Street Art
Banksy is the pseudonym of a British graffiti artist, political activist and painter, whose identity is unconfirmed. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine irreverent dark humour with graffiti done in a distinctive stencilling technique. Such artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world.
Banksy's work was born out of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations between artists and musicians. According to author and graphic designer Tristan Manco, Banksy "was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England. The son of a photocopier technician, he trained as a butcher but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s." Observers have noted that his style is similar to Blek le Rat, who began to work with stencils in 1981 in Paris and members of the anarcho-punk band Crass who maintained a graffiti stencil campaign on the London Tube System in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Known for his contempt for the government in labeling graffiti as vandalism merely because it does not serve a profit to them, Banksy displays his art on public surfaces such as walls and even going as far as to build physical prop pieces. Banksy does not sell photos of street graffiti directly himself; however, art auctioneers have been known to attempt to sell his street art on location and leave the problem of its removal in the hands of the winning bidder. Banksy's first film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, billed as "the world's first street art disaster movie", made its debut at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.
In August/September 2006, Banksy replaced up to 500 copies of Paris Hilton's debut CD, Paris, in 48 different UK record stores with his own cover art and remixes by Danger Mouse. Music tracks were given titles such as "Why am I Famous?", "What Have I Done?" and "What Am I For?". Several copies of the CD were purchased by the public before stores were able to remove them, some going on to be sold for as much as £750 on online auction websites such as eBay. The cover art depicted Paris Hilton digitally altered to appear topless. Other pictures feature her with a dog's head replacing her own, and one of her stepping out of a luxury car, edited to include a group of homeless people, which included the caption "90% of success is just showing up...
vid : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqQYVKSmugc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy
Invader (born 1969) is a French street artist who pastes up characters from and inspired by the Space Invaders game, made up of small coloured square tiles that form a mosaic. He does this in cities across the world, then documents this as an "Invasion", with books and maps of where to find each invader.
Invader started this project in 1998 with the invasion of Paris - the city where he lives and the most invaded city to date - and then spread the invasion to 31 other cities in France (such as Montpellier, Marseille, Avignon, Rennes, Bordeaux, Lille, or Bastia...). London, Cologne, Geneva, Newcastle, Rome , Berlin, Lausanne, Barcelona, Bonn, Ljubljana, Vienna, Amsterdam, Bilbao, Manchester, Darlington are among the 22 other european cities which have been invaded. In the world, Los Angeles, New York City, San Diego, Bangkok, Tokyo, Katmandu, Varanasi, Melbourne, Perth and even Mombasa are now invaded with his colourful characters in mosaic tiles.
The mosaics depict characters from Space Invaders and other video games from the late 1970s. The images in these games were made with fairly low-resolution graphics, and are therefore suitable for reproduction as mosaics, with tiles representing the pixels. The tiles are difficult to alter and weather-resistant.
Invader installed his first mosaic in the mid 1990s in Paris. According to the artist, it was a scout, or sentinel, because it remained the only one for several years. The programme of installations began in earnest in 1998.
The locations for the mosaics are not random, but are chosen according to diverse criteria, which may be aesthetic, strategic or conceptual. Invader favours locations that are frequented by many people, but also likes some more hidden locations. In Montpellier, the locations of mosaics were chosen so that, when placed on a map, they form an image of a giant space invader character.
The mosaics are half built in advance, and Invader travels with them, and half from the city he is invading. When he arrives in a city he obtains a map and spends at least a week to install them. They are catalogued, pictured and Invader use a map indicating their locations within the city. Typically, mosaics are located 10 to fifteen feet above the ground, and often on street corners in areas of high visibility.
One of the more prominent places where the mosaics have been installed is on the Hollywood Sign. The first was placed on the letter D on December 31, 1999. During further trips to Los Angeles, Invader has placed mosaics on the 8 other letters of the sign.
Invader also works on another project that he titles "Rubikcubism", which consists making artworks made of Rubik's Cubes. Invader has had solo exhibitions at art galleries in Paris, Osaka, Melbourne, Los Angeles, New York City, and London.
Most recently, Invader placed two of his iconic tile works on the World Of Wonder Storefront Gallery, located at 6650 Hollywood Blvd., in Hollywood, CA. for the 4th annual I Am 8 Bit group show.
In 2010, he was one of the featured artists in the film Exit Through the Gift Shop in which it states he is a cousin of Thierry Guetta (Mr. Brainwash).
