Monthly Archives: February 2014

What are we going to do now? Art Previews roundup

A fairly busy “Last Thursday” in prospect with Art 14 opening, JR at Westbank Gallery and then the Victoria and Albert museum being hijacked by artiness from Hackney Wick.

Art 14

Like those Polynesian jamborees where a bunch of isolated islands get together for the purposes of mixing up the gene pool, Art 14 is another mega gathering of strutting and preening galleries. The emphasis is on modern and contemporary from domestic and international galleries. Key attractions on my dancecard will be Tag Fine Arts (home of Stanley Donwood prints) and Lazarides where preview pictures show we are in for a treat from JR.

Gallery, London, art, preview, private view, JR, Lazardes, Westbank Gallery, Sweet Toof, Hackney Wick

photo: Ian Cox

Olympia Grand

Hammersmith Road W14 8UX

 

JR – Made Corrections

I’m not sure whether this is coincident, coordination or competition but in Westbank Gallery up North a bit in Notting Hill, JR is opening Made Corrections, a sub project within his Inside Out scheme  in conjunction with Art Saves Lives, featuring the portraiture of youths in a Lithuanian “correction centre”.  A silent auction on the night of the original prints by JR will raise money for the Made Corrections project whose goal is its goal is to achieve funding in order to provide artistic opportunities to inmates of prisons.

Gallery, London, art, preview, private view, JR, Lazardes, Westbank Gallery, Sweet Toof, Hackney Wick

RSVP required:guestlist@londonwestbank.com.

Thursday 27th, 6pm

London Westbank Gallery

133-137 Westbourne Grove, W11 2RS

 

Hackney Wick Takeover

Its not just all about Thursday this week, on Friday London’s high culture institution Victoria and Albert museum throws open its doors to the sweaty artists of Hackney Wick and their trendy fans.   Artists will be “re-imagining” the V&A as Hackney Wick and Fish Island through a series of events. The only details to hand regarding this Friday is that The Wick Art Store, Posca pens and Stour Space are putting on drawing event featuring Bob Molotov, Hicks 54 and N J GM and Sweet Toof has pitched in some work.

Gallery, London, art, preview, private view, JR, Lazardes, Westbank Gallery, Sweet Toof, Hackney Wick

Pen Pushers

Friday 28th, 6.30 – 10.30

Victoria and Albert Museum

Cromwell Rd, London SW7 2RL

 

London,Shoreditch,street art,free art,found art,Alex Trema, French, street artist, stencil, stencilist

French Street Artist Alex Trema Free Art Found!

 

French street artist Alex Trema is in London placing pieces of free art on the streets as part of a project he dubs “Take me”.  Today Shoreditch Street Art Tours’ guests came across a piece of Alex’s art packaged up on the streets and they did exactly that, they took it!

London,Shoreditch,street art,free art,found art,Alex Trema, French, street artist, stencil, stencilist

Alex conceived his project while in New York in late Spring of 2013 and has placed free art in Paris, Marseille, Napoli, Lille, Milan and now London!   The London version consists of an image of the late West London icon Joe Strummer, singer with The Clash.

London,Shoreditch,street art,free art,found art,Alex Trema, French, street artist, stencil, stencilist

Ours now!

Alex likes to see the public becoming a part of his project with their participation in photos of them with the art on the streets, so in his terms our guests are officially a piece of art, but they knew that anyway!

London,Shoreditch,street art,free art,found art,Alex Trema, French, street artist, stencil, stencilist

La Famille Javary

French stencil artists remain a cut above!

Previous “Free Art” found on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour include works by Mr Farenheit and Skeleton Cardboard

Web link: Alex Trema

All photos by NoLionsInEngland using a Nokia Lumia 1020

Finding Brilliant Street Art in London’s East End

Shoreditch Street Art Tours is passionate about revealing to our guests to the best work of street artists and graffiti writers, from stylish tags to superbly detailed figurative painting, via humourus stencils and intricate sculptures.

We know our work is bearing fruit when guests make comments such as “I can’t stop looking at walls hoping to find little bits of street art” and “Every time I look at a lamppost I expect to see stickers”. When our guests find items of street art that even we haven’t seen before then we know they truly have got their “eye” in.  On today’s tour, after seeing a “Be My Valentine” piggy and a “Star” piggy one of our guests very excited pointed through a gate into a property – there was the most fantastic parachute piggy. Well done Liz!

German,LovePiepenbrinck,street art,installation,sculpture,Shoreditch, London, artist, casting,street artist,piggy

Love Piepenbrinck

A search through Love Piepenbrinck’s Flickr collection and Facebook photos and her favourites doesn’t turn up any evidence of photographs so far so we wait with baited breath to find out what Love Piepenbrinck calls it.  “Special Forces Piggy”?

photo: nolionsinengland

Street Art First Impressions by “London Theatre Visits”

 

Shoreditch, London, East End, Street Art, graffiti, tour, walks, tours, review, feedback

Photo: Patsy Trench, London Theatre Visits

A large part of what Shoreditch Street Art Tours does could be described as evangelism on the part of street art culture.  This post by London Theatre Visits who recently enjoyed a Shoreditch Street Art Tour really captures the fantastic experience an articulate and enquiring visitor fired with curiosity but no prior knowledge gets our Tours.

Thanks Patsy

About London Theatre Visits: Patsy Trench says: ‘I have been arranging tours for overseas visitors for nearly twenty years, and teaching and lecturing in theatre for nearly as long. My tours are put together personally, by me, and can be tailored to suit whatever the customer demands.’

About Shoreditch Street Art Tours:    Shoreditch Street Art Tours provides walking tours of street art and graffiti around the Brick Lane and Shoreditch area.  In addition to daylight walking tours, Shoreditch Street Art Tours also runs small number groups of Night Street Art Photography Tours and Street Art Photography Workshops.  Founder and principal guide Dave aka NoLionsInEngland has been photographing, writing about and critiquing street art for nearly 10 years.

 

Very Nearly Almost Issue 25 Launch

What are we up to this week on Shoreditch Street Art Tours? Why, its off to the launch of Issue 25 of Very Nearly Almost magazine and what a cracker it is going to be.

London,Shoreditch,Very Nearly Almost,VNA, Far Rockaway, Street Art, Street Artists, Swoon, Dan Kitchener, Erosie

The special edition cover features a screen print by the awesome first lady of NY street art Swoon.  Swoon’s work is a long standing feature on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour as well as appearing over the years in many of my photographs.

London,Shoreditch,Very Nearly Almost,VNA, Far Rockaway, Street Art, Street Artists, Swoon, Dan Kitchener, Erosie

Swoon, 2007

London,Shoreditch,Very Nearly Almost,VNA, Far Rockaway, Street Art, Street Artists, Swoon, Dan Kitchener, Erosie

Swoon 2007

Great to see Dan Kitchener, another favourite from the Shoreditch Street Art Tour also featuring.

London,Shoreditch,Very Nearly Almost,VNA, Far Rockaway, Street Art, Street Artists, Swoon, Dan Kitchener, Erosie

Dan Kitchener, 2013

Among the other goodies is a feature on the amazing street art in Polish city Lodz.   Good friend and ace graffiti photographer Bravo99 has been telling me for years to go there, it remains on the to do list and no doubt a VNA feature post will bump it up the list!

London,Shoreditch,Very Nearly Almost,VNA, Far Rockaway, Street Art, Street Artists, Swoon, Dan Kitchener, Erosie

Lodz, Poland

The guys at Nelly Duff gallery on Columbia Road are among our favourite heads to chat with on the subject of Street Art any time of day or night, I bet they have a few secrets to reveal in their magazine profile.

 

Erosie was a name that loomed large on Shoreditch walls many years ago, this image below was taken in London in 2007, we forward to learning more about this artist.

London,Shoreditch,Very Nearly Almost,VNA, Far Rockaway, Street Art, Street Artists, Swoon, Dan Kitchener, Erosie

Erosie, 2007

As if the art wasn’t enough, the launch is taking place at Shoreditch’s most street art friendly bar Far Rockaway, it’s guaranteed to be a cracking event.

London,Shoreditch,Very Nearly Almost,VNA, Far Rockaway, Street Art, Street Artists, Swoon, Dan Kitchener, Erosie

Swoon
London,Shoreditch,Very Nearly Almost,VNA, Far Rockaway, Street Art, Street Artists, Swoon, Dan Kitchener, Erosie

DANK

London,Shoreditch,Very Nearly Almost,VNA, Far Rockaway, Street Art, Street Artists, Swoon, Dan Kitchener, Erosie

Swoon cover

Very Nearly Almost Issue 25 Launch

Far Rockaway

97 – 103 Curtain Road

Shoreditch

London EC2A 3BS

Shoreditch Street Art Gallery Openings 6 Feb 2014

“Back To Black”

C215

StolenSpace

 

One big deal in the social diary for this week:

C215 Back To Black

C215 Back To Black

and that’s the opening of a new solo show by French stencil maestro C215.  I believe this is his 4th solo show in London and that’s not including the project installation at Moniker Art Fair 2012.

 

London, street artist,street art,gallery,show,private view,Shoreditch,C215,

C215 2008

C215 was a revelation when he first brought his complex stencils to London’s streets in early 2008.  He became a huge star of Banksy’s Cans Festival that year and has been a frequent visitor since.  He  is an energetic traveller and some of his best work appears in remote developing countries where he has an uncanny knack of getting up stencil images which reflect the community he is visiting.

 

London, street artist,street art,gallery,show,private view,Shoreditch,C215,

C215 2009 (5 yrs ago this week)

We anticipate unusual non-canvas painting surfaces being given the C215 multi layer stencil treatment.

 

London, street artist,street art,gallery,show,private view,Shoreditch,C215,

C215 2010

Show runs 7 Feb to 2nd March 2014, don’t miss!

London, street artist,street art,gallery,show,private view,Shoreditch,C215,

C215 2011

Check out Graffoto reviews of previous C215 shows in London from 2009 and 2010

London, street artist,street art,gallery,show,private view,Shoreditch,C215,

C215 2012

STOLENSPACE GALLERY
17 Osborn Street
London E1 6TD

London, street artist,street art,gallery,show,private view,Shoreditch,C215,

C215 2013

All photos: NoLionsInEngland

Saki’s Bitches Spread Legs in Shoreditch

Sometimes you write an email or a social media thing and these little alarm bells go off in your mind saying “don’t write that…don’t write that” but you proceed anyway.  A spectacular collection of new street art mobiles by Saki and Bitches led to us agonising over what to call this blog post, knowing that innocent accurate descriptions were doomed to look….wrong!

Saki,Saki and bitches,street art,installation,girl,erotica,bottoms,girls, Shoreditch, London, artist

Saki and Bitches street art

A set of Saki’s voluptuous erotic bitches were hanging from windows with an inviting piece of rope hanging down begging to be pulled.  Upon pulling, Saki’s bitches obligingly raised their legs and spread their knees.

Saki,Saki and bitches,street art,installation,girl,erotica,bottoms,girls, Shoreditch, London, artist

Saki and Bitches street art

See, I knew this post could not be written without even the most factual description sounding a just a bit naughty.  Still, the tour members that found it seemed to enjoy the spectacle.   Naughty Saki.

Saki,Saki and bitches,street art,installation,girl,erotica,bottoms,girls, Shoreditch, London, artist

Saki and Bitches street art

Other marginally less eroticised work by Saki is a regular feature on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour, see previous post HERE