Germany’s most popular street artist Xoooox just got his first monograph by written by Benjamin Wolbergs and published by Gestalten! Xoooox, who became famous buy spray-painting models in unsuitable positions on the streets of Berlin and other metropolises, was the first German street artist to come to prominence on the international art market… The work of Xoooox has always been a standout for me. The images of these sexy fashionable women stenciled around the streets of Berlin always stood in such high contrast to the collapsing buildings they were painted on. In a landscape covered with street art that always looks much the same it is very refreshing to see an artist with such a singular vision. (Aaron Rose) ...

Next month, the popular Berlin-based Quintessenz Creation crew (remember their great stop-motion videos True Colors or Color my Kingdom?) and well-known painter Danny Doom (here some shots of his latest show) will together have an exhibition at OZM Gallery Hamburg, presenting amazing collaboration artworks, bringing together the colorful, comic-like characters by Doom and the style-diversity and print-affinity of Quintessenz… Their both foibles for experimental works, breaking borders of plain canvas paintings and their graffiti backgrounds are superb preconditions for an exciting show with striking artworks of different size and medium. I’m really looking forward to this show and will try to come to Hamburg for the opening, as they’re not just great artists but also good friends of mine! ...

boa mistura - typography murals Spanish urban art collective Boa Mistura (who did this crazy TV Kills Your Brain installation) just created some amazing perspective typography murals in Vila Brâsilandia, one of the favelas in Sao Paulo! The five-headed crew repainted several vecos and vielas - those winding streets, being the true articulators of the internal life of the community - in bright colors, presenting words like beauty, pride, sweetness, firmness and love as anamorphic paintings, making the poor suburb a little more colorful… ...

Good news for all urban-inspired artist who always wanted to exhibit their stuff in Berlin: Berlin’s finest Idrawalot Gallery and Showroom is hosting an art exhibition contest, rewarding the top three artists with a group show at Idrawalot Gallery later this year! The contest is open to all artist from around the globe allows any 2D piece of art, drawing, illustration, screen printing, painting, etc to be submitted… Instructions - Once received by email they will be added to a photo album called "Idrawalot Exhibition Contest - 2012" at our Facebook Fan page. - Voting for the Exhibition Contest will be measured by "likes" on each artwork. - Have your facebook friends go and "Like" your artwork. - The three artist with the most "Likes" on their artwork will get a group show at Idrawalot Gallery / Showroom in the fall. Artwork Email Submissions Deadline: April 15th, 2012 Voting by “Likes” Deadline: April 30th, 2012 Top 3 Winners will be announced in May, 2012 ...

No, Usugrow is not one of those new, trendy sorts of schnapps, it’s the name of a bloody brilliant Japanese calligrapher and painter, skateboarder and punk rock enthusiast… Punk Calligraphy *While developing his vision and technique, Usugrow worked designing promotional graphics for Japan’s punk and metal scenes. His unique, stylized combination of traditional Japanese artwork and punk iconography soon made him the visual identity of Tokyo’s underground. As a conscious leader of his community, Usugrow has been using his fame to organize and promote a new Japanese art movement consisting of a tribe of highly talented artists with roots in the metal, punk, hip hop and tattoos, all of whom share his elegant aesthetics.* ...

Remember that brilliant Banksy meets The Simpsons episode-intro? Recently another Simpsons street art tribute has been broadcasted, featuring none others than Shepard Fairey, Ron English, Kenny Scharf, and Robbie Conal - some of the major street art legends from over the sea… Exit Through the Kwik-E-Mart The episode simply tells the story of Bart becoming a street artist by tagging the neighborhood from Homers car, getting in contact with the guys named above - And it also tells the story of the street art commercialization! Definitely a must to watch. ...

As I already told you, Europe’s finest Da Mental Vaporz (DMV) crew left France and is currently in Melbourne, Australia, exhibiting at Rtist Gallery and painting large murals as this brilliant clip by Matthew Harding shows… Nothing more to say, except: Well done boys! For more info about DMV, check out their former show in Toulouse and their great exquisite corpse mural in Brest, yo!

Alexandre Farto aka Vhils is probably one of the most influencing urban artists for the last two or three years. With his unique explosion wall art technique (I would call it 3D stenciling) he is travelling the world… The Vhils Interview: Impressed after looking at this amazing artworks? If you wanna know some more details about Vhils and his story, read the interview we did with him before he became that famous! And now watch this amazing exhibition trailer… ...

Graffiti room design is one of those trends, companies are using to improve their PR. The hotel Au Vieux Panier in Marseille is regularly asking artists to design one of their rooms - this time, they asked famous, self declared graffiti fetishist Tilt, who is well-known for painting onto female bodies and painted London’s Village Underground not long ago… …I first told them that I wasn’t interested doing just decoration in the room but I wanted to create something that will look more like an installation. I thought about it also as a huge canvas where I needed to think about the composition and play with the empty white part of the room to accentuate more the idea of Chaos on the other part. Then I asked my friend Tober who gat a great old school style for tags, Grizz who is also the man behind the camera and Don Cho who is a Hip Hop singer from Marseille but who used to be a tagger from my home town Toulouse. It took one week to do the whole thing cause the idea was to exaggerate what you can usually see in some abandoned places. Too much tags, too much drips, too much sentences, too much throw ups… What I also wanted to show is that people can appreciate any type of graffiti, even the more basic, it’s just a matter of point of view… ...

I just stumbled upon this neat, short graffiti animation film by some Danish guys combining a common graffiti story with some nice fantasy elements: The film tells the story of a young Afro-American writer, entering a train yard via hidden shady paths. Arriving at his target - a train of course - the youngster misses a certain flow until an officer and his dog try to stop him and he, by an unlikely series of accidently events, creates the masterpiece of his life… ...