Alias Arts

Tonight ROA comes to Brooklyn and the “inside becomes the outside” at Factory Fresh. After searching for scrap materials and painting furiously inside Factory Fresh for the last eight days and nights the doors to ROA’s concrete jungle will open at 7pm (Friday, May 14)

Factory Fresh is located at 1053 Flushing Avenue between Morgan and Knickerbocker, off the L train Morgan Stop

Our friend Specter is currently in Russia working on a public art project in the city of
Kemerovo located in Siberia. But Before arriving in Kemerovo he visited St Petersburg where he hit the streets with a new series entitled “From Russia with Love” It’s about love and separation.

You can follow the project on a blog that Specter is keeping.

Going through our email box just now we came across the image above, sent to us by someone in Detroit earlier in the week… the piece also obviously also done by Banksy.

Having a child now of our own (Samantha) we’re really digging this series of child drawings that Banksy is doing in cities across America. We can only hope there’s more to come.

It’s been amazing to see how Banksy’s road trip across North America has completely energized local communities in San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago, Toronto, and now Boston.

For us, Banksy has given people a new reason to get out of their homes, explore their cities on a scavenger hunt trying to find pieces that have been put up in both heavily trafficked areas as well as those off the beaten path. It’s been a shame that these pieces have not lasted longer in the public, but I guess that comes with the territory.

The piece above appeared this morning in Boston as did the image below (first shown on Bostonist)

When people ask us… What kind of street art do you like the most? Our answer is “The kind that you see in the photos above” Simple. Fun. Interactive

Photos nicked from here.

Starting about 10 years ago, Sara and I started keeping all the little things that you come across, and sometimes throw away, as you dive deeper and deeper into the street art scene – little notes from artists, handmade flyers, stickers, drawings on the backs of old record sleaves… We’ve kept almost everything, tossing it all in boxes that then went to storage.

While curating on an upcoming issue of THEME magazine (about collecting) Jiae Kim and John Lee approached us about doing a little pocket book showcasing some of our ephemera collection. We loved the idea and started to open up boxes that haven’t been opened for years.

We’re thrilled that later tonight, THEME Magazine will be giving away our little ephemera book for free to those who attend their terrific “Small Is Beautiful” show here in New York.

Here’s the info. Hope you can attend:

Small Is Beautiful
An exhibition of dioramas curated by Theme Magazine & Scion, featuring work by:

Jeremy Mora
Lori Nix
Tracey Snelling
Dan Funderburgh
Ji Lee

wall vignettes by
Josh Cochran

Opening Reception
Wednesday, May 12
6–9pm

Murphy and Dine Gallery
520 West 27th Street, NYC / Ground Floor (between 10th and 11th Avenue)

RSVP to receive the premiere issue of Theme Pocket Books featuring Wooster Collective’s ephemera art collection.

RSVP@thememagazine.com

Check out for interviews with the artists and images of the dioramas.

In New York for his show with M-City at the Brooklynite Gallery, DOLK has been hitting Brooklyn hard. Good stuff indeed.

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From Radya:

“Here in Ekaterinburg (it’s a big industrial city in center of Russia, here is physical border (Ural mountains) between Europe and Asia) we don’t have much info about world street art scene, and your news is really important for us. so we try to do some experiments in our city

this is a project about Second World War. 9 May, Day of Victory, is a really important for russian people, we lost about 20 millions in this war. For russians it’s really free from political propaganda, just because every family in country participates in war. For example my grandfather was 7 years old, when first nazi bombers attack their village in Ukraine, and grandfathers of my friends reached Berlin in 1945.

ps: sorry for my English, i’m trying to learn it.

Here is text for my project:

“After the war”

Posters are made of pictures taken throughout the years of war. The first – the Flag over Reichstag, 1945 – this picture became a real symbol of a victory The second – a portrait of the guerrilla, 1943

I’ve decided to do that when I felt one thing:

We did not loose the country, but we lost a great, an incredible number of people
They just disappeared, left, they’re gone Vanish into something bigger than emptiness – as when the person who remembered a great amount of already forgotten people, is gone and now they are gone together with him, forever. Like old cracked photos, on which you can still see faces, but you do not know who are they”

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From Dre Urhahn and Haas&Hahn of Favela Painting:

“Our latest work in Rio de Janeiro. It’s called Praça Cantão and spans over 34 houses, covering 7000 square meters. We are slowly moving towards our goal: painting an entire favela and we’re getting closer and closer.

