triggerhappymedia

I received a message from someone sort of amazed by the idea behind Fly on the Wall. He said, “Fighting big food with a poster is a David and Goliath story, to be sure.”

How can public art be used as a tool for change? Certainly a good question.

I like this idea by street artist JR.

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Trigger: Street Attack

OUTLAW - Shot in the Dark
A DROME magazine and Lomography Photo Competition

Have you ever walked down a dark ally with your beloved LC-A in hand? Have you ever seen a vandalized building and couldn’t help but to admire that urban art covering the walls? Share this rawness from the streets with us! In this collaboration with Lomography, we are looking for your best images of stencils, posters, stickers, graffiti or any other form or “illegal expression” that you can find on the streets…

The winners will receive a Staple Colorsplash camera and a feature spot in DROME magazine. One important rule: Lomography will only accept photos taken with analogue cameras. None of the following would qualify, but it was a nice excuse to take a look back.

Banksy. London, 2004

Orgasmo Roma. Rome, 2004

CCTV. Milan, 2007

Milan, 2007

 Brooklyn, 2008

Godless America. San Francisco, 2009

NYC, 2008

Freak What You Feel! Brooklyn, 2008

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Trigger: Shot in the Dark details and entry form here

New work by Juan Olalde combines metal art with loteria cards to celebrate Dia de los Muertos.

Graffiti in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Venezuelan artist El Hase imagines what would happen if religious icons went punk. His “La Santa Lucha” exhibition opens this Sunday in Brooklyn.

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Trigger: Alphabeta NYC

The 2005 documentary Inside Outside follows eight international street artists (including Swoon, Os Gemeos, and Adams & Itso) to see what makes them tick- and ticks them off.

These days I stay in a NYC neighborhood that I don’t know very well. I am visually assaulted every time I step out my front door. Soho is just about looking like you have money. All the advertisements read fuck you for thinking that you already owned everything you want and need. Fuck the poor.

Wooster Collective was named after Wooster Street. A quick look around, and it’s impossible to tell what was so inspiring. A tag scrawled on several sidewalks and construction barricades reads “Nobody Cares.” But nobody is even here. The streets are empty, and there is nothing to see here.

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Trigger: PingMag interview with director Andreas Johnsen

Back in my days of free magazines, a bad selection was forgivable. Now it costs $5-$9. I wanted something I hadn’t read before from the indie side of the rack. I hastily chose Swindle, Shepard Fairey’s pet dedicated to street art, art art, and posturing coolness.

When I flipped through it at home, I had a Jean Kilbourne moment.

The oral fixation is only slightly more original then having a themed “London Issue”. My mistake.

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Trigger: Swindle magazine

Graffiti World: Street Art from Five Continents was a Christmas gift from my little sister. What took me until April 8th to pick it up? It’s heavy (weighs at least five pounds, hardcover, 376 pages)!! I’ve been traveling the past few months, and finally got to settle into it last night.

Over 2000 illustrations. Hard to choose the illest. What struck me was Eltono and Nuria Mora’s paintings of tuning forks and keys in Madrid. I love the simplicity, the contrast of bright colors among the old buildings. They reminded me of Zezão’s swirling patterns in the sewers of São Paulo: beauty against bleakness.

Faith 47 also has an exquisite touch, spraying her wispy designs across Cape Town’s harsh environment.

“It’s taking the stuff that everybody hates and nobody wants to see and making it more in their face. In South Africa, there are millions of people living in makeshift shacks….It’s so hard to see it all the time and not be able to change it. What can I do to save the fucking world? So I paint shacks.”

Graffiti World (HND Books, 2005) is a must-read for its vivid photography and interviews with 180 international street artists.

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Trigger: Graffiti World by Nicholas Ganz

If you don’t have something nice to say, write it on a wall.

 

 

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Trigger: walking Brooklyn

Last Thursday indy graffiti mag, Overspray, celebrated the launch of their sixth issue with an art battle in Brooklyn.

To play on the issue’s theme, the four competing artists represented the California graf scene. Click here to watch ‘em duke it out on canvas.

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Trigger/Site: Overspray magazine

Ms. H’s summer school history class had one major assignment. Equipped with disposable cameras, they were sent out into Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn, to take one picture. They then had to research the story behind the image.

Both photo and descriptive essay made their debut at Nurture Art gallery on Friday night. On display were distinct landmarks like the Domino Sugar Factory, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the polluted Newtown Creek.

But a number of students picked local graffiti as their subject- particularly an Obey wheatpaste of a girl holding a grenade. Their essays then talked about the meaning of this work and others by artist Shepard Fairey. The students also questioned the difference between graffiti as vandalism (a sign of neighborhood degeneration) and graffiti as art (thought provoking or beautiful imagery.) There is no simple answer, and I must admit that this street art-lover got a little warm and fuzzy reading the students’ take on it.

Overall this project was a great opportunity for both the students and gallery guests to think about the rich history behind NYC neighborhoods. Gold stars all around!

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Trigger: show at Nurture Art

Tribeca Film Festival premiere
2007, USA

Bomb It was a labor of love for director and street art aficionado Jon Reiss. He traveled through five continents and captured hundreds of hours of footage. The result is a fascinating picture of graffiti from around the world.

The film explores the different motivations driving graffiti artists to “bomb”, or spray their designs, in public spaces. The common quality is that their work reflects the social and political climate of the cities where they live. Graf writers in New York City crave notoriety in an anonymous city. Tokyo street art signifies a step outside of the homogenous culture. At one point graffiti in Cape Town called for an end to apartheid. Now the focus is on aesthetic appeal and self-expression.

Across Los Angeles’ landscape of freeways and billboards, graffiti is the indication that life is not just about consumption. But there are those who are concerned about graffiti as an indicator of gang activity and neighborhood degeneration.

One of the most impressive moments in the film is an interview with Valerie Hill, the Graffiti Abatement Program Manager of T.A.G. (Totally Against Graffiti). T.A.G.’s purpose is to encourage children to reject graffiti and to report others who do it. Their method of persuasion?

“Students can get rewards for helping their schools reach the best record of reporting graffiti. T.A.G. sponsors provide participating schools with free pizza, cookies, fun park tickets and other powerful rewards for helping to clean up graffiti.”

Hill hopes that the program can help children to connect with brands, rather than with gangs and crime. For sponsors like Nestle, T.A.G. offers a brilliant opportunity to secure brand loyalty at an early age.

As childhood obesity rates continue to climb in the United States, discouraging graffiti with prizes of pizza and chocolate seems like a misguided solution. The T.A.G. program is effective in cleaning up the neighborhood. The problem is that the children may be too fat and lethargic to go play in it.

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Trigger: Bomb It & T.A.G.