Monthly Archives: March 2024

all female artists of WOM Collective painted a railway wall

Shoreditch Street Art Update

Heading into Easter week there was so much activity that it is definitely worth a Shoreditch street art update.

Saturday saw the all female WOM collective close off a month long art programme with an all female paint jam in Allen Gardens.

the all female artist WOM collective in action in Allen Gardens in Shoreditch

WOM Collective work in progress

3 finished murals from the all female artist WOM collective under a railway bridge in Shoreditch

JHO, Yana Chernikova & Meg Young – WOM Collective

That same Saturday morning the discovery of a single paste up by New York artist Toastoro raised eyebrows, was it added by a friend or a possible visit in person?  It was such a pleasure when Toastoro unexpectedly walked into the bar on Brick Lane where a group of us were enjoying an aperitif, much as we were when we last met him in 2022.  Toastoro now has the mistaken impression that we live in that bar!

paste up bny New York street artist Toastoro shows a Studio Ghibli susuwatari dust sprite peeping through bamboo shoots

Toastoro’s Susuwatari, March 2024

Saturday afternoon saw a group of paste up artists adding new art in several locations along Brick Lane.  Subdude, Rolling Fool, Oddo, Uberfubs, Susi_foxy_art all made beautiful offerings for the walls in a number of spots.

street artists preparing paste up street art

Paste up group, Brick Lane

Subdude, March 2024

Uberfubs, March 2024

It was nice to welcome Floating Concrete back with some very delicate concrete lettering and a new idea in recycling old photographs.

unusual cast concrete letters by Floating concrete on recycled photographs on Brick Lane

Floating Concrete

On my wanders both with the paste up collective and then on the tour the next day it was a pleasure to discover some 3D printed skulls by the Portland skullmeister Rx Skulls (also visible in the photo above but that’s from a little while back).

RX Skulls, to the power of 3. March 2024

Close to Old Street Michogato joined a number of graffiti writers, mainly from the Ghost Writers crew to freshen up the plaza next to the Fire Station.

street art mural in Shoreditch shows head on view of a tube crowded by cats being driven by a cat by Micho Gato

Micho Gato, March 2024

legal Graffiti and street art murals by Shoreditch Fire station featuring Micho Gato, Alone, Sleaf, 2Rise, Kaes, Gabs

L-R Micho Gato, Alone, Sleaf, 2Rise, Kaes, Gabs

Yet more visiting street artists pasted up some magnificent art on Brick Lane; Sez La Vie imagines what a droid would look like if Matisse had got the design gig.  This was pasted in the company of his friend Old Bones.

Colourful textured wooden garage doors in Shoreditch with large street art paste ups of a droid with apple Magritte style and a Queen of broken hearts playing card

Old Bones Art and Sez La Vie, March 2024

In the middle of the preceding week the railway bridge on Wheler St got a delicious new collection of tattoo style lettering from the Sacred Lettering crew but especially noteworthy was how Trafik blended his graffiti background into the adjacent existing piece by Squarms from a few weeks ago.

gothic graffiti lettering saying Trafik blends with street art showing skeleton in front of bales of multi coloured tufting yarn by Squarms in Shoreditch

Trafik, Squarms, Mar 2024

Freshly painted this week was a portrait added by Pablo Fiasco in the margins of his Linton Kwesi Johnson portrait from just a few weeks earlier. [update – further updated in the past 24!]

Pablo Fiasco, March 2024

The rush of Shoreditch street art creativity delivered quite a number of unexpected Easter eggs, now let’s see if the Easter Bunny can do the same

Additional Links

Elfin insta

Lours Insta

JHO insta

Yana Chernikova insta

Meg Young insta

Pawz insta

Alone insta

Sleaf insta

2Rise insta

Kaes insta

Gabs insta

Travis insta

ALl Photos: Dave Stuart

 

[more to follow]


New Banksy stencil of a man spraying tree on a street in North London

Banksy Imitates Nature

Spring is sprung and Banksy welcomes the freshest season with some fresh street art.  Last Spring it  was Valentines Day Mascara in Southend, this year a hibernating tree bursts into life with a vigorous new canopy of green foliage thanks to a gardener armed with a garden sprayer.

