Street art has been one of New York’s highlights since the old Keith Haring days, but we haven’t been as good keeping up with the Paris scene. But these days, there’s always someone keeping an eye on things.
The fine folks at Wooster Collective just put us onto a colorful new tagger called FKDL who’s been leaving his mark everywhere from Turing to Queens. He mostly deals with silhouettes over neon-colored backgrounds, with a little bit of newsprint collage for texture and a lot of attention to the human figure
which we’ve always been a fan of.
Here’s hoping he doesn’t start his own a t-shirt shop for a while.
Take a peek at the streets of Paris»
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Fully Spread: Fashion Indie honors the work of Ms. Karen Collins. [FashionIndie]
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year: The essential Conde Nast guide to spring. Umbrellas not included.
[Men.Style]
Angry Young Men: A trek through the Faile studio
including a prayer log or two. [PSFK]
Times is Hard: The Times recounts the current difficulties facing young designers. Conclusion? Your trip through that blowout sale may be more important than you think. [NYTimes]
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The street artist known as Poster Boy has been cutting up subway ads for over a year now, growing from a neighborhood curiosity to a citywide phenomenon. And naturally, when the Museum of Modern Art took over a station in downtown Brooklyn with posters of some of their finer pieces, he had his work cut out for him.
Of course, he had the ad exec behind the MoMA campaign along for the ride, so it’s hardly an anti-establishment move, but this time around it may be more about art than politics. After all, he can’t stay an outsider forever, and these reworkings are the best case for mainstream recognition he could have arranged.
See what Poster Boy hath wrought»
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Street art has always been a bit too politically prickly to fit in with the web 2.0 crowd
but that’s no reason to stop trying. After all, populism is populism, and if street artists managed to make nice with auction houses, who’s to say they can’t fit a few iPhones into their repertoire?
Adidas’s new Urban Art Guide (via NotCot) is one of the first tries, and it handles it as well as could be hoped
at least, if you live in Berlin.
More on the Urban Art Guide»
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Banksy’s going back to Bristol (home of aerosol graffiti and trip-hop), for his first hometown show in almost a decade. Luckily, by now just about everyone is paying attention. The BBC went inside for a few snaps, while Hypebeast dug up a promo video (after the jump).
The big surprise: Banksy’s getting into animatronics, creating a surprisingly lifelike blinking tweety bird and a self-rocking SWAT officer at play. Maybe he’s got a soft spot for Disney too
See the video»
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Another of London’s perks: DIY street art for the masses. This home Banksy kit retails for ten quid at a shop called iartistlondon (via [PSFK) where you can get a similar guide to making your own Hirst-style diamond-encrysted skull. Well, crystal-bead encrusted anyway.
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Street art takes all kinds, but the nightmare-inducing type isn’t to be discounted. This id-fueled visage was planted on the unsuspecting streets of Sydney by a Mr. Anthony Lister, who is apparently too adult for a pseudonym. It’s amazing
but we’re hoping he stays in Australia. His work might be a bit too intense in person.
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Street art isn’t known for its sentiment, but it can get plenty sappy when you give it a chance. Exhibit A: a twenty-block-and-counting multi-artist project currently making its way across the brick walls of Philadelphia. The sentimental part? Well, it’s called the Love Letter Project
PSFK checked in recently to celebrate the twentieth mural, but there’s still plenty to be done. All told, the group is planning to end up with 50 murals, two books, a sign language school and a documentary film
so they’ve still got quite a bit of work ahead of them. In the meantime, anyone stopping through the city of Brotherly Love should consider taking a ride on the Market Street elevated line to see all the murals in succession. And bring a date.
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Public art can mean more than just posters on walls
but when it starts to move to denim jacket liners, we get a little queasy.
Shepard Fairey’s Obey label just announced a large-scale collaboration with Levi’s and this jacket is only the beginning. Next Thursday, Fairey will take over the façade of Levi’s Times Square shop, and unveil four new posters to be given away with a Levi’s purchase.
Fairey’s pleading “public art”—it’s populist denim, after all, not Louis Vuitton—but we’d prefer calling it what it is: marketing. It’s not such a dirty word, really, and Fairey has to pay those legal bills somehow. But next time, he should probably start by looking into spray paint endorsements.
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A lot of work goes into a good graffiti mural—you just don’t see it because of the whole “rule of law” thing. Fortunately, a crew called the Central Illustration Agency was able to get together with a camera crew and a wall-owner to produce this video to show you how it’s done. Consider it a devil’s night gift.
See the paint in action»
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Bogotá’s Stencil Festival is well underway, and it’s producing one of the best Flickr feeds in recent memory. At the moment, there are almost 200 pics of murals, spray-painted hand-trucks and a generally vibrant street scene. Just in case you weren’t doing anything this morning
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