You might call a lot of graffiti artist out there street artists, but when I see the work of a guy like Escif, he’s my definition of a street artist. His work reminds me a bit of Marcel Dzama, with his minimal color palette and potentially deep meanings to his pieces. I love that he chooses a different number of subjects, mundane things that most people can understand. It’s also so interesting that he chooses to do his paintings on public spaces, that they’re meant to be momentary, that at any time they could easily ... (Read more...)

Lovely grey-scale graphs.

Courtesy of The Longue Duree.

Brooklyn based artist Shane McAdams is taking the ordinary and doing extraordinary things, namely, ball point pens. If you told me that Shane created the images above using just ball point pens I’d tell you that you were crazy. There’s so much depth in the color and shape, it nearly looks like something you’d have to make in Photoshop. I’d be really curious to hear how he makes these pieces, I don’t have the slightest idea. What I do know is that these are beautiful and I want them on my walls.

Found through Destroy Today

... (Read more...)

It’s not out of the ordinary to hear architects talk about the urban fabric that gives rise to a project. It’s an evocative analogy to talk about the city as a kind of woven, knitted or quilted blanket– these analogies work because they suggest methods of their assembly, continuity and/or cohesion. The trouble is that blankets don’t bring much action to a picnic: they mostly cover things, and sometimes trap heat to help us fall asleep. Urban fabric? Snoozeville.

A better analogy, and one I couldn’t stop imaging looking at these paintings is of an urban tissue. Not facial or toilet ... (Read more...)

Lebbeus Woods posted these kind, articulate words to commemorate the passing of Lauretta Vinciarelli. Vinciarelli was an Italian architect-turned-artist whose technical skill in portraying and a cognitive prowess in conceiving architectural spaces leave a vacuum in her absence. Woods points out that the spaces she creates are quite different than the “self-aggrandizing, egoistic” spaces that dominate much of contemporary architectural production. When students and practitioners become bored with creating flamboyant one-liners, these paintings of ordered and serene spaces are ripe with inspiration.

Alex

The genre of photorealism (and its progression into hyperrealism) often seems to split people between those who like it and those whose who don’t. Many will argue that photorealism’s blatant use of photography as a reference point somehow manages to devalue the quality of the work but personally I don’t see it that way. In the early years of its creation it stood as a justified reaction to abstract expressionism and its recent progression into the world of the hyperreal has led to a number of important artists and artworks that pose interesting question about reality ... (Read more...)

The relationship between street art and buildings isn’t always happy, sometimes resembling an unhappily-arranged marriage, with only a brief courtship occurring in the  middle of the night. But this week, I thought we could look at some happier unions between street art and buildings. The first examples are in Reykjavik, Iceland by artist Theresa Himmer, who has used a kind of sequins for buildings to makes images of glaciers and lava.  Instead of covering each entire facade with these tiny, shiny discs (like this Maison Martin Margiela store in downtown LA) much of the original wall’s surface is visible. These ... (Read more...)

Among graffiti nerds, Chicago’s not especially known for having a strong can culture for several reasons. Spray can sales were verboten in city limits way back in the 80s, which in the days before online shopping, meant a 2+ hour trip (less if you can snag a car) to the suburbs to procure it. Further, the fines and penalties are still so steep that most are deterred. And the city has on several occasions swooped in and buffed out commissioned graffiti murals on private property. Not exactly a positive environment for this particular type of expression.

So it’s a ... (Read more...)

Among graffiti nerds, Chicago’s not especially known for having a strong can culture for several reasons. Spray can sales were verboten in city limits way back in the 80s, which in the days before online shopping, meant a 2+ hour trip (less if you can snag a car) to the suburbs to procure it. Further, the fines and penalties are still so steep that most are deterred. And the city has on several occasions swooped in and buffed out commissioned graffiti murals on private property. Not exactly a positive environment for this particular type of expression.

So it’s a ... (Read more...)

Among graffiti nerds, Chicago’s not especially known for having a strong can culture for several reasons. Spray can sales were verboten in city limits way back in the 80s, which in the days before online shopping, meant a 2+ hour trip (less if you can snag a car) to the suburbs to procure it. Further, the fines and penalties are still so steep that most are deterred. And the city has on several occasions swooped in and buffed out commissioned graffiti murals on private property. Not exactly a positive environment for this particular type of expression.

So it’s a ... (Read more...)