New Banksy stencil of a man spraying tree on a street in North London

Banksy Tree March 2024

It can be interpreted new life, new growth and rebirth is possible even in this most urban and densely populated of North London Locations, or maybe it suggests a resident is fed up that the tree has been so brutally pollarded by the council, pollarding being a routine annual exercise for public trees in these parts.  News of this new piece emerged on Sunday 17th of March so perhaps there is even a nod towards the St Paddy’s day celebrations.

New Banksy stencil of a man spraying tree on a street in North London

scene of the crime

The character holding the garden sprayer is stencilled in a very recognisable Banksy light-dark two tone style.  Evidently in his desire to get as much greenery up as possible the gardener has covered himself in paint.   The green of the foliage is a slightly different hue to that used in the character and also different to the green used to give solidity to the sprayer rod, so three different shades of green altogether.

New Banksy stencil of a man spraying tree on a street in North London

“I did that”

New Banksy stencil of a man spraying tree on a street in North London

3 greens in detail

Much of the reportage suggests that Banksy has used a fire extinguisher to paint the foliage.  He has critiqued the cultural institution Festival Hall by spraying BORING with a fire extinguisher, flown an extinguisher paint powered Love Plane in Liverpool and in his intrusion into Cromer’s model village in 2022 he cutely simulated fire extinguisher graff at miniature scale so Banksy is not lacking experience with that tool.  However, a fire extinguisher generally produces a lot more splatter and a haze of colour around the impact areas.  The dripping and the controlled arcs of green, particularly where the paint reaches over the wall to the left, suggest Banksy may have used the type of hand pressurised sprayer he is seen deploying in his “You don’t mask you don’t get” 2020 post lockdown tube cleaning video, the paint effect is then consistent with the garden sprayer the character is depicted holding.  The density of the paint in some areas and the really heavy drips could also suggest paint throwing.  The stencil character also has signed of hand touch ups.  Probably a combination of different techniques was used.

Banksy stencil biplance loops the loop love heart shape on wall in Liverpool 2011

Banksy Love Plane, Liverpool, 2011

Banksy street art on a model home installed without permission at Merrivale Model Village

Banksy mini fire extinguisher graff on model village stable, Aug 2021

Artistmedea who we often meet at urban art shows where she live sketches the private view crowds was thrilled as she lives very close by. She told me that when she has been out sketching she often walks home late at night past the spot chosen by Banksy because it is actually well lit at night.

Artist sketches scene of New Banksy in North LOndon

Artist Medea live sketches

When Banksy did the Valentine Day Mascara in Southend last year I spoke to and photographed a traditional painter with his easel set up painting the “It’s a new Banksy” circus in oils.   Under then name Peter The Painter his art then appeared in the Cut and Run Banksy exhibition in Glasgow last Summer.  Artistmedea ruefully laughed at the comparison with her sketching, promising that Banksy hadn’t hired her.

New Banksy stencil of a man spraying tree on a street in North London

You should have seen the queue of photographers behind me

Time will be a fascinating component of this new Banksy artwork.  Not just the normal temporal aging that affects all street art and graffiti as much as it affects us, nor hopefully the awful sequestration and commodification of those pious “for posterity” art salvors but the pendulum of the seasons will bring forth shoots and leaves to shade and blend with Banksy’s green hues over the warm months before the winter shedding reveals the ageing piece on the wall again.

Banksy imitates nature, nature will imitate art.

LINKS:

Banksy website

Medea’s Instagram

All Photos: Dave Stuart


Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

Space Invader Art Show In Paris Invader Space Station

The.Headquarters of an inter planetary invasion led by Space Invader has been opened to the public for the first time at the Invader Space Station in Paris.

Teleporting to Paris to investigate, we discover intergalactic intrusions set in a multi level game masquerading as featureless former car park/office block.   We enter with trepidation, no one in history has ever survived a space invader attack, we are doomed to run out of lives.

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

Invader Space Station

It takes 9 levels to master this game but the first 4 are spent powering up.  The original much loved Space Invader arcade game rewards (or results in) fast wrists capable of extreme rapid fire button action at moments of close up battle, in the Invader Space Station strong thighs are an advantage as the platform lacks an elevating booster.

