Graffiti, Marker & Spray Cans

There are a lot of restrictions against graffiti and other urban arts nowadays. For most artists it’s almost impossible to create a piece in European cities at daytime. The laws are too hard and the punishments excessive. For this reason, the artists have to paint under cover of darkness, what makes them looking even more criminal… [dailymotion xahglz nolink] The writers of Cellograff, especially the ODV crew, had an interesting idea to avoid the lawful restrictions! They strain cellophane between trees, street lights, pillars, and other useful things and paint it with their pieces. In fact at daytime! Without criminal damage, there’s no punishment. The police is apparently powerless! ...

Graphic designer and graffiti writer Nico189 had a really great idea this year and developed the “Pantone Cans”. At first I have to say, that it’s one of his personal projects. There’s no affiliation between Pantone, Inc. and the “Pantone Cans” and the project not intended to be a commercial product. But it’s a great idea, ’cause it’s a syllogism that the worldwide standard for designers and printers will also become a standard for graffiti artists and writers. ...

Yesterday, the German urban artist duo Herakut painted live in Berlin! I was there for taking some photos… Herakut - Between graffiti, street art and art Hera and Akut combine with their mixture of graffiti and contemporary fine arts the urban roughness of the streets and the natural richness of detail. Yesterday, the both artists showed in an impressive way, how they interact with each-other and in which way they create their artworks. Tinting paint, water and spray-paint became in several hours a dirty, interesting and impressive mixture and lead to a harmonious whole. ...

Tsang Tsou Choi, or the “King of Kowloon” was a Hong Kong citizen known for his calligraphy graffiti. Although he died in 2007, he is still at the center of interest in the Chinese urban art scene. Graffiti-works sold for record sum For 500 000 Hong Kong dollars (the equivalent of around 44,000 € or 65,000 USD), one work by him went to an unidentified bidder on the telephone. The sum was more than seven times as high as expected. ...

Today, I read about a new graffiti book, which will be released on November 7th - its name “All City Writers”. The “All City Writers” book is a collaboration between Andrea Caputo and the fashion label Carhartt. They combine 1230 pictures, 620 articles, 410 full-colour pages, and more than 250 involved writers to an amazing documentation of New York’s influence on European graffiti in the ’80s. “The book, a massive volume of more than 400 pages, has been conceived as an imaginary newspaper. The chronicles it contains have not been penned by real journalists or narrators, but by people who define themselves as ‘writers’. ...

Graffiti Workshop | Famous writer Loomit explains in a recorded presentation workshop in front of a huge crowd of students of the Leuphana University how to do graffiti. It’s the first video clip from the urban art project “ARTotale” in Lueneburg. He shows how to create perspective letters - starting with the shades right through to the lights and insides. It’s a quick, but interesting video workshop for those of you, who never made graffiti on their own. ...

There were a lot of photos, videos and documentations about the Berlin Wall and its East Side Gallery, but I have rarely seen such beautiful pictures like this! “The East Side Gallery is the longest preserved stretch of the former Berlin Wall. It is the largest open-air gallery in the world with 106 original mural paintings on 1.3 km-long created by artists from all over the world after the collapse of East Germany. ...

After my photos and the interview, I found a further impression from Futura 2000’s “Odyssey Two” exhibition in Berlin today! Famous graffiti photographer Ruedi One documented the development of some of the artworks, which were shown at the Futura show. The video, which was created thereby, showcases Futura in a classical, beautiful black-and-white shot sequence. ...

While I was in Paris some days ago, I was able to take some shots of Seak One’s blackbook! As you can see on the photos, he explains the development of some of his recent artworks. For me it was interesting to see how his abstract-looking 3D spray-paints are inspired by letters. Or how the Cologne city coat of arms influenced the graffiti he did on the Thalys. Maybe you have some time to take a look at the whole “Seak One and his Blackbook” photo-series. It’s really interesting! ...

First of all I have to say, that there are about 110 photos of the “Graffiti meets Thalys” event in my flickr photo-stream. Take a look! Announced were only the four famous European graffiti artists Seak One (Cologne), Sozy One (Brussels), JonOne 156 (Paris) and Zedz (Amsterdam), but in the end there were additionally Nunca (Sao Paulo) and Opak (Paris). Because photos alone are not enough to get to know the artists, here is some background info about these internationally known artists: ...