Alphabeta: Brooklyn Store Celebrates Graffiti

NPR checks out Alphabeta, "a new Brooklyn-based community art space and event space that also sells graffiti art materials."

Los Angeles Graffiti, Compiled by Roger Gastman

Roger Gastman - Los Angeles Graffiti

Mark Batty Publisher is releasing Los Angeles Graffiti compiled by Roger Gastman.

From the press release:
Compiled by Roger Gastman, author of Freight Train Graffiti and co-founder (with Shepard Fairey) of Swindle magazine, this colorful book benefits from Gastman¹s long-term, intimate involvement with L.A. graffiti writers. Recruiting friends, and graffiti legends, like SABER and RETNA, Los Angeles Graffiti documents the history of the unique, world-class graffiti scene that thrives in Los Angeles. In particular, the interview with L.A. graffiti luminary POWER breathes history into these photographs of work created by the famous, infamous, and anonymous.

Previous books I've seen from Mark Batty are very high quality and very much in the art book tradition.

Official Site:
Mark Batty Publisher

Eric K. Arnold & Adisa Banjoko Remember Dream

Adisa Banjoko remembers Dream, a Bay Area graffiti artist murdered 7 years ago and recently profiled in the East Bay Express by Eric K. Arnold.

Graf Artists Converge in London for EndtoEnd Project

adidas Originals and Footlocker have teamed up with an international group of graf artists to produce a shoe line and art event using a unique collaborative process:

Over a period of three days, the artists worked around the clock in a custom-built creative environment to produce the artwork for this distinctive collection. In gathering the artists together under one roof, adidas and Foot Locker created a new process in developing graffiti-based designs.

For their world-class workshop, adidas and Foot Locker gutted a large warehouse in East London's hip Spitalfields area, then remodeled the space to produce the ideal creative environment. Enormous white canvases and a full range of "tools of the trade" -- spray paint cans, nozzles, markers, paint brushes and anything the artists could possibly need -- was provided so they could focus on their craft. The remarkable results offer designs that embody the creativity, the collaborative spirit, and the artistic beauty envisioned by the End to End project.

I imagine you can see all this at the EndtoEnd or End to End or End "To" End Project website [depending on whether you use the site title, the press release version or the graphic version] but after the second round of sitting watching stuff load I moved on [however, I'm in a grouchy mood so others may find the wait quick and easy!].

Wooster Collective: Photoshopped BBDO Anti-Graffiti Ads

Last month a series of photoshopped and/or mashedup versions of BBDO's anti-graffiti ads appeared at the Wooster Collective.  Not as hilarious as Fark but worth a look.

Final BBDO Ad Spoofs
Three More BBDO Mashups
BBDO Mashup by BsAsStncl
BBDO Mashup by RockStar
BBDO Mashup by Kelly Towles
Adam Neate's BBDO Mashup
BBDO Mashup by Copyright
BBDO Ad Mashups

Previous ProHipHop Coverage:
BBDO West Anti-tagging Campaign Plus More Marc Ecko

NY Times "T" Bomber Spotted

So, apparently the NY Times is using graffiti bombing to spread their "T" [for their style mag?] but the photo got retracted due to some hand waving on somebody's part.

Agenda has the photo or, at the very least, a decent mock-up!

Perry Farrell Interviews Shepard Fairey, Discusses Banksy

I never appreciated Shepherd Fairey as an artist, when he hit the scene with the Andre Has A Posse routine, it just seemed like an early wave of white hipster appropriation of hip hop (and still does).  At the time, I wasn't interested in any art that didn't have a political or spiritual edge, and his sure didn't.

Lolla Lives-Shepard Fairey-Webisode 1-Andre's Posse

Later, I read an interview in which Fairey discussed his marketing background and his art in terms of marketing and that finally put the project together for me in a meaninful way.  Nevertheless, at the moment I can't really bring myself to listen to a Perry Farrell interview with Shepherd Fairey, though I'll always miss Jane's Addiction!

Lolla Lives-Shepard Fairey-Webisode 2-Banksy

I deeply respect Banksy and was able to watch the first 30 seconds of the second video, enough to know it was worth posting.  And, yes, I'll eventually bite the bullet and listen to Shepherd Fairey's every word cause he's obviously on to something.

If you're really interested in checking out the wide variety of international street art being produced today, the Wooster Collective still appears to be your best bet.

BBDO West Anti-tagging Campaign Plus More Marc Ecko

I found an interesting followup to my earlier post on Marc Ecko at the quite wonderful Wooster Collective site.  They have more shots of this anti-tagging campaign created by BBDO West.

One thing I didn't point out on the Ecko post, partly because the interview I reference is so short that I would have pretty much run the whole thing at that point, was his explanation that writing on property without permission, i.e. most forms of tagging, was vandalism.  At first, I took it as a disengenous statement but I'm realizing that he's simply playing both sides of the street.  A statement like that backs off outsider critics while offering a wink and a nudge to his insider target audience.

Graf Artists Paint Little Scion Model Cars

Scion consistently does some of the more interesting promotions involving hip hop. Scion: Installation 3, featuring graffiti artists "painting on 3' long polyurethane sculptures of the Scion tC designed by Wheaty Wheat Studios", opened in New York this week and will later go on tour to all sorts of other places.

Blogs like Slam X Hype and Cool Hunting are showing love and sharing pictures.

Graffiti Graphic for B-Boy Quickies

Though old school graffiti style lettering can easily communicate the fact that something is hip h op related, for many of us, such style is mostly overused and outdated. I don't know if that figured in to the above graphic for B-Boy Quickies, but I like it as an example of a style that looks like graffiti without feeling cliched.

Wooster Collective: Barry McGee's Shoe, Graf Furniture

Wooster Collective is a wonderful (yes, I said wonderful!) blog of street art that occasionally crosses into ProHipHop terrain.

In particular, they have a nice piece about Barry McGee's shoe that was causing a commotion a while back for an image on the shoe's tongue.

There's also the tale of Ryan Frank's Hackney Shelf, supposedly a piece of furniture left in an active graffiti zone that is resold once decorated by the locals!  That seems plausible for the piece they show, but there's another piece that simply looks like it was decorated with some graffiti influence.

Actually, according to Ryan Frank's site, he leaves a blank white board out to be graffitied and then that is cut up to create the Hackney Shelf.  Interesting idea.