Filippo Minelli

Here at SuperForest we are admirers of street art, good street art in particular.
A while ago I visited the homepage of the Italian conceptual artist Filippo Minelli and I must that I'm very impressed. In an interesting manner he combines the digital word and the real world. Take a look at what he did to the wall separating Israel and Palestine.

For the people who have spent their entire lives on Macintosh computers: 'CTRL + ALT + DELETE' is Windows-slang for 'stop this ill-considered process'. What Minelli is obviously trying to say here is: "tear this thing down, and be quick, eh".

I find it fascinating to see someone combine the fast, digital, computer world that we live in today with the somewhat less digital, 'realer' world.
Minelli did something comparable in Cambodia, there he heavily made use of the Web 2.0 concept.


It's part of his series named Contradictions, and I think the contradiction here is very clear.
In our Western world every toddler has got their own space on the internet but in places like Cambodia people sometimes don't even have their own space in the physical world.

Not all of Filippo Minelli's works are as issue-related as the above examples, nonetheless they're all worthwhile to look at. Visit his website for his portfolio and some more information on the man himself (the one-line-character series are worth taking a look at in particular).

Play Me, I'm Yours

Photo: Dean Sewell

As a lover of all instruments, I was pretty chuffed to learn about 20 pianos being placed all over Sydney, as part of the Sydney Festival. Each piano is decorated with coloured stencils that read: Play me, I’m yours, inviting passers-by to sit down and have an impromptu jam session.

Luke Jerram, the British artistic consultant behind Play Me, I'm Yours, sees the project as a way to bring people together.

“I've got a bit of a problem with art galleries because they only reach a certain segment of the community,” he said. “This provides an opportunity for people to be creative and to connect with a stranger.”

The outdoor pianos are chained to trees and signposts, and are covered with tarpaulins, but Jerram isn’t concerned about vandals or the weather. He bought the pianos cheaply on eBay and will donate them to the communities that play them during the festival.

Street Art: Roadsworth!

This is Peter Gibson:

And this is some of his artwork:

That’s right SuperForest; we’ve got another street artist for you! This one is coming to us straight from Montreal and his thought provoking artwork over in Canada has caused quite a stir. He began his work with one simple goal in mind, create more bike lanes. This goal would later evolve into somewhat of a movement. Gibson explains,

“As my personal artistic process evolved, political concerns were eclipsed by artistic ones and I often felt more inspired by the process than I did by the message I was trying to convey. Marshall Mcluhans famous quote "the medium is the message" is significant in this regard. The ubiquitousness of the asphalt road and the utilitarian sterility of the "language" of road markings provided fertile ground for a form of subversion that I found irresistible. I was provoked by a desire to jolt the driver from his impassive and linear gaze and give the more slow-moving pedestrian pause for reflection. The humourlessness of the language of the road not to mention what I consider an absurd reverence for the road and "car culture" in general made for an easy form of satire. In the spirit of Marcel Duchamps, all I had to do was paint a mustache on the Mona Lisa so to speak, to introduce a glitch in the matrix. A matrix made up in part by a worldwide network of roads and an ever-growing fleet of humans encased in steel carapaces, hurrying about like molecules in the body of an insatiable machine.”

Exciting! Some smart cats decided that his artwork was so astonishing, it had to be shared with a wider audience and as a result, they made a documentary about him. This documentary has been floating around several film festivals. Here’s a little demo.

What a mind blowing artist! Now of course much of what Peter Gibson was doing was quite illegal (he received quite a bit of heat from the law) but a lot of his artwork brings to mind simple yet important questions; questions on freedom of expression and to what extent that freedom holds true in public space. Gibson writes,

Although we thankfully don’t live in a totalitarian society (some would argue this point) there is nevertheless an underlying assumption that to have a voice in the public realm requires money, property or political influence. Some would say that relinquishing barriers to public expression is to invite anarchy but I would argue that a certain form of anarchy already exists: corporate anarchy. Not that I think that marketing or advertising is wrong. The exchange of goods and services is obviously an essential facet of the human experience but not the only one and I feel the common space should reflect a greater diversity of expression.

Interesting, do you have any thoughts on this or on street art in general? We’d love to hear them!

Have a great weekend!


(Learned about Roadsworth on Drawn! Peter Gibson photograph found here.)

Awesome Streetart

Today I came across two awesome pieces of street art that aren't related in anyway. I just wanted to share them with you. Here's number one.

It was found in Newcastle (that's in England folks) and it shows to people watering a rose. And that's it. Pieces like those raise certain questions in my head, such as: "What was there first? The flower, the people or the garden hoses?" It's a bit vague to see, but if you imagine that the hoses aren't there for a second the figures could be holding guns (especially the right one). And if that would be true this would be an excellent way to remove violence from a piece of graffiti.

Street art is awesome when it gets you thinking about it's origination. By the way, this piece was created (or altered) by the obscure street artist Mobster.

And here is number two, a phone box.

This one was created by Washington D.C. based Mark Jenkins. (Washington is indeed very far away from Newcastle).
I have a fascination for turning (almost) redundant objects into a piece of street art. A few months ago I shared another phone box where the phone was replaced by a paper cup, but that's another story.
Here the phone is replaced by an enormous aliminium-like phone. The message almost is: "I'm here too! Use me!" (Phone boxes aren't used anymore because everyone has his or her own cellphone, but you already knew that of course).

