Tour times subject to schedule, please check Bookings page
Meet: The Goat Statue, Brushfield St, London E1 6AA. Closest tube: Liverpool St, exit via Bishopsgate exit. Walk in the opposite direction from Heron Tower (the big one with the needle on top); Brushfield St is about 100 yards on the right hand side, the third road up from the station. It has a big church at the far end
Graffestival, a huge spraycan art festival at the Nomadic Community Gardens and surroundings areas just off Brick Lane is happening this weekend. Painting started today with a frantic burst of wall preparations, rollers, hoists, cans, renewing old acquaintances, sharing beers and gossip, chilling in the glorious sunshine, nodding to heavy beats and drinking red stripe. With thanks to the artists whose consent we obtained for photos and apologies to those that we didn’t get the chance to interrupt, here are walls, shadow, marks and work in progress. The festival continues tomorrow (Sunday 22nd).
It has been a long time since we did this but the dance card for the next few days is chock full of fantastic events you might consider adding to your diary.
The ever brilliant BSMT Gallery in Dalston marked its re-opening last week in better premises with a group show called Dystopia dedicated to Extinction Rebellion. Tonight Wednesday 18th September BSMT hosts the first of a series of related workshops. Following a talk about the mission of Extinction Rebellion there will be an introductory workshop in regenerative culture, which will discuss and provide some of the tools and approaches one can use to maintain one’s physical and psychological well-being in the face climate catastrophe. A specialist in this field from Extinction Rebellion will lead the workshop.
Extinction Rebelion at BSMT, Photo courtesy BSMT Space
You will also get to see an exciting collection of urban art including some amazing bronze castings by Jonesy
Jonesy
Thursday is packed. Subdude has his first solo show at the atmospheric Monty’s Bar and I hear he is premiering a range of new previously unseen political lightning bolts.
Finally, the big one this weekend is the Graffestival at the Nomadic Community Gardens, organised by Jim Vision/End Of The Line. Two “flyers” for this, one being an absolutely stellar collection of spraycan artists from the graff and street art spheres, the second is the music. This is likely to be the last major spraycan event at this location which has hosted numerous editions of the brilliant Meeting of Styles under same management. We here the feature wall is going to be something very special for signing off from this spot.
Nomadic Community Gardens, Hayley, Roving Cafe – we loved you so much!
Graffestival artists lineup, nomadic Community Gardens
Graffestival music lineup, nomadic Community Gardens
Lest we forget, London Design Festival LDF19 runs until the 22nd of September and there is so much of this located in the Shoreditch area, my fav (so far) has to be this Lee Broom installation which is yards from where our street art tours end
Lee Broom installation, LDF19
There ya go, don’t say nothing ever happens.
photos: Dave Stuart except Graffestival and BSMT flyers courtesy respective organisations
This week saw knobbly knees being tucked into jeans for the first time in about 3 months, Summer is definitely over and Autumn brings with it a fresh leaf fall. This leaf is courtesy of Sean Worrall and it is a gorgeous specimen from his #artdrops project.
Suzanne from LA was the lucky person who retrieved this from the wall – just, tip toes required!
This particular leaf is number 11 of the 2019 #artdrops series. We love the Extinction Symbol in support of Extinction Rebellion on the back.
“43 paintings [] will make up the month-long #43Leaves piece. 43 paintings on found recycled unwanted material picked up off the streets. Material picked up, cleaned up, painted on and then left hanging back out on the street for people to just take should they wish to”.
Thank you Sean for your characteristic generosity of spirit.
Nice to know another one of Sean’s leafs is taking up residence in a location far far away. Sean’s free art #artdrops have featured on the Shoreditch Street Art Tours blog quite frequently in the past, check them out here
Bob Osbourne and Carrie Reichardt created a stir last year with the book Cash Is King featuring real currency notes abused, defaced and revalued by artists. Not satisfied with one book of defaced cash they have only gone and done it again and published Volume 2 of Cash Is.
Antony Lister, Daze in Cash Is King Vol 2
Last year the book launched at the Saatchi Gallery on the Kings Road and a bevvy of artists grabbed copies to vandalise the covers more than they were already. Same thing is going to happen again this Tuesday can you believe.
Money Talks!
As well as copies of this subversive tome, specimens of paper money in frames from many artists are available to be purchased at what may look like attractive prices. Capitalists welcome.
