reactivation Team Photos Dave Stuart except where stated Planet Earth faces invasion and the insidious arrival of aliens has been going on for years with few people noticing. This is not the formulaic plot of yet another sci fi blockbuster, this is an invasion of street art masterminded by a secretive […]
Categories
Stik That In Yer Auction
Loathe though we are to see street art pieces being removed from the streets and entering in the commercial market on this occasion, a piece of Stik street art to be auctioned has Stik’s blessing so I guess we can be ok with it. Photo via Stik From a message issued by Stik: Street Artist […]
Categories
Advertising Shits In Your Head
all photos Dave Stuart except Dog Section Press as noted Street art is nothing without an element of subversion. All street artists doing permission murals or safe pasteups in highly tolerant art zones should be grateful to the proponents of illegal, subversive street art who boldly risk everything to lend street art its veneer of edgy coolness. […]
Categories
Stick ’em Up (Portland vs London)
London is constantly blessed, honoured and privileged to receive visits from street artists from foreign shores and our scene is enriched by their creative mischiefs. Since last weekend a group of artists mainly hailing from Portland, Oregon have been absolutely caning London’s walls. The artists now represented in strength in London are Arrex skulls, Voxx […]