Street Art Europe: Discover Europe's vibrant urban art scene

City Trip | Hey folks, I’m just back from the nice British west coast city of Bristol! After some sunny days with greasy food and a lot of beer I’m glad about being back in Berlin fuckin’ town! Although Bristol is, compared to other cities I visited so far, quite small, it’s good enough for a weekend-trip especially because the routes are short and therefore everything is within walking distance… ...

Urban Comic Art | I love that great intervention which as recently done by urban artist Pantonio! He created a comic-related mural artwork after a car crashed into a concrete wall in the Portuguese capital Lisbon… The comic style explosion graphics are cropped to the pieces left in the wall in such a way that one could wonder which came first the graffiti or the crash, or graffiti made with dynamite paint. (designboom.com) ...

Mail-Art Project* | The originally Berlin-based Papergirl project has already spread to 4 continents, took place in 20 cities in 12 different countries and keeps on getting bigger with every new city! Now, the Papergirl founder Aisha Ronniger and her team proclaim the open call for the upcoming Papergirl issue in Istanbul. The fantastic thing about this unusual street art and delivery system project with its participatory, analogue, non-commercial, and impulsive ideas is that it’s open for everyone who wants to participate - All you have to do is to get in contact with the Papergirl crew and to send in your artworks. ...

Spray Can Anniversary | Hey, 2011 is the year of the aerosol spray can! Back in 1926, the Norwegian professional chemical engineer and inventor Erik Rotheim submitted the patent application for the first spray cans in Norway and smoothed for that reason the way for the cans we know today! Wikipedia knows more: Prior to the issuance of the patent Rotheim had negotiated an agreement with Alf Bjercke’s paint factory in 1928, but commercial success was initially limited. The patent was sold to a US company for NOK 100,000. Commercial exploitation of the patent was not significant until it was introduced in the United States in the 1940s. After Rotheim’s death the technology made a significant advance with its incorporation into the airbrush. ...

Trash Art | Under the slogan “Making it pretty for garbage men since 2009” a group of talented young Bulgarian calligraphers beautify bulky waste in the streets of Sofia. In my opinion that’s what the original street art is all about: Pure urban art without any commercial attitudes, fun, friends and creative output. Armed just with markers the crew draws on every former worthless surface and prettifies in that way the streets of their city. ...

Urban Photo Art | Berlin-based creative collective Mentalgassi, which is well-known for their fantastic paste-up installations, recently hit the streets of Spain and created some new amazing wheatpastings as a part of the Getxo Photo festival. Mentalgassi is a collective of three artists that was set in Berlin. They are engaged in urban intervetion, transforming urban elements using specially chosen images. Through their creative concept of turning “monotone cities” into places more fun, Mentalgassi has been in Getxo wheatpasting some bottle banks, making it more fun to go to recycle glass. (Getxo Photo) ...

Paper Art | French urban artist L’Atlas is a real globetrotter. In the last months, he visited not just New York, New Delhi and Moscow but also other big metropolises around the world and pushed on with a new urban photography project. This new project culminated in a giant paste-up installation at the Alliance Francaise in New Delhi. The corresponding documentary in online since yesterday and is introduced by L’Atlas himself with the simple words: “I’m just visiting the planet”! ...

Spanish Mural Art | He collaborated with famous graffiti artist Smash137, has been a part of the “Art Brut” graffiti festival and painted his own concrete wall at the end of last year! Sure, I’m talking about Spanish urban artist Aryz, who becomes more and more popular these days… Recently I found another video from 2009 showing him spray-painting a beautiful indoor mural in the “Montana Coffee & Pizza” shop in Barcelona! Again I’m totally impressed by his technique, style and colors! I’m pretty sure we will get a lot to see of his art this year - We should be excited. ...

Mural Art | After Spanish graffiti and street artist Aryz painted his concrete wall, Barcelona-based GR170 is the next artist participating in the “Concrete Walls” project! GR170 was born, and now paints and lives, in the outskirts of Barcelona. He began painting in 2001, and now considers himself to be a painting addict, who loves painting on the streets, and the stale smell of plastic (paint) in the morning. Due to the zero tolerance police, and the hypocrisy of the government bodies behind it, the creation of murals on the streets of Barcelona has become more and more restricted. For this, and other, reasons, the majority of murals created are illegal, and done with no profit in mind, in abandoned factories, tunnels, motorway bridges, and any other places with big cement walls which are not watched over by police. (mtn-world.com) ...

Art Magazine | After I wrote about the Amateur Magazine from Switzerland last year, one of their editors promised me to send some issues of their mag, so that i can have a direct view. Recently I received the two latest issues… I feel really positive about this urban art, illustration, design and culture magazine which is published regularly for two years now. In my opinion it’s worth to support the Amateur Magazine team and their professional print product, for what reason I took some quick insight-the-mag shots while I relaxed in Berlin’s warm January sun today. ...