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

Powering up

Level 5 is where the enemy first engages.

From a deepest outer space darkness, larger than life rank and file invaders march towards us, way larger and more muscular than we remember from those ancient coin-op confrontations decades ago.  Flashing angular warriors whose amplified harmonic grunt gets faster and louder as they rip the darkness apart pin us to the edge of the universe.  Adrenaline reaching levels free from gravity and defences drained, we flee up to the next level pursued by a sound like someone downstairs has a record player that jumps back after the opening two notes of an acid brass band doing Purple Haze as a duet for euphonium and tuba.

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

When the show closes come back to us, we might then have the courage to memorialise this awesome installation in video format but until then, we need to get by not thinking about it.

Entering the space station we were allowed to retain our communication devices, unlike, for example, in the black hole our phones vaporised into at a rat artist’s show in Northern climes in a previous epoch.  Our phones have been seeded with a viral app called Flash Invaders which we believe to be a “game”, our vigilance in spotting these lurking invaders on the streets is rewarded with “points” which take us up the “leaderboard” but tracking those invaders is tricky.

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

Most Valuable Invader Drones

The next level reveals the scale and density of the invaders local infiltration.  They are everywhere and mainly lurking in plain sight.  A location map and a matrix boasts of the visible spectrum characteristics of each invader but not their performance specs.  Some conduct their spying from roofs, some lurk at ground level.  We are obsessed with fixing their position using that app but the map of Paris on display is deliberately vague, in the real world each invader could be anywhere in the hundreds of meters that each marker covers.

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

In 83 cities across 32 countries an army of (so far) 4027 invaders monitor, record, survey, report and spy.  Waves of attack on all fronts, the intrusion is global.   The next level of the Invader Space Station reveals the most photogenic invaders around the world though perhaps it is more of a spectacular large scale “employee of the month” photo wall.  Who is the best spy, which invader is documenting the most human activity through that app?

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in ParisThat question is actually answered quite explicitly on a real time monitor showing live surveillance successes.  You think we are playing the game?  The app is actually feeding our flashes back to the central hive, our location and times are tracked so that Space Invader, gloating Jabba-like in his lair, can monitor and measure the thousands of us daily pursuing the invaders embedded throughout the planet.  We are being played.

Lest we think our growing awareness of his scheme somehow levels the game, Space Invader’s next capsule mocks our puny efforts at mimicry.  A simple wall invites your counter attack but the result is an accumulation of toy-like marks and sticker.  Read, weep, don’t try this anywhere else is the overt Space Station message.   Curiously, the top of the wall houses a sequence of names, some clearly in code.  These are believed to be collaborators, if you know you know as they themselves say.

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

Space Invader is a master of video surveillance techniques, grainy dark footage of brief glimpses of invaders touching down in position simultaneously fascinates and strikes the fear of the unknowable into us.

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

In parallel with the main invasion action, very secret tools have allowed Space Invader to capture humans and animals, transmogrify them and imprison them in embryonic stasis in pods mockingly called Kinder Eggs.  The next level forces real living humans to revert to a state of juvenile delight at Invader’s collection of captured Kinder Eggs, oh the unexpected shock and horror.

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

Rumour and allegations orbited the Forumosphere that the first invaders were innocent rubik’s cubes dismembered and rearranged in horrific parody of an old game played on low res screen in cabinet devices often located in pubs and arcades. The resulting mosaics were then given the responsibility of keeping sentry on street walls in major concentrations of humans such as Paris and London.  There is clear evidence at the 7th Level of entire rubiks cubes being assembled to make blurry images of artefacts of mass public appeal.   The cunning thing about the blurry images is that they are a disguise hard to figure out with the naked eye but on a phone screen it is much clearer who invaders are, all a ruse to get humans to pull out their phones and ultimately give their location away.

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

Next level is a magnificent Invader pin-up hall of fame.  Prints, canvas replicas and images face off against eachother.   These are the indoor versions of the outdoor mosaics.  5 football stars, all manspread knees and flash perms leer at a quartet of stunning blondes while gun toting film directors face down gangsters and OG rock stars.   No icy winters cracking their pixels off or Summer sunburn, a life in frames beckons these pampered prima donnas of the space station.

