Imagine a total usual small town somewhere in the heart of Europe (in Belgium actually), a average quiet square with a big red push button and a sign with the text Push to add drama inviting people to use the button. And now watch and… …just think WTF?! ...

Attentive Urban Art Core readers should already know what the somehow cryptic slogan Anamorphic Graffiti describes - those of you who have no clue should definitely check out the brilliant paintings by Italian art collective Truly Design, the latest stuff by Spanish urban art collective Boa Mistura, the murals by Ninja182 or these most current anamorphic graffiti works by French TSF crew! Using anamorphic painting techniques, makes it possible to create impressing murals, which can only be seen in their completeness from a specific angle – otherwise they look strange and distorted. As my Wikipedia-friends know, Anamorphosis is a distorted projection or perspective requiring the viewer to use special devices or occupy a specific vantage point to reconstitute the image. The word anamorphosis is derived from the Greek prefix ana-, meaning back or again, and the word morphe, meaning shape or form. ...

To entitle them On the shoulders of giants is probably the best way to describe these huge murals by American urban artist James Bullough coming up at Torstrasse 111 in Berlin… James Bullough, who grew up in the suburbs of Washington DC, began sketching and eventually devouring anything he could find with even a hint of graffiti inspirited imagery on it in his early teens and developed in that way the required skills for photo-realistic graffiti works. Right now, he is painting two impressive giants into one of the arising new art spaces at Torstrasse 111, a contemporary location for art, and invited me to join him. ...

Yesterday, I had the chance to revisit the jaw-dropping metal wildstyle sculptures of Mare139 — and let me tell you, I was completely blown away. For those not already in the know, Mare139 (aka Carlos Mare Rodríguez) is a name that resonates with graffiti writers and street art lovers around the world. While many contemporary street artists are just beginning to dip their toes into the fine art world, Mare139 has been bridging the gap between graffiti and high art since the early 1980s. Not only is he celebrated for his iconic B-boy series, but his groundbreaking 3D graffiti sculptures have set the gold standard for graffiti as sculptural art. ...

Last week, I followed Berlin-based Quintessenz Creation crew and Danny Doom to their exhibition setup at OZM Gallery in the creative heart of Hamburg city! Entitled …think of all the stories we could have told, the Danny Doom meets Quintessenz show presents a large number of their own canvas works including screen prints, paintings and experimental technique mashups as well as massive canvas collaboration works, combining all their different styles, tastes and color-preferences. This interesting mixture makes the art show a nice starting point for those who want to see the latest urban-inspired art trends from Berlin! ...

A few days ago, the Welcome To Detroit exhibition by Evan Roth (the guy who invented the Graffiti Markup Language) finished and after presenting several new works, combining popular culture with a certain hacker’s philosophy, what persists is all those great short-films, Roth created documenting his Propulsion Paintings series… Evan Roth has been living and making new work in Detroit for the last month, gearing up for a solo exhibition that opens this Wednesday at Eastern Michigan University: Welcome to Detroit. His new series of artworks is called: Propulsion Paintings. As part of his residency at Eastern Michigan University, he’s teaching a course called Art and Hacking where he had the students create their own Propulsion Paintings as their first project. (todayandtomorrow.net) ...

One of my personal heroes, Portuguese-born artist Pedro Matos is going to exhibit at Ivory & Black this April! The show, simply entitled Heritage is Pedro’s first solo-show in London and features new, monochromatic oil paintings by the artist, who became famous with those awesome graffiti-inspired portray-paintings… Pedro Matos’ paintings feature a rich and complex layering consisting of different languages of painting, which combine texture, patterns, realistic figurative painting and text. Through this visual language, his work draws the viewer into a dialog surrounding the impermanence of social and cultural values. Inspired by the french philosopher Michel Foucault’s work, subject to his paintings and explorations are the themes/concepts of Knowledge, Power, History, Sexuality, Discourse, Episteme and Impermanence. The exhibition will also comprise the release of a limited edition artist’s book of Pedro Matos’ work and life. (Ivory & Black) ...

London-based bright art star Conor Harrington is not just cover hero of the latest Very Nearly Almost (VNA) magazine (here some insights into the issue before..) but is also running his Dead Meat show at Lazarides Gallery till the 14th of April. I was hanging around Conor’’s studio during the making of his latest show at Lazarides in London, here’s some exclusive snaps! (Viktor Vauthier) Photographer Viktor Vauthier just published some behind the scenes photos of great dressed boys and naked girls being artist’s models for some of Harrington’s latest paintings. Looks quite great, like a medieval role play game and is probably an amazing inspiration source for Conor… ...

The Agents of Change Augustine Kofie, Steve More, Remi Rough, LXone and David Shillinglaw recently have been busy in London, painting the largest mural in London, as was mentioned by Ian Cox who by the way took some great photos of this painting action! Keeping the geometry of the design intact is no easy feat especially when you can’t stand back and have a look what you are doing without negotiating six ladders and some traffic. ...

There’s strange things happening at the Flemish coast. This weekend, the open air art festival Beaufort04 started, transforming the Belgian coast into an enormous space for contemporary art in the public landscape. Various contemporary artist like Wim Delvoye, Ai Wei Wei and Anthony Gormley already produced their series of work during the first three editions, now it’s time for others to do the same… Isaac Cordal for example is creating a body of work called Waiting for Climate Change, consisting of several of his well-known sculptures and installations that will be exhibited on the beach of De Panne as well as in a local historic villa. In my eyes, having all these small figures in a publicly accessible area and discussing climate change at the beach is quite an interesting approach. It’s a perfect scenario for Isaac’s works! ...