Over the last month, Praça Cantão, the square at the entrance of the community of Dona Marta was turned into a vibrant artwork of monumental scale. 34 houses on the giant hillside favela, located in the center of Rio de Janeiro, have been painted in a design of colorful rays, radiating into the city. This 7000 square meter artwork is part of the ‘Favela Painting’ project by Haas&Hahn (Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn), a project that aims to transform communities into landmarks and inspirational monuments as a part of Rio’s image, next to the statue of Christ the Redeemer and Sugar Loaf mountain.

Realization of the artwork is largely driven by the inhabitants of Dona Marta. 25 local youth have been trained as painters, providing for their own income and being responsible for turning their own neighborhood into a colorful monument. This grassroots method of working has proven to be successful in earlier projects, and gives the local community empowerment, pride and color. The local team is complemented by three painters from another favela, Vila Cruzeiro, where two of the previous projects by Haas & Hahn took place.

The project has thusfar been financed through grants and donations, but a co-operation with the dutch paint company AkzoNobel might open new doors. A meeting with their Managing Director Tex Gunning, showed they had a shared vision. “They wanted to give color to the community”, Dre recalls, “and we wanted to give art to the community. I see no reason why we cannot recreate this idea across 300 houses, 3000 houses, whether its in Rio, Johannesburg, Mumbai or anywhere in the world.”

About Favela Painting

In 2006, the Dutch artists Jeroen Koolhaas en Dre Urhahn conceived the idea of creating community-driven art interventions in Brazil. Named ‘Favela Painting’, their first efforts yielded two murals which were painted in Vila Cruzeiro, Rio’s most notorious slum. The first mural is entitled ‘boy with kite’ and has a surface of 150 m2. The second mural proved to be more challenging, with a surface of 2000 m2. Painted on a staircase in the heart of Vila Cruzeiro, it depicts a flowing river with Koi Carp fishes in the style of a Japanese tattoo, designed together with Rob Admiraal. The artworks for the murals are painted in collaboration with the local youth. Training and paying them as painters, learning them the tricks of the trade and empowering them by contributing to the development of the artwork. These projects received worldwide press coverage and have become points of pride both within the community and throughout Rio.

Using a grassroots-based bottom-up approach has proven to be a key factor in the success and final results. In order to generate support and approval for their activities, the artists always make the favela their home. By spending their time within the local community, they’re able to connect to their surroundings more easily, winning the hearts and minds of people. In their point of view, the inhabitants of the favela are a legitimate part of the city, but not seen that way from the outside. Using these beliefs, they work with the locals to paint the artworks, literally helping them changing the face of their community. Over the years, inhabitants of the favela’s have become aware of this method, and are actively requesting their favela to be turned into an artwork. As one woman from Vila Cruzeiro put it: ‘I’ve never been to a museum in my life, and now I’m living in one’.

Favela Painting is supported by the Firmeza Foundation in the creation of striking artworks in unexpected places. It collaborates with the local community to use art and color as a tool to inspire, create beauty, combat prejudice and attract attention. The Foundation facilitates the worldwide realisation of art interventions, and looks after their maintenance. It also develops relevant spin-off projects in the areas of education, socio-economic / social support and development of local people involved in the projects.

As of March 2010, Favela Painting has established a collaboration with AkzoNobel’s decorative paint division. Based on their mission of “adding colour to people’s lives”, AkzoNobel intends to participate in an inspiring and meaningful manner in local communities in the countries in which it operates. The objective of the cooperation between both parties is to realise worldwide, large scale “community driven” works of art. Works of art that make a colourful difference in the lives of individuals, groups, communities and cities. Works of art that have the potential of inspiring others elsewhere, that leave an indelible impression and can work as a catalyst in the processes of social renewal and change.