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

Our efforts in clearing the 7th Level were rewarded with cinemacope presentations of longer length Space Invader propaganda.  Accommodation is rudimentary lest comfort distract you from the audiovisuals and the propaganda changes, so what you witness depends on your space-time vector, in other words the day of the week you beam up.  We watched the compelling sand advert “I Invade Djerba” (2020) and left with a yearning to visit and not just because there are (or once upon a time were) 58 Invaders to spot.  Traditionalist space travellers will be horrified at the casual desecration of the old gods’ abodes as an invader takes up station on a hut previously in real life occupied by Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.  The force is with Space Invader these days.  Also available is the space classic “Art4Space” (2012) in which Space Invader… oh we don’t want to give too much away but defying gravity is involved and it takes place in Cape Canaveral, a spiritual home from home for the Space Invader.

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

A shocking demonstration of the power of the Invaders took place a few years ago when a trio went rogue, hijacked a plane and flew around regions where humans are known generally let their defences down.   Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water… they come for you from the sky!  Scenes of panic and hysteria were witnessed by the Invader’s minions and if you make it to the higher levels of the Space Station you get a glimpse into their photo archive of photos of this invasion exercise.

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

Invader banner

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

Invading La Plage

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

Invading La Plage

An optical monitoring device near the top of the Space Station fixes on the latest invader to take up station.  The 1500th invader in Paris, PA_1500 to give it its formal code, sits on top of the exoskeleton of a modern art mausoleum called the Centre Pompidou about 1 light kilometre from the Space Station as the Galaxian flies.

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

Centre Pompidou from Invader Space Station

Insurgents have railed against the desecration of the incumbent authority’s cultural palace but there is evidence the Pompidou Centre was complicit in their own downfall, according to a transmission detected from Space Invader the rulers of the Pompidou were practically begging to host an Invader.

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

Invader Space Station

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

PA_1500 flashed – 100 Points in the bag!

This invader’s height grants it immense range and it is almost invulnerable to any ground-to-air assault.  The telescope is a relatively simple concoction of lenses known to allow light to pass through in both directions, based on the evidence of the curious relationship invaders have with such devices, were we looking at the invader or was it looking at us?

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

PA_1500 through the looking glass

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

PA_1432’s telescope, often mistaken for a cloud

Any modern invasion must incorporate certain customary elements: take over the means of communication, then issue instructions, then control the populace.  The newspaper Libération, oh the irony of that title, used to be published from the very premises the Invader Space Station currently occupies.  Star log 2012 saw Space Invader enter the building and take control of the paper, subliminal surreptitious invader motifs took over the masthead and the font.   The last level of any game is where ultimate mastery is established and there at the very top floor we find PA_992 has since 2012 been transmitting into space, readily witnessed by the Google satellite.

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

Libération

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

PA_992 rooftop Invader 2012

Review of Space Invader Art Show Invader Space Station in Paris

detected by Google earth mothership satellite station

That’s it.  They said we could expect to spend 1.5 hours surveying the Invader Space Station, we were detained for over 3.   Locating the exit we turn sideways, flap our arms up and down from the elbow and do the space invader jive through the deep space portal back to London.   Game over.

Art shows by street artists these days tend to be regimented product displays, framed art with price tags.  “Owners required, help me shift my inventory”.  Not enough art for arts sake, more farts for farts to take.  This Space Invader art experience harnesses concept, installation and retrospective in a manner harking back to the glory days of shows by the likes of Swoon, Faile, Cept, Giles WalkerPaul Insect taking over old swimming baths, Dr D putting us on spin cycle in an open working launderette and Banksy’s Cans Festival where the art mattered, not the Profit and Loss.  Invader Space Station really brings the art back into street art and does it with style and fun.  Next level.


Space Invader: Invader Space Station

2nd Feb – 5th May 2024

11 rue Béranger

Paris 75003


Links:

Invader Space Station Bookings

Space Invader Website

All photo: Dave Stuart