So we’ve got a guest post today from Jerry, looking at graffiti in video games. Find him on Twitter if you like his stuff. Now I’ll leave him to it!…
Graffiti in video games – there are loads of examples, we’ve picked out a few for this post. Part 2 coming soon.
Any ideas for games you [...]
Part of the reason this blog was set up was to show people there’s more to Bristol graf than Banksy, so, whilst today doubtless brings more rumour and speculation on his upcoming show, what else is coming up?
Well, first up, Rowdy’s got a solo show opening on the 4th June (with private view night 3rd June), running through to the 22nd June, at ‘Sartorial Contemporary Art‘ in London (WC1H 8AP). Sounds dead posh, but looks like it should be good. Here’s their blurb with it…
In his first major London solo show the King of Crocs showcases his diverse talent at Sartorial Contemporary Art. Expect to see Rowdy’s unique take on urban living and landscape in the form of his legendary boulders, abstract cityscapes and of course the ubiquitous crocs.
Bricks and mortar may mean money and mortgages to some but Rowdy prefers his building blocks in their raw state. ‘The local quarry provides the bedrock for our roads and cities’ says the artist. ‘I hit the rocks before they reach their destiny of becoming our new urban spaces’. Simultaneously caveman-esque and contemporary, the cartoon monoliths have been described as ‘Ren & Stimpy meets Goldsworthy’. Their arrival in the urban landscape provides jarring juxtaposition.
His Cityscape paintings show Skyscrapers constructed out of the tiniest marks a spray can can make, reminiscent of T.S Lowry’s ‘matchstick men’, combined with 1980’s graffiti fades. Some are hectic, others more meditative. Highly sought after, this accomplished series offers nuances and subtleties both in style and substance, often somewhat lacking in today’s saturated street art market.
Continuing the narrative of City versus The Ancient; Rowdy’s trademark crocodiles are often huge in scale and are indicative of the playful nature of the imagery in his work, and long may we continue to see these King-sized crocs attacking our walls and lurking in the concrete swamps. The last few years have seen him collaborate with cohorts Cyclops & Sweet Toof resulting in one of the most widespread bombing campaigns seen in the UK’s capital in the last decade.
‘Don’t be taken in by his welcome grin, he’s imagining how well you’d fit within his skin…’
They’ve also got some photos on their site of the Burning Candy show in Leeds last year if you fancy a gander.
Next up, there’s the Bristol Design Festival (5th – 11th June), which isn’t massively graf based, but has a competition called ‘Grafikea’ where you can customise an Ikea table (crying out for someone to enter it with a table covered in tagging). They’ve also been getting various design and graf types to customise a set of those russian doll things which will be auctioned off. Last year had this lot getting their paint on, should be a good turnout this time round.
They’re linking up with an expanded Upfest this year (6th and 7th June at the Tobacco Factory and to a smaller degree at the Grain Barge). Again it’s not an entirely graf type event, but in amongst the photoshop and stencils, a good contingent of graf artists seem to have sneaked there way onto the bill, and photos will be all over Flickr before you know it. Definitely worth checking out.
Finally, not an event as such, but something with a date attached. PRSC have found themselves entered for an award with Voscur (”an infrastructure organisation and a development agency for the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector in Bristol”) to be recognised as the best ‘voluntary and community sector campaign’ in Bristol 2009.
All very wordy, but if everyone reading this blog gave them a vote, they’d doubtless rinse it, so go on, won’t take a minute. It’s open til the 29th May, so click here to submit your vote.
Blue Butterflies
Starting bids £400
40% donation to
Asthma UK
About this charity:
Asthma UK is the charity dedicated to improving the health and well-being of the 5.4 million people in the UK whose lives are affected by asthma. We work together with people with asthma, health professionals and researchers to develop and share expertise to help people increase their understanding and reduce the effect of asthma on their lives. Our vision is ‘control over asthma today, freedom from asthma tomorrow’.
Bee Eaters
50% donation to
Great Ormond Street Hospital
About this charity:
We need to raise 50 million every year to help rebuild and refurbish Great Ormond Street Hospital, buy vital equipment and fund pioneering research. Amazing things happen at Great Ormond Street Hospital every day. With your help we can keep the magic alive for our very ill children and their families. For more information please visit www.gosh.org
Just been reminded, for those who fancy picking themselves up a ‘Crimes of Passion’ hoody, as otherwise only given to the artists in the recent RWA competition, the competition the good people at FROM are running for one closes at 5pm today.
Click here to sign up if you fancy having a go at getting one.
Via Luzinterruptus
“Police cars everywhere in the Malasaña district. It was surrounded not precisely to shoot a cop film, so has been the situation in the capital lately.
And what was the reason to show these living forces? Well, the 2 de Mayo celebration of course. It is considered a high risk period and has required the setting up of protective fences all around the perimeter of the square. The district’s festival is celebrated here and young people are denied entry if they don’t agree to be searched…
Once recovered from this ‘high risk celebration’, we received the visit from a delegation to assess the sites for the 2016 Olympic Games. We have had the hunch that it must have been rather dangerous, owing to the great number of lot of police cars in the streets in the centre of Madrid.
This stressful coming and going of police cars have made us obsessed with this worrying police car chase, whose symptoms led us to think that any car could be a disguised police car.
We intended to express this paranoia and we made an installation called A lot of Policeman for so few people…, putting on the cars parked around the Dos de Mayo Square our rudimentary blue police lights made with plastic glasses, blue paper and our flashing lights.
We carried out the installation on a total of 50 parked cars, causing no damage whatsoever, on 12 May and there was some expectancy from some lonely nightbirds who waited patiently round the corner for the right moment to take all police lights away for their own use.
And there is not respect for anything nowadays… not even for the living forces…”
Time of installation: 1 hour .
Damages: none
Exhibition time: 1 hour.
Photos taken by Gustavo Sanabria
Urban Angel shakes up Cork Street (0)
Urban Angel presents “2″ (0)
Private view of Tinho’s ‘Looking For Myself’ exhibition (2)
Gallery – Corked by Urban Angel (0)
Diary date: May 7, Apart (0)
Thanks to St8ment for sending this one in, “I’d like to be an MP” paste up down on North Street, Bedminster.
Bit of a closer upper…
…could it be a campaigning councillor getting carried away in the last couple of weeks before the elections?
Location: Palermo in Piazza Magione.
Image: Pope Sergius, the first Pope born in Palermo
(Thanks, Jonathan)
Artist: Post
Zevs has updated his website with photos of past and recent project. We love the Electric Rainbows that he exchanged for advertisements back 2007:
