Monthly Archives: January 2020

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Jace Homage to Stik’s Brick Lane Couple

Jace is a street artist who puts up charming and idiosyncratic sculptural faces on walls, usually not troubling wall owners with requests for permission.  At the turn of the decade, three weeks ago, Jace revealed he had put up 253 faces in an impressive 47 cities in a staggering 21 countries.   I can relate to this kind of OCD stats collection.

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253 Faces – photo by Jace

A new crop of Jace faces surfaced last weekend including a renewal of Jace’s ongoing homage to Stik’s iconic Brick Lane Couple.

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Brick Lane Couple by Stik; Jace couple (at eye level),January 2020

This homage piece has by Graffoto’s reckoning been through 5 different manifestations since it first appeared in 2017. The first face on this spot was actually just a lonesome bachelor in February 2017, but he did have a wonderful fresh complexion.

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Bachelor Small Face, Feb 2017

It was joined by its partner in around May 2017

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Homage to Stik, May 2017

By October 2017 the resilient female had endured a few chips but and chosen a new partner.

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Jace October 2017

This partner was tragically and mysteriously taken, our heroine moved on to another new partner in April 2018, this couple were noticeably closer than her previous relationships and now she preferred brown eyes to blue.

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Jace April 2018

After a long affair and following the pattern, the gentleman somewhat unchivalrously disappeared leaving the poor lady all alone.  Her next partner in July 2019 wasn’t exactly what you would call a looker but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

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Jace, July 2019

Then, unexpectedly, the couple disappeared, maybe they eloped together.   Last weekend a new couple were drawn to this most romantic corner, in fact one would attribute an almost post coital glow to this cheeky pair.

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Looking pretty damn pleased with themselves, January 2020

So why do these disappear?   As it doesn’t seem to be the council nor is it likely to be the wall owners removing them, the most likely explanation is going to be souvenir hunters.  Sticky fingered street art spotters who think the art would be much better in their private collection rather than enjoyed by its intended public audience.  It’s not all bad news with Jace’s faces, a wonderful story appeared on Jace’s Instagram last weekend about the fate of some small faces in Belfast, Northern Ireland… best told by Jace himself:

Part 1: “In December 2016 I discreetly installed one of my very first ever faces to this wonderful courtyard at Duke of York / Dark Horse Belfast – a creative and humorous space celebrating the people and culture of my city and country. Each year I returned to Cathedral Quarter more and more fantastic murals and installations (by artist @ciarangallagherart amongst others) would appear, and I too would leave another surprise gift in the form of a cheeky face. Some of the faces paid homage to the city, like my H&W giants: Samson & Goliath !”

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Jace Belfast Part 1, Photo by Jace

“At the very beginning of this year (2020) I made a quick visit back to the courtyard before leaving Belfast, and it appeared to me that all of the faces that had been installed over the years had been removed 😦😞☹️ I felt a tinge of sadness (though this is the nature of urban art) because I love this specific place so much, and was about to leave the courtyard when at a final glance down towards the gates something awesome caught my eye…”

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Belfast Part 2, Photo by Jace

Part 2: “all those faces installed from 2016 and dotted about the place have been relocated and displayed collectively. Truly awesome! Seeing this just as I was about to leave Belfast I felt immensely proud and overwhelmingly happy, because I enjoy being in this place a lot. And so, of course I had to put one more new face to the bottom of the column…”

 

When it comes to his small faces, Jace doesn’t do half measures, all told we found 8 small faces from the most recent Jace Shoreditch adventure and for the record, here are the other six beauties.

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Jace, Uberfubs, Dr Cream – all in fashion Jan 2020

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Theresa May, Jan 2020

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Jace Face in London, January 2020

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Purple Daze, Jan 2020

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Jace, January 2020

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Jace, January 2020

The Shoreditch Street Art Tours blog first wrote about Jace’s homage to Stik’s couple in October 2017

Then small faces in great places were featured again December 2017.

Let’s hope the Stik homage faces last even longer this time.

All photos Dave Stuart except Jace where credited.


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Winter Lights 2020 Canary Wharf London

Dark nights and biting cold make classic ingredients for some light art so off to Winter Lights at Canary Wharf, selfie heaven in the form of 26 sculptures.

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Affinity; Amigo and Amigo & S1T2Starting with our favourite, Constellation is part Dr Who theme tune vortex visual and part early 80s wire frame battlezone tank game.  The white light projected into water vapour clouds is totally immersive, absorbing and nothing like as wet as it might sound.

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Constellation; Studio Joanie Lemercier

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Constellation; Studio Joanie Lemercier

Pre visit consultation of the website suggested Absorbed By Light had compelling crowd “interaction” photograph potential but the crowds clustered around the bench means sharp elbows and abandoning your British reserve is essential, time and rumbling stomachs decreed we wouldn’t throw ourselves into that scrum.   In a desperate attempt to contrive a street art reference, this installation channeled two great pieces of art by Banksy, the Mobile Lovers in Bristol and the bench with seagulls at Dismaland.

