Graffiti Photography: Capture Urban Art's Essence

The world’s biggest graffiti festival, the legendary international Meeting Of Styles, took place in the Highbury Studios in north London for the last two day. In addition to London-based graffiti legends as Tizer or She1 about 50 other international well-known wall painters and graffiti artists - for example Inkfetish, 3Steps, MadC, Probs, Korps, Dran, Sowat, Bomk, Sebasura, Liliwenn (teaser-shot) - participated and created in that way a fantastic graffiti atmosphere! Since its inception in 2002, Meeting Of Styles has organised more than 70 events, reached more than 120,000 people, and spread its creativity, passion and message across 16 countries. Their mission? To add ‘colour and vitality to blank urban landscapes in a creative and relaxed atmosphere whilst leaving a legacy of art,’ and with such a broad range of graffiti styles on offer they’re certainly taking the London festival seriously. (ukstreetart.co.uk) ...

In 2009, a very interesting graffiti book called “Subway World” was published by Dokument Press, which somehow past my attention. Anyway, here is the article about that clean book about international train graffiti… Subway World is a book about graffiti on subway trains all over the world. What started in New York in the seventies has become an worldwide artform with thousands of artists. The tradition of using subway cars as canvases has been preserved and has become an integrated part of the graffiti movement. Subway World takes you through more than 70 cities and four different continents. (dokument.org) ...

As mentioned yesterday, another live-painting took place at the Project Room by Jaybo aka Monk in Berlin. Two well-known artists, Augustine Kofie and El Mac, started painting in front of the crowd at 7pm and finished their artworks four hours later. It was gorgeous to watch them paint in their totally different styles and to be able to understand how they’re working. The huge count of small details in Kofie’s artworks and that great shadow-handling by El Mac made me and my friend happy. For that reason, I want to make those of you happy, who had no time to come to that interesting art event by showing you some photos (More on Flickr!) I took while the live-painting. ...

Yesterday I had some time to visit the “Art Monument” (Turmkunst) tower again. There isn’t much to see yet, but Flying Förtress, who will paint the facade until April 15, has still some time to finish his work. Nevertheless I took some shots of the tower’s basket including Flying Förtress and the one new grounded tower facade. This weekend, I will go back and bring you some new impressions of the nice exhibition inside the fascinating tower and some photos of the facade updates. ...

After that great April Fools’ joke (sorry for that…), I will now show you the first impressions from the urban art event “Art Monument” (Turmkunst) in Berlin! In my opinion, the opening or better the starting shot and the first brush stroke was very successful. A lot of people joined the festivities around the about 40 meters “Bierpinsel” tower and watched the first live painting action by Flying Förtress, who will paint the facade until April 15. ...

In my opinion, you could identify a good bar or event location by its bathrooms. Not that I need to have a clean toilet - what I need are some dirty tags, sketches or slogans on the walls! And I think, that Mark Ferem thinks the same… Mark is the author of the first “Bathroom Graffiti” book, which presents on about 190 pages personal expressions inspired by privacy. *If you’ve ever used a public restroom, chances are you’ve read some bathroom graffiti, or at least noticed it. Often bawdy, funny and smart, sometimes illegible, it is a ubiquitous means of expression found across the world. ...