Graffiti, Marker & Spray Cans

I well remember that amazing stop motion film “True Colors” by Tomislav Topic about the power of pure color and creative ideas. In about five minutes, which were recorded in almost four month, he and his crew brought color to life and created in that way an urban art showpiece project. Recently the making-of was published which documented the development process and which proves that there’s indeed no digital fake - everything is handmade! ...

Documentary | I already informed you about the upcoming new graffiti and street art documentary “Bomb It 2” and showed a first trailer. Now, the after first videos showing urban artist from Bangkok additional parts of the film are online, presenting deeper insights into the film’s concept by featuring the street artists Klone, Inspire and Know Hope in Israel! The sequel to BOMB IT, Jon Reiss’ explosive graffiti documentary which told the story of the street art movement from humble beginnings to global phenomenon. This time round, Bomb It 2 ventures into uncharted territory, reporting on the street art scene in Asia, Australia and beyond. (babelgum.com) ...

Graffiti Hacking | Although for some of you hacking is just a seven-letters word starting with h, for me the top news of today is about Evan Roth and his graffiti analysis project. Roth, who is one of the heads behind the Graffiti Research Lab (GRL), earned a lot of fame and credit for his computer-based researches on graffiti in the last months. Now his work gets another publicity push, when Mozilla Drumbeat chooses the “Graffiti Markup Language” for this year’s “Open Web Award” finalists! ...

Artist in Action | Last month, famous Austrian graffiti artist Nychos exhibited at Pure Evil Gallery in London. During his stay in the British capital I caught up with him on top of a roof in Shoreditch and took a nice graffiti action photo-series. Thanks to the bright sun and my friend Probs for making the shooting possible and to Revert and Inkfetish for the good company! Nychos, who is mainly known around the globe for his prolific street art concept “Rabbit Eye Movement”, combines in his urban artworks his cartoonist and illustrator attitude as well as his personal development and a big portion of humorous remarks and fun. ...

Graffiti Legend | Everyone who has something to do with graffiti or urban arts in general should have heard about Mr. Jon Naar. Naar is, in addition to Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant, one of the first photojournalists who documented graffiti and its environment in New York City! His legendary book “The Faith Of Graffiti” was published about 35 years ago and has been re-released in an expanded edition earlier this year. For that reason there were again a lot of specials about him and his book, his photographies and his opinion about the entire graffiti world… ...

Graffiti Documentary | As already mentioned, I photographically documented the creation of that new “Calculate” mural by famous British graffiti artist Ben Eine in London - But I was not alone! The graffiti wall is part of the Moniker Art Fair which will open its doors today and therefore a lot of other people and documentarists joined the creative process. Also a camera team by Babelgum was there and filmed the entire creation progress! Their video is online now and shows in almost three minutes how Ben Eine and his crew painted the mural in about two days. ...

Reverse Graffiti | I really laughed when I watched that new urban art project “Searching for Something Concrete” by interventional artist Brad Downey today, because I had the same idea together with an friend of mine a few month ago when we visited an exhibition in a gallery were the walls are periodically painted by artists, whitewashed by the gallery owner, painted by artists, whitewashed by the gallery owner, and so on… ...

London Graffiti | London-based graffiti artist Ben Eine is probably one of the most famous British graffiti artists and that not just since David Cameron has given one of his paintings to President Obama. Eine’s bold letters especially those on the shutters and of course the so called Alphabet Street are well-known around the globe! Last weekend, I met Ben while he and his crew spray-painted a new wall in Shoreditch as a part of the Moniker Art Fair which will open its doors this Thursday. Again he clearly arranged big bold letters, this time forming the word calculate. ...

Graffiti Paper | The master thesis by Dutch student Silvia Pietrosanti includes about 90 pages, but that’s not really unusual. It’s the content which makes this dissertation rare. The European Communication student wrote “A journey with the graffiti writers of European walls” and that’s quite interesting! The question of graffiti crossed my mind again last year, during a class named ‘Subcultures and Lifestyles’ when I had to pick one subculture to discuss in a final paper. I chose the graffiti subculture so that I could finally explore what was going on in the minds of the people standing behind those tags. ...

After the successful graffiti documentary Bomb It, which through interviews and guerrilla footage of graffiti writers in action told the story of the graffiti movement the successor Bomb It 2 will coming soon and feature the street art movement around the globe. Although I’m a bit confused after watching the trailer [*], I’m looking forward to watch the entire graffiti/ street art documentary, because it promises interesting impressions of urban artists in action, statements and great artworks! I’m most excited about the reports from Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangkok, because I haven’t seen that much from there… Does anybody know when it will be published? ...