New art etc.

this is stanley donwood.

this is JR.

this is paul insect.
this is faile.

the other weekend matt took me to a pretty amazing little gallery at charing cross road, called Lazarides. that experience, looking mostly at examples of street art, combined with the show at the tate this weekend, well let's just say that i have another new fascination (see following blog). I have copious amounts of "downtime" in the evenings here after class, so i'm now able to do some internets research and generally check out images from these artists that i'm really excited to be learning more about.... i will give you some examples. I hope that Joe Havasy has seen some of this stuff! alot of the work that I saw, I automatically thought that he would appreciate it.... so here goes. see what you like. these are just the ones that caught my eye...

i think i'm attracted to the subversive, cryptic nature of street art. I know that these examples here don't really engender that, these are pieces i saw in gallery, which somewhat contradicts the intent.....i think that these appeal to my love of the pop art aesthetic more than anything. the elusiveness of artists such as banksy really appeals to me though... "artivists" is a term i saw somewhere. work that invades the public space and commands to be seen, transforms ordinary surfaces into art and by extension statement.
there is one image that i saw at the tate that is sticking with me and won't leave my mind... this shot by jr:

it is breathtaking in scale and even more amazing in the current state of decay... the print is peeling from the building. i don't know what to think of this. it's surely powerful though.

the greatest thing, however, is that one of the common threads in the shots i've been inclined to take (esp. around new york) is that of street art and graffiti....finding it accidentally almost always and being pleasantly surprised by it constantly.
so now i have the platform from which i can learn more about street art as a form, those who create it, and seek it out where and when i may...