We Fail in Cash Is King Vol 2
Many artists have contributed art and provided explanations that sometimes seen even quite lucid. There are several fascinating essays and even a small section from me mulling over that wobbly intersection between cash and street art, don’t say you haven’t been warned. My fav essay is one by Jonathan Harris who recaps a career of burning money, it includes musings on theories of money, human nature, hallucinations and builds towards an anecdote involving a staged money burning at the entrance to a graveyard in 2016, crowned with the genius gag “Failure now would have grave consequences”.
Arthur Uther Pendragon’s £23 Note
Apart from Bob and Carrie, various other people have winged some form of curation in the exhibition including Olly Walker, Suze Hansen , Martyn Reed, sxselli, Rosie Osbourne and mutoid waste.
Copies of the book can be acquired through the author Bob Osbourne or from Saatchi Gallery.
The framed notes can be viewed at and purchased from the Saatchi website or from the exhibition which is live and open to the public from Wednesday, closes 8th September. Do try to make it.
One of the Cash Is King dust jackets photographed in Cash Is King 2 is “Mommon” by Peter Dunne, which provides a tenuous in the extreme leap street artist Mammon (as in “wealth regarded as an evil influence or false object of worship and devotion”) who put up three slogans fabricated out of coins late last week, literally turning cash into street art.
The lovely people at Speak Media just off Brick Lane have just published a cool feature about street art story telling featuring Shoreditch Street Art Tours founder and chief guide Dave.
It’s a lovely little piece, the photos look stunning and we hope that we won’t be around in 1000 years to see if our prediction for future story telling is accurate.
Just for fun, here are a couple of bonus photos of two moments related in the Speak Media feature;
Alex Patterson from The Orb, rocking the Pure Evil Gallery basement, 2012
Bankers grieve at the K-Guy Boom Economy Memorial, October 2008
Ever wondered if Chicago is anything like Shoreditch? Ever wondered what a craft 5. 9% IPA might taste like? Thanks to a very unusual mural and beer promotion fusion, you can now investigate both of these (terms and conditions and chance apply!).
Shoreditch Street Art Tour Guests possibly being persuaded to have a beer
To get a free pint of Goose Island beer and possibly win a trip to Chicago, you just have to check out the mural on Ebor Street in Shoreditch where Goose Island have come up with a pretty novel promotional wheeze. A commissioned mural has been covered with 2500 cans, they giving away 50 cans day for three days. You take the can down to The Goose Island Brewpub on Shoreditch High Street just a couple of hundred yards away where you exchange the can for a free pint of lager AND you are entered into a draw to win a flight to Chicago.
Goose: pick a can, any can..
The mural has been executed by the guys at Graffiti Life, known for applying their graffiti skills to painting commercial murals – skills pay bills. The Graffiti Life guys have awesome skills but in general we don’t gush over adverts on walls where art should be,it is rarely a stop for the tour. However, this one has novelty and – come on, it’s a free pint of beer!
Got one
Reckon this one has “Chicago or bust” written all over it?”
Now we have seen cans in street art before, notably the brilliant art of Jakuna Melata who came over from Barcelona last summer.
Jakuna Melata, Soho, 2018
We have also seen spray cans painted by artists and left as a piece of free art.
This wall though really is quite novel. Apparently the team is going to be there one more day, Sunday which at the time of writing is tomorrow, They’ll be there for about two hours or until the day’s allocation of 50 cans has been given away. We don’t know which two hours though, so you’re going to have to take pot luck.
Do say “Same again, thank you very much”
(yes yes ok, I did have one of their free beers but other than that there is no association with any other organisation mentioned in this post)
Art shows involving street artists have a special place in Shoreditch Street Art Tour’s affections, particularly when the exhibition is artists we love in the kind of rugged unconventional gallery spaces we prefer. ODDO, DaddyStreetFox, MCLN and Savant just had an exhibition called “THe Start OF THE End” at Monty’s Bar on Brick Lane and it ticked all the boxes.
Sadly the exhibition has closed before we had the chance to finalise a write up of it but one theme that emerged that was the direct line between the art on the streets and the artists’ indoor art.
Indoors ODDO pretty much replicates the breadth of styles but really amps up the dark, warped and bizarre. Introducing the hairy babies! They look spooky on the streets, they are awesome in the rough sculptural creations in this show.