There you have it. Two nice pieces of street art to liven up your Tuesday.

(Thanks to wooster collective for the awesome pieces of art.)

Street Art: Phone Boxes

To go with Carla's post. This was just down the road from my apartment here in NY.

Street Art: Snow Boxes

Loving this piece of street art by Beau Bergeron titled "Snow Couple". Despite the snow, it still makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

More of Beau's fascinating artwork can be found here!

Love Always,
C

(Image found via flikr)

ObamArt

I love Obama. You love Obama. Your mama loves Obama; the entire world loves Obama. The president-elect of the United States hasn't taken his office yet but he already has achieved a cult status. According to this post on Coolhunting he is featured in numerous artworks. Even street art. I love this one:

The mural is situated in Los Angeles and was created by the mysterious Mr. Brainwash. (For the people unfamiliar with Rosa Parks, Ms. Parks was a woman who, on December 1st 1955, refused to give up her bus seat to another person when she was ordered to do so. This action got a ball rolling that resulted in black and white persons being declared equal in the eyes of the law. She was remembered here at SuperForest last week.)

As a result of Park's action Martin Luther King could speak up, and because King spoke Obama got the possibility to be accepted as presidential candidate. That's the basic thing the mural is implying, it's a chain reaction actually.

If you've spotted your own, local piece of Obama Art we would of course love to know.

Robotic Streetart

I just spotted this photograph of a great piece of street art.

It was taken in Rouen, a French city that lies about hundred kilometers North-West of Paris. It also is the hometown of We Are The Robots, a music group that makes, as they describe it, post-punk.
They probably took a look at their name and asked: "how can we promote ourselves through street-art?" And the above was the result! It seems like their promotion is working, too; as the picture shows they attract an age group they would never have attracted with a 'post-punk' stamp.

Have an awesome Monday!

-jdh

Urban Knitting

Today is the 6th of November so we're starting to enter the winter season. And winter generally means that the average temperature drops (assuming you're not living next to the equator) which ultimately results in people wearing warm coats and ultra fancy knitwear.

But have you ever thought about how cold a good winter day can be for a tree? The poor ones stand fully unprotected and unable to move outside in the cold. On behalf of the trees the past few years a new trend in street art developed: urban knitting. The aim of this is to cover up public objects in, eh, knitwear. Custom made knitwear to be specific. Every object can apply for urban knitting, the only necessity is that it is placed in public area. So any tree, lantern, traffic sign, you name it, will do.

Here's what Carol Hummel did to a tree to keep it warm and cozy on winter days. The 'statue' was 'on display' for three years in Cleveland Heights (OH) and took 500 hours to make.


Graffiti critics often complain about street art. But honestly, I can't see why such a critic would get mad about such a funny, beautiful, original way to use something nature created as an art object. Anyway, as I said earlier other objects can be used too for this fascinating new form of graffiti. For example this bridge railing:


Urban knitting is starting to become a fascinating new trend. All around the internet knitted objects can be found. For example through flickr, but there are also small artists that grouped together and got devoted to urban knitting. One of those groups is knittaplease, they have got an awesome video collection of their work too.

-jdh

Plaf!

If you'd consult your Spanish or French dictionary and look up the word plaf you'd probably find out that it means splash (it's a bit of a slang word so you may not find it in a dictionary). But anyway, in the comming context it means splash.

Plaf is the result of a collaboration between MOMO and Eltono. Both being two really great art blogs/instances who do street art and related stuff.
Plaf can be seen as an outdoor exhibition through the entire metropolis of New York. The exhibited objects are so called "autonomous mechanisms", mechanisms that function on their own. In this art perspective it are just sculptures that move due to natural influences. For example the wind, the tides and the sun. In fact the objects in Plaf are a bit like Theo Jansens Strandbeest. Take a look.




This is in fact the first object in the outdoor exhibition and it was placed in the East River at Hallets Cove (an area in Queens). As you see the installation requires some wind and a bit of streaming water to start moving.

The coming time Plaf will be placing their autonomous mechanisms throughout the city. They'll even be giving out maps showing where you can find their work

via:wooster collective

-jdh

Save The D.C. Polar Bear

It's true, the polar bears are emigrating to Washington D.C.. Probably due to unbearable conditions on the pole. Don't believe me?

Ok, this is the work of a magnificent street artist but still, it put a big smile on my face. It's the result of a collaboration with Greenpeace and Mark Jenkins, a street artist. Throughout D.C. they installed four bears like the one in the photographs.

The ultimate goal is to rise awareness about global warming through this bear. So will you "help a brother out?"

via:wooster collective

-jdh

(Recycled) street art

On MAKE Magazine I came across this picture. A couple of street artists cranked up a public phone box and replaced the phone by a paper cup with a string attached to it.

The philosophy behind it is that old technologies become redundant due to the arrival of new ones. (In this case the cellular phone).

Actually, if you think about it, this is also a way of recycling. Turning old stuff no one cares about into an interesting piece of (street) art. Keep up the good work whoever did this.

-jdh

Street Art: Handshadowbirdsticker

Saw this hand-shadow-bird-sticker on the corner of 26th and 10th Ave.

Lovely.

NY Street Snaps: Follow-Up

One day later...





Smashed. Very beautiful. 26th & 11th. South side of the street.