As I already mentioned here, here and here French Da Mental Vaporz crew (DMV) is my most favorite European graffiti crew. Recently they came up with a beautiful behind the scenes video… The Crew Da Mental Vaporz was born in 1999 at the initiative of Bom.k and Iso in the Paris suburbs. Soon joined by Kan, they stand out by making huge frescoes in the sordid land of the southern suburbs, giving the most to topics outside the tradition of graffiti (hitherto confined to the sacrosanct lettering / comic book character bubbles). Thus, their productions, that can extend over tens of meters high and long, depict the monstrous madness, upholstery and imminent end of time. ...

A few days ago, French urban hacktivist Florian Rivière (the guy who installed the fabulous advertising carousel earlier this year) did a Hack your city into a soccer field workshop in Berlin-Kreuzberg! Soccer is one of the basic ways to reclaim the street. But today cities prevent this practice to facilitate car movements and security. Games or sports are just allowed in specific places: soccer fields, golf courses, skateparks, basketball courts… everything is confined. The aim of this workshop is to look for interstitials urban space where we could play soccer wildly. Because play is a claim of freedom and city is a place for freedom. ...

New York-based artist Carlos Mare, aka Mare139, is going to open his first solo-show in Berlin tomorrow! Entitled Physical Graffiti, the show will not present his crazy 3D metal wildstyle graffiti, but his latest paintings and drawings focusing on the art of the B-boy dance… *Mare began his creative career during the formative era of NYC subway painting between 1975-1985, appearing in the original cult classic documentary Style Wars in 1982. Growing up against the landscape of hip-hop in its evolution, he charted a new discourse about the role and aesthetic of the art form as sculpture in the public space, beginning with letter-based works and progressing to a more modernist interpretation of the graffiti form. Internationally exhibited and collected, his sculptural works are among the most innovative of the post NYC subway graffiti movement. ...

It looks like Mr. Brainwash’s hype machine just picked up pace in London with him and/ or his team installing some of his large-scale paste-ups in the city, showing e.g. The Beatles and The Queen… Our friends at Hooked managed to get some first photos of Brainwash’s (aka Thierry Guetta) huge British themed paste-ups located in Holburn, and in addition share some more or less interesting rumors of a probably possible UK summer exhibition by Mr. Brainwash! ...

It’s going to be hot in Amsterdam later this month, when several popular urban artists like Toast, Besok, Graphic Surgery, ECB, Morten Andersen and Bonzai catch up at the international urban art exhibition Urban Art EFX, presented by Urban Stylistics! *The exhibition themed “from urban to contemporary” showcases an eclectic variety of artwork. These range from paintings, sculptures, installations, photography to video art, created by key-players of the contemporary Urban Art movement. It highlights a snap-shot of their current artistic development as well as the story behind an up-and-coming artist generation, whose roots lay in the Graffiti and Street-art culture. ...

Some weeks ago I informed you about the brilliant anamorphic mural paintings by Spanish Boa Mistura crew, now they published the corresponding video documentary! Boa Mistura’s project Luz Nas Vielas has been carried out in Vila Brasilândia, São Paulo, during January 2012. The project is part of the Crossroads series: Boa Mistura’s participative urban art interventions to modify rundown communities using art as a tool for change and inspiration. Between the 4th and 16th of January BOA MISTURA had the opportunity to live in Brasilândia, hosted by the Gonçalves family, having this way direct contact with the community. After preliminary studies and analysis, the defined framework are the narrow and winding streets that connects the urban net, known as Vielas and Becos. The dialogue with residents and their active participation has been decisive for the Project. Beleza, Firmeza, Amor, Docura andOrgulho are the concepts chosen by the collective for the interventions. ...

Berlin’s creative studio Cheesecake Powerhouse just came up with a new urban intervention: They installed street lamp light switches in public space! And although that’s not suitable for the mass, it’s in my opinion a brilliant idea, especially for smaller neighbourhoods, parks or almost uninhabited urban areas… The Cheesecake Powerhouse was founded 2012 in Berlin by Chehad Abdallah, Eugenio Perazzo, Fabian Greitemann and Julian Stahl and usually operates in various design disciplines. Nevertheless, they work with people coming from all kinds of disciplinary backgrounds like video production, copywriting, strategy, skateboarding, graffiti or digital, what becomes visible in that recent street lamp light switch installation. So what’s next? ...

My mate, London-based stencil artist Fin DAC recently came up with a new female stencil art series, what’s a great excuse for me to feature Fin and his awesome works again! In a short career, I have defined and perfected a paint style that ignores the accepted visual language of street art… I call it Urban Aesthetics - a modern-day take on the 19th century art movement. During his relatively short career, Fin DAC was able (after hailing from Ireland) to define and perfect a certain stencil art style, that - influenced by fashion, female bodies and a somehow free-hand style - ignores the accepted visual language of street art and creates in my eyes a new, unique stencil art style. Fin DAC’s female stencil artworks combine a hand-cut single-layer stencil with freehand spitting, acrylic and Montana Gold spray paint. They bring together quality stencil techniques with Asian aesthetics and culture and become in that way one of the best stencil series I’ve seen so far! ...

Almost a year ago, French photographer, street artist and TED Prize winner JR started his Inside Out project and since then, the large-scale participatory art project that transforms messages of personal identity into pieces of artistic works went worldwide! Whether in Haiti, Brazil, Greece, Israel, or Mexico, people are participating and paste their faces in the streets of their cities. Now it was time to look back and summarize the first year of turning the world inside out… ...

German Urbanscreen crew is specialized in large-scale projections on urban surfaces. Recently they lighted the sails at the famous Sydney Opera House, combining the art of light projection, video mapping and motion graphics to extraordinary heights… German design collective Urbanscreen transformed the Sydney Opera House with their Lighting of the Sails. They projected large-scale pictures of people moving on the surface, crawling or walking from different perspectives. The project is part of the Vivid Live Festival running from 25 May to 11 June 2012. Urbanscreen was founded in 2008 and conceives and produces custom-made media installations using high artistic standards and stylistic devices, a spacious architectural background and a consistently professional completion. Their aim is to transfer their concepts into a dialog between art and urban communication. (ignant.de) ...