ODDO Hairy Baby – Shoreditch 2018
ODDO – Hairy Baby!
Framed works on paper serve to underline how faithful the street paste ups are to ODDO’s indoor art.
ODDO – Do I Know Your Name (Shoreditch 2018)
DaddyStreetFox’s contributions have a direct line from the layered collages in frames in the gallery to the photos of the collages as seen on the streets.
DaddyStreetFox – From The Wood (Collage)
DaddyStreetFox – From The Wood (paste up)
MCLN’s plague doctor has been a charming and occasionally emotionally charged character that has decorated Shoreditch walls for several years now but the artist appears to have embraced other characters this year.
MCLN – Shoreditch 2019
MCLN Expedition Kindred
Savant is one of Shoreditch’s more prolific street artists with a reputation for complex imagery populated by ghosts, themes of darkness and death in a surreal Dadaist style utilising collages of text and imagery. Intriguing and easy to like, Savant’s art translates well into the theme of the show and the company it is keeping.
Savant – Your Approval Is Not Required, paste up Shoreditch 2018
Savant – Entropy
This is an extract of a longer review of the “The Start Of The end” show, the full review including more photos and details of Monty’s Bar which is often recommended to gusts at the end of the tour are available on Graffoto
DETAILS:
“The Start Of the End”
ODDO and special guests DaddyStreetFox, MCLN, Savant
England are Cricket World Cup Champions for the first time after lifting the trophy in one of the most dramatic sporting occasions ever at Lords Cricket Ground. England Captain, the Irishman Eoin Morgan followed in the footsteps of Shoreditch Street Art tours in getting his hands on the revered trophy.
Yes, you read that correctly! First, just a little background as it is possible that some followers of Shoreditch Street Art Tours may not be keeping fully up to date on a minute by minute basis with developments in the world of cricket. The Cricket World Cup has been hosted by England and Wales Test and County Cricket Board and England played New Zealand in the final today. It was the tensest, most exciting closest game ever, the two teams ended with exactly the same number of runs, so a deciding “Super Over” was played and both teams scored exactly the same number of runs, so then it went to the third method of deciding the game and England were the winners, winning the World Cup for the first time.
England Celebrates with ICC Cricket World Cup – photo courtesy We Are England Cricket
England have reached the final on three previous occasions but for lack of an Irishman as captain failed to win any of those attempts.
Eoin Morgan with ICC Cricket World Cup – photo courtesy We Are England Cricket
This would not have come to pass were it not for possibly one of the jammiest flukes ever seen on any sports pitch. With 3 balls left the required run rate had sky rocketed and was looking impossible, England batsman Stokes scrambled to make his ground for a 2 when the incoming throw from 60 yards away struck the bat of the diving Stokes and diverted to the boundary for what under the laws of the game was a 4 to add to the 2 already picked up for running between the wickets. Without those 4 extra runs the cup would have been the Kiwi’s.
If Stokes had not had to dive, if the ball had come in fractionally later, if it had bounced 2 inches higher to clear Stoke’s bat…we would have a different outcome but these things did not happen and a jubilant nation instantly forgot its embarrassment.
So how did Shoreditch Street Art Tours fit in with this excitement? Well, in May last year, Young People’s Laureate For London Caleb Femi wrote a poem anticipating the international festival of cricket due to visit England, the poem was written up on a wall on Brick Lane by commercial spraycan artists Graffiti Life and the World Cup Trophy was brought to Brick Lane for a photo shoot.
Poem by Caleb Femi, sprayed by Graffiti Life on Brick Lane
At that moment, the Shoreditch Street Art Tour turned the corner onto Brick Lane and found itself in the privileged position of being able to pose with the World Cup Trophy.
ICC Cricket World Cup meets Shoreditch Street Art Tours Group
Five minutes later, official snaps taken, the trophy was whisked away –we fluked our timing with the finesse of a Ben Stokes dive.
ICC Cricket World Cup checking out street art
My bike ride to Shoreditch takes me past the front gates of Lords Cricket Ground every day and one sunny day in May I spotted a curious sight, the post box outside the ground had turned blue overnight. It wasn’t a piece of “Blue period” graffiti however, outside each venue where World Cup games were played a post box was painted blue in celebration. It qualifies as art on the street rather than street art perhaps.
World Cup Post Box at Lords
World Cup Post Box at Lords
Congratulations to England and commiserations to New Zealand
