Graffiti & Street Art Interviews: Artists Speak Out

Some days ago, I asked what do you think “is the deeper meaning of Banksy’s Child Drawing Series? and got a nice answer by Ringo45… Almost at the same time, the Globe And Mail newspaper from Toronto, which was one of Banksy’s traveling-stations, published an very interesting review of the Banksy street art by Toronto street artist Posterchild: Q: As a street artist yourself, what are your feelings about Banksy being in Toronto? A: I would like to have seen Banksy visit Toronto for its own merits and not simply coming to promote his film. Should we feel honored that he’s decided to paint our walls or should we feel outraged that he’s come here … for self-promotion, for advertising? (Globe And Mail) ...

Although I did not write about him so far, Alexandre Farto aka Vhils is recently one of my favorite urban artists. With his amazing and very popular Scratching The Surface artworks, he tries “focusing on the act of destruction to create” as he told me in the interview he gave me some days ago… uac: In the last months and years, you and especially your artworks became very popular around the world. A lot of people wrote articles about you, published photos and videos about your artworks and were - like me - fascinated about the way you create your works. Although, nobody really knows something about you. Could you explain who you are, where you´re from and how you got in contact with the so-called urban art? ...

Some weeks ago, I presented the “Calligraffiti” book by Niels Shoe Meulman to you and described it as a very interesting art book because it contains a lot of amazing and very exactly and detailed artworks. Some days ago, Shoe agree to give my an short interview and I tried to get as much as info about his personal background as well as about the ideas behind Calligraffiti. I hope you’ll like it… ...

There are many reason, which describe why in my opinion it is great to get to know as much as possible about the mostly unknown artists behind that often wonderful artworks on the streets, walls and trains in our cities. One reason is, that interviews give artists the chance to explain their artworks, their emotions and the history of their doings, what gives them the chance to make people understand and in the same way to bring their artworks in a public dialogue… ...

There are already some articles about French urban artists Rero and his “Image Negation” artworks, but recently, he agreed to answer some of my questions about himself, the intention behind his abandoned artworks and about the popularity of clear and simple typography artworks around the world. To cut a long story short, here is my first interview with one of my current favorite urban artists from Europe… uac: Although you are relatively unknown for the majority of the people, your urban artworks have become very popular recently. How would you describe yourself? Where are you from? And how would you characterise your work? ...

The legendary “Subway Art” book by US-American graffiti photographer Martha Cooper, which was published in 1984, is a milestone in the medial writing documentation. “I’ve seen it grown from a specific, localized New York City phenomenon to what it is now a worldwide overground predominant movement and that’s gonna been an pretty exciting thing to watch…” (Martha Cooper) My friend RJ from the Vandalog blog met her last December and did that interesting interview with her. ...

Infamous street artist Banksy recently did an interview with the British newspaper Sunday Times, which - As you can read in the corresponding article - was made by e-mail. Banksy talks certainly about his “Exit Through The Gift Shop” street art documentary, why he “don’t makes as much money as people think”, why the “amount of security cameras” gets on his nerves and even whether he trained art formally at school… ...

For some weeks, the print festival “Philagrafika 2010”, which thematizes the role of print in contemporary artistic practice, takes place in North Philadelphia. ...

For me and I think also for you it’s always interesting to hear about, what the protagonists of urban art documentation think about graffiti. It’s interesting to hear, why and mainly how the started to document that new wave of public art! Three days ago, the guys from FatCat Films, published a five minutes video, which shows famous graffiti photographers Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant as well as graffiti artist Blade, who spray-painted about 5,000 trains, talking about their opinions of graffiti on trains, subways and walls. ...

There are a lot of articles about urban light art in the Urban Artcore archives, but today I have a real treat for you: An interview with the famous light art collective Luzinterruptus from Spain! Luzinterruptus is a great example for the creative handling with light in an urban environment. They did a lot of great and impressing urban interventions, which are always going through the urban art press and blogs around the world. For this reason and because of I didn’t know anything about the artists themselves, I did that interview with them: ...