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Wednesday 26 November 2014

grafitti in china

Check out this gorgeous plate.
courtesy of EDGE


 I would travel to China just to buy a set of these. 

The writer Matthew Nieder was has a wonderful post about the Meeting of Styles where the banks of the river were allowed to be graffed. 

And here is an article from 2008.  Appharently chinese collectors do not consider street art investable.  Well twenty years ago in Paris they didn't  either.   After  years of it in your face, things have changed.

In Taidong there is a whole block of graffed buildings, part of an urban project, perhaps something like the mairie of the 13th arrondissemet in Paris. You can see more on Flikr

All I can say to the Chinese graffers is to keep at it.  In twenty years there will be a new generation of rich who will most likely be fighitng over your work.

Tastes change but urban art is a world wide movement that can't be stopped.

Monday 24 November 2014

W is for writer - Glossary of Grafitti



courtesy of WRDSMTH instragram
 Writers are graffers or, as described on freegrafittisupplies, a practioner of writing, a graffiti artist.

Calling a graffer a grafitti artist boils my blood.  Like a practioner of writing is not a writer, or a practioner of sculpture is not a sculptor, painting/painter, illustrating/illustrator, et encore.  In France graffeur is commonly used, even on the tube.  The French, in general, have embraced grafitti and urban art.  Walk around Paris and you'll see that stores are tagging the sidewalks to pub their deals.

The word graffer is not yet in a dictionary because grafitti is taboo. 

Tah-booh. 

Graffers are ghosts with hoodies who roam the urban sleepy hollows and leave their marks.  They don’t carry guns, but they carry bombs (of spray paint, paste-ups and more.)  Urban writing is invisible by most, it's become so commonplace most people don't even notice it's there.  Some consider it vandalism, some of it is.  But some of it is pure art with no profit in mind and it is worldwide.

WRDSMTH works are a combination of pochoir and paste-up.  I assume Wrdsmth is male.  He writes that he’s doing time in Hollywood.  Wrdsmth is a poet graffer, a writing writer.  His pochoirs are a monochrome typewriter and the paste-ups are texts.  

See his Instagram page here: WRDSMTH  and his fabulous Tumblr page

Monday 17 November 2014

abandoned metro stations in Paris



check out this video: Parisian rave party underground

Monday 10 November 2014

P is for paste-up: glossary of grafitti

What's a paste-up?  Usually it's a peice of paper glued to an urban surface with wheat paste or wall paper glue.  Paste-ups are considered less offensive to the urban envirnoment because they can be peeled or washed off. 

Here is a video of paste-up interventions done by women in Brazil.  They have motive and means.




If you still don't understand paste-up, here are a helping ear and a mutant in Beaubourg.  That's the hood around the Pompidou center.

This wall is a busy place.  Those posters might be advertising for underground Parisian rave party in abandoned metro stations or perhaps the catacombs.  We'll see about that next week.


Need the missing peice of the puzzle to understand what paste-ups are?  Here you go.





Motive and means: thanks Colin Smith for that great line.  I read it in your story in the comments on Janet Reid's blog.  I give you full credit.

Monday 3 November 2014

artistic throwie paris 5th arrondisement


This  throwie is on the corner of rue Saint Jacques and rue des Feuillantines.  
To call it a throwie is not quite correct, but how did the artist paint those spots on the wall?  Surely with paint filled balloons.  Around town there are many walls painted buy this artist.  There's one in  Saint Germain des Prés, on rue Saint André des Arts.

But here above the Royal there is also stuck to the wall a mirror mosaic paste-up.