Art Photography: Capturing Urban Creativity

Exhibition Review | Yesterday, the “Blind By Stardom” exhibition by English born urban artist Word To Mother (By the way a really nice guy!) opened its doors at the Stolen Space Gallery in London. It’s the fourth exhibition by Word To Mother in these rooms and of course I visited the show, which features paintings in mixed media on wood, canvas, found objects and installation pieces and was highly impressed by his fantastic technique and the more or less hidden joke in his artworks [*]! ...

For those of you who like the commercialization of street art, the next month will be pretty interesting: In Berlin, the “Stroke.3 - Urban Art Fair” will take place between October 7th and 10th (more about that commercial street art event later!) and in London, the “Moniker - International Art Fair” will take place between October 14th and 17th. Because I’m currently in London, I’ll write about that Moniker-event first… ...

Monochromatic Shades, the stencil art exhibition by famous political stencil artist SPQR, is running for one week now at Signal Gallery in London. A few days after the opening I visited that very interesting and highly critical urban art show to take some photos… SPQR is exploring the Art of Protest/Protest Art conundrum. He looks into the ability of Art to protest about the evils of society as he sees them. Included in his line of fire is the art world itself, with is fashions and favourites and at it’s core, a hollow commercialism. Themes that recur for the artist are ‘surveillance’ culture, brainwashing media and the need for acts of defiance to counteract these ills. This is brilliantly achieved in his work, with a tough humour, which is distinctly lacking any sentimentality or soft edges. (Signal Gallery) ...

I’m sure, some of you already noticed that there was Jimi Hendrix’ 40th anniversary of the death a few days ago. To commemorate that famous person, London-based stencil artist Fin DAC created an astonishing series of unique stencil artworks and prints, showing Jimi Hendrix’ portrait. Of course I visited that art show and took a closer took to the four fantastic, large-scale and unique spray-paintings on wood, newspaper, copper and iron. Take a look at my photos, I think there are no more words needed… ...

Nychos’ graffiti horror show, which opened yesterday at Pure Evil Gallery in London, is a great success. A lot of people joined the opening (yes, some these crazy hipsters were there, too!) and marvelled at these gorgeous comic-style paintings, drawings and graffiti. Some were really scared by the horrifying scenes, brilliant! The Austrian Illustrator and Graffiti artist NYCHOS, who is mainly known for his prolific street art concept the Rabbit Eye Movement, is set to rock the foundations of the London establishment, combining his original comic styling with heavy metal attitude. (Pure Evil Gallery) ...

As you maybe noticed, Brooklyn’s infamous collagist and urban artist Bäst is in London for his first solo exhibition called “Botulism”! Bäst, who has been part of the international street art scene for the last ten years, presents in that show new artworks, especially screen-printings, which are inspired by the early punk flyers of London and New York. Showing 21st Century icons and imagery from all types of media. The crazy thing about his very successful screen-printings is, that they don’t look like a screen-printing, but like real collages! I was highly impressed by that fact, the joke within his artworks and the small talk I had with him. ...

Last Thursday the new, twelves issue of the fantastic VNA magazine was released at the Pure Evil Gallery in London. In addition to having some too much beer and talking to some nice guys, I was able to take some closer looks at the first Roa prints… Roa has been on the top of our hit list for a while now, so it was a real blessing when he came through London and this dream cover could actually come about. Three days of shooting Roa painting was still not enough and we could have easily sat up on that roof watching him paint for quite a few more. (Team VNA, Issue 12) ...

Last Friday, the two Hamburg-based stencil artists Dash3Ultra and Mittenimwald opened their urban art exhibition at ATM Gallery in Berlin. Both artists are well-known on the streets of the Hanseatic city and that’s why I decided to join the vernissage. It was a really nice evening with nice people and of course some rather interesting artworks… Although Mittenimwald’s stencil style reminded me a bit of some of these overloaded artworks by Shepard Fairey and the pixel style by Dash3Ultra seems not working that good behind glass as it normally does on the streets, I could suggest you to visit the “Quantomirokaze²” exhibition! The reason for that is their completely contrary, interesting technique of spraying stencils, which makes it possible to directly compare what different things are possible to do with the same tools… ...

As mentioned before, the opening of the Papergirl #5 exhibition took place yesterday at the Neurotitan Gallery in Berlin. About 230 different artist and art collectives, including Luna Park, Dave the Chimp, SP-38, The Walters, Tika, 1010, Rero, Various & Gould and many more joined the alternative urban art project this year and made me happy while looking at their great prints, collages, painting, stencil artworks and photos! In the style of American paperboys the art project Papergirl distributes rolled art pieces to random passers-by in the streets. It is a question of chance and luck who will eventually catch such a roll of art, but the excitement of making surprising presents is actually what Papergirl is all about! This year PAPERGIRL BERLIN celebrates its 5th anniversary and we hope you will be a part of it when the motto is: Papergirl #5 - We’ve got the drive! (Neurotitan Gallery) ...

As mentioned before, Herakut’s dirty fine graffiti show called “Happy Doubt-Day” opened four days ago. Campbarbossa visited the show and now there are first impressions from the exhibition online. “Through the strength of their work, coupled with the demand for their style, herakut have moved beyond producing strictly “street art”, and are now regarded as some of the most exciting contemporary artists of our time. Yet they have maintained the respect of the street art community, and they reciprocate that respect by continuing to create with spray cans, even as their artistic sphere of operation has grown to include interior spaces.” (press-release) ...