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invader_%28artiste%29
To be continued...
Banksy's work was born out of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations between artists and musicians. According to author and graphic designer Tristan Manco, Banksy "was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England. The son of a photocopier technician, he trained as a butcher but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s." Observers have noted that his style is similar to Blek le Rat, who began to work with stencils in 1981 in Paris and members of the anarcho-punk band Crass who maintained a graffiti stencil campaign on the London Tube System in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Known for his contempt for the government in labeling graffiti as vandalism merely because it does not serve a profit to them, Banksy displays his art on public surfaces such as walls and even going as far as to build physical prop pieces. Banksy does not sell photos of street graffiti directly himself; however, art auctioneers have been known to attempt to sell his street art on location and leave the problem of its removal in the hands of the winning bidder. Banksy's first film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, billed as "the world's first street art disaster movie", made its debut at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.
In August/September 2006, Banksy replaced up to 500 copies of Paris Hilton's debut CD, Paris, in 48 different UK record stores with his own cover art and remixes by Danger Mouse. Music tracks were given titles such as "Why am I Famous?", "What Have I Done?" and "What Am I For?". Several copies of the CD were purchased by the public before stores were able to remove them, some going on to be sold for as much as £750 on online auction websites such as eBay. The cover art depicted Paris Hilton digitally altered to appear topless. Other pictures feature her with a dog's head replacing her own, and one of her stepping out of a luxury car, edited to include a group of homeless people, which included the caption "90% of success is just showing up...
vid : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqQYVKSmugc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy
Invader (born 1969) is a French street artist who pastes up characters from and inspired by the Space Invaders game, made up of small coloured square tiles that form a mosaic. He does this in cities across the world, then documents this as an "Invasion", with books and maps of where to find each invader.
Invader started this project in 1998 with the invasion of Paris - the city where he lives and the most invaded city to date - and then spread the invasion to 31 other cities in France (such as Montpellier, Marseille, Avignon, Rennes, Bordeaux, Lille, or Bastia...). London, Cologne, Geneva, Newcastle, Rome , Berlin, Lausanne, Barcelona, Bonn, Ljubljana, Vienna, Amsterdam, Bilbao, Manchester, Darlington are among the 22 other european cities which have been invaded. In the world, Los Angeles, New York City, San Diego, Bangkok, Tokyo, Katmandu, Varanasi, Melbourne, Perth and even Mombasa are now invaded with his colourful characters in mosaic tiles.
The mosaics depict characters from Space Invaders and other video games from the late 1970s. The images in these games were made with fairly low-resolution graphics, and are therefore suitable for reproduction as mosaics, with tiles representing the pixels. The tiles are difficult to alter and weather-resistant.
Invader installed his first mosaic in the mid 1990s in Paris. According to the artist, it was a scout, or sentinel, because it remained the only one for several years. The programme of installations began in earnest in 1998.
The locations for the mosaics are not random, but are chosen according to diverse criteria, which may be aesthetic, strategic or conceptual. Invader favours locations that are frequented by many people, but also likes some more hidden locations. In Montpellier, the locations of mosaics were chosen so that, when placed on a map, they form an image of a giant space invader character.
The mosaics are half built in advance, and Invader travels with them, and half from the city he is invading. When he arrives in a city he obtains a map and spends at least a week to install them. They are catalogued, pictured and Invader use a map indicating their locations within the city. Typically, mosaics are located 10 to fifteen feet above the ground, and often on street corners in areas of high visibility.
One of the more prominent places where the mosaics have been installed is on the Hollywood Sign. The first was placed on the letter D on December 31, 1999. During further trips to Los Angeles, Invader has placed mosaics on the 8 other letters of the sign.
Invader also works on another project that he titles "Rubikcubism", which consists making artworks made of Rubik's Cubes. Invader has had solo exhibitions at art galleries in Paris, Osaka, Melbourne, Los Angeles, New York City, and London.
Most recently, Invader placed two of his iconic tile works on the World Of Wonder Storefront Gallery, located at 6650 Hollywood Blvd., in Hollywood, CA. for the 4th annual I Am 8 Bit group show.
In 2010, he was one of the featured artists in the film Exit Through the Gift Shop in which it states he is a cousin of Thierry Guetta (Mr. Brainwash).
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invader_%28artiste%29
To be continued...
14 years ago
Thanks