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Constellation; Studio Joanie Lemercier

The Bra Tree fused the after effects of a Tom Jones gig in the park with a 1970s women’s lib rally, it probably looks much the same in daylight, the illuminations operate from 4pm to 10pm, as at night.  All the bras are believed to be part of the artist’s original installation, evidence suggesting otherwise gratefully received. Perhaps a more imaginative name would have inspired some more enlightened thinking about explosion in a lingerie department.

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The Bra Tree

Everyone can take fabulous photos at Winter Lights, the Mountain of Light is particularly photogenic.

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Mountain of Light; Angus Muir Design

Shish-Ka-Buoy looks like a rather psychedelic sex toy and once that thought is planted in your mind you just can’t erase it.

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Shish-Ka-Buoy; Angus Muir Design

Sasha Trees is one installation that involves quite a bit of a schlep from the main clusters and you’ve probably seen it already so even though it looks great if time is tight, this would be the one to drop

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Sasha Trees; Adam Decolight

Sky on Earth is a genius proof of the “there’s a queue, better join it quick” herd instinct. The installation has subwoofer bass note throbs accompanying a bubble bath with intermittent light flickers, you can extract the impact, effect and visuals just as effectively from around the perimeter but everyone who didn’t have kids under the age of 10 politely queued 10 minutes for the privilege of walking down the channel in the middle.

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Sky On Earth; UAII Studio

Light festival veterans in London will find a number of the installations quite familiar.  I can’t think how many light festivals the Light benches have appeared in and some such as Liquid Sound and Bit.Fall looked identical to last year.  Some were just downright underwhelming such as Seeds Of Life located in a shopping mall.

Winter Lights, Light Festival, Canary Wharf, Streetart, tourguide, neon, sculpture, urbanart

Squiggle; Angus Muir Design. So 2019.

Pools Of Light was also present last year and still looked like a 6th form disco light show fell into a ball pond.  This was amusing to the resigned attempts of steward to prevent people throwing the balls around in the face of what looked like about a dozen American Football matches taking place on the same pitch.

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Pools Of Light

It’s fun, it’s photogenic, it runs for a week until next Saturday 25th January and the forecast for this week is fortuitously dry.  Arriving at Canary Wharf tube station drops you right into the action so getting there isn’t too problematic, so perhaps well worth considering Winter Lights for a free thing to do in January.

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Mountain of Light; Angus Muir Design

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Lactolight by Lactolight

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Aquatics; Philipp Artus

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Ditto; Ithaca Studio

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Time and Tide; Paul and Pute

All photos Dave Stuart

See Winter Lights Website for more information


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2019 Shoreditch Street Art Remembered

Time to reflect on another glorious year of street art, or at least, the street art that blew away Shoreditch Street Art Tours.     Art by anyone for everyone was the idea for street art and it was still as vibrant and inventive in 2019.

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Jim Vision, Fanakapan

Nearly all of the art here has been seen on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour.

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Kamlaurene

The 2019 street art is celebrated with 40 more cool photos in the Graffoto blog post and a few words as well.

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All photos: Dave Stuart


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A Decade of Genius Street Art

As we start a new decade a review of a tiny amount of the amazing street art witnessed in the past decade seemed appropriate.

A Bun In Their Hair, ALO, Shoreditch 2014

Here is a slide show of a number of the images that made the final review of the “wild Wonderous and Inventive” art, which is a rather vague way of saying “stuff that wasn’t mentioned in our mural, sculptural or political street art reviews.

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The only way to bring to a close this dredging up of our favourite specimens of wild outdoor art is to look back at what Banksy has been up to. Although Banksy produced far less street art in the past decade than in the noughties, on almost all respects other than quantity he continues to be the most important, brilliant and relevant artist in whatever field he chooses.

Banksy Dismaland, 2015

Banksy’s Better In Than Out in New York saw a month long treasure hunt – “hide and seek” combo which cast Banksy as Bonnie And Clyde against the NY mayor, police and press and the world watched with glee but we already knew Banksy would never be caught.

Better Out Than IN, Banksy, New York, photo LunaPark

He also had a major art triumph staging a group shop with a conscience at Dismaland though we already knew Banksy did extraordinary exhibition/experience fusion.

Dismaland, Banksy, Weston Super Mare, 2015

He created a huge mural in Dover in 2017 but we already knew Brexit was a stupid idea.

Banksy, Dover 2017

My favourite Banksy of the decade however was his Les Miserables in Knightsbridge, London’s embassy land.

Tear gassed Cosette, Banksy, Knightsbridge London, 2016

It has the Banksy signature elements, it had the cleverness in repurposing the iconic image of Cosette, it had the impact in terms of global exposure, right opposite the French embassy it combined perfect placement with the “wow, how did he get away with that.” factor.

We did not however know about the French police tear gassing migrant families in the camps in Calais and this was Banksy’s crowning achievement, bringing that shameful episode to wider international attention.

Cosette v French embassy, Banksy, Knightsbridge London, 2016

This selection of photos a part of the selection reviewed and discussed on the Graffoto blog post 2010 – 2019 Wild Wonderous Inventive Street Art

All photos Dave Stuart except LunaPark where noted

It has been a huge pleasure to write 5 reviews of the street art of the past decade which we personally enjoyed.  The Links to those reviews are at the bottom of the Graffoto review.  A specific review of the street art of 2019 might appear shortly.