Street Art London: Discover the City's Vibrant Murals

After I wrote about the Style Wars rescue, I just stumbled upon another urban art related Kickstarter project: The Wall - London’s Most Public Gallery is public art project whose aim is to transform the well-known brick facade of London’s Village Underground (that’s the wall where I photographed Herakut, Titi Freak and others…) into an permanent art space including bullet proof metal and glass frames to protect the art work from theft and vandalism… ...

In September 2011, Soon Gallery brought German graffiti and street artist Hendrik ECB Beikirch to London to paint one of his well-known greyscale faces. A few days ago, video documentarist Stefan Pohl (who also did that nice Birth of a Spray-Can video) published the corresponding documentary! When I watched ECB painting at the IBUg 2011 urban art festival, I was highly impressed by his extensive use of water during painting (you can see that also in the video) and his big talent to diversify tones of grey and to compose them in a perfectionist way… ...

For a few weeks I have a nice new contact over in London. Her name is Petra Valenti, she is a talented photographer (check out her latest works on tumblr!) and knows the local street art and graffiti scene quite well, for what reason she will be some kind of a roving reporter for Urbanartcore in future. The first of her photo-series I’d like to show you is the documentary of the new Big Fish Eat Small Fish mural by Italian painter and street artist Gionata Gesi aka Ozmo which was done during the last days! Again he used his well-known illustrative collage-style to create a new, astonishing painting. In my eyes, the result is just fantastic, clean and a real eye-catcher as is Petra’s photo-documentary… ...

Ha, right after I posted about Banks’s upcoming Antics Roadshow I spotted another hot program tip for this weekend: Graffiti Wars is an urban art documentary examining street art and graffiti, and the creative tensions and conflicts within this artistic arena. It’s the story of the ongoing Banksy vs. Robbo battle…Just remember the RIP Street Art exhibition Robbo did last year… At street level a bitter war is being waged between graffiti writers, street artists and the authorities. While graffiti writers face trial and prison sentences for their art, some street artists’ work is lauded and protected behind Perspex. ...

End of the Line presents the British edition of Meeting of Styles with its 4th event in London. This annual event has grown from 15 artists and one main wall in its first year to a full scale outdoor block party and street exhibition in 2010. Part of a global calendar of events which produce the biggest aerosol and graffiti jam in the world… Starting on Saturday, August 13th 2011 8th of October (the event was postponed due to riots in London), this year’s Meeting of Styles UK will present a street festival, block party vibe, BBQ, Beats, and Bar with about 60 aerosol artists from all over the globe painting live throughout the weekend at The Studios (Holloway Road) in London! ...

As some of you already know, London’s famous Lazarides Gallery recently started showing works by well-known stencil artist Boxi! Utilising both the streets and gallery walls as his canvas, the artist is a master of the stencil turning away from their traditional anarchist use to challenge the norm through boldly heightened realistic figures. With fear and its manipulation as the underlying theme, his art channels a deeply disturbing voyeuristic experience for the viewer playing with spatial perception of the surrouding environment. (Lazarides) ...

Ronzo’s Credit Crunch Monster, the unofficial mascot of London’s Great Eastern Street and a well-known eye-catcher next to Shoreditch High Street station, had recently to move to another spot! The monument, which was installed in 2009, can now be found on top of one of the UK’s most famous breweries, the old Truman Brewery, at Brick Lane! The time had come to put a face to the terrifying credit crunch menace. Please welcome Crunchy, the official mascot of the global financial meltdown. (Ronzo in 2009) ...

A few weeks ago the VNA crew teamed up with itdrewitself (you know, the dudes who recently visited Ron English in his studio!) to present three Australian urban artists painting in a derelict warehouse and chatting about their work… Being linked by being not just Australians and also renowned artists but by independently visiting the UK in June, Meggs, Anthony Lister and Kid Zoom painted a face in their unique styles and created in that way a nice collaboration-wall in London. ...

Charles Edwards aka Pure Evil is not just artist and head behind renowned Pure Evil Gallery in London but also an important person in Europe’s urban art scene. Recently the online video magazine Spine TV visited his rooms for the latest issue of their Stolen Moments series and talked to him about his art, his history and how he got in contact with graffiti… In the 30s, Hitler was refused entry to Austrian art school twice. I would come back as the head of that college in the 30s and change that decision, and tell him his watercolours were totally amazing, and give him a place in art school so he would be a happy artist, and he would never get into politics and war. (Pure Evil) ...

Famous British graffiti artist Ben Eine did it again and stenciled his well-known, brightly colored letter styles on a huge wall in London’s Covent Garden! This new mural is Ben’s try to stirring up a debate with Westminster Council about their zero tolerance policy on graffiti and street art… …two Prets, a Starbucks, a Gap and it’s fucking boring - who the fuck wants that?! (Ben Eine) Again it was Abbie Brandon who filmed him doing his best and talked to him about his work for Amnesty International, the show at White Walls Gallery in San Francisco, artists he likes and much more! ...