Zore: Gettin' Down, Gettin' Up.

Check out this classic video by Brain Killer, of Mario Gonzalez Jr, (a.k.a. Zore) at work on a mural in his studio. Watching him create his signature hand styles with those broad strokes is just mesmerizing...

Artparasites has just published a fantastic interview with Zore that explores his history, his influences and his thoughts on how far graffiti has come in the past 20 years, and where it is headed. Read the interview and find out more about Zore here.

The New Painting

Painting has been dead for years, but every now and then somebody trips over the rotting corpse and discovers that some sort of exquisite putrefaction has been taking place inside the lifeless carcass.  Case in point: check out the video above of the Graffiti Kings painting murals of Johnny Knoxville and Dave Grohl at London's infamous graffiti hot spot, the Leake Street Tunnel.  The 10 ft x 20 ft pieces were created using two paintball guns, 1000 paintballs and 30 gas canisters.  Brushes and spray cans are so passe...

ROA in Chicago

New fauna have been spotted in Chicago courtesy of one of our favorite street artists, Roa.  Check out these ferrets in more detail on our Flickr.

Shepard Fairey in Chicago

A new mural from Shepard Fairey went up last night under the el tracks, near 11th and Wabash.  Peep the pics on our flickr.

JR: the Inside Out Project

by Rachel Schwerin
Recently, JR announced his plan for a large-scale participatory, global art project that could turn the entire world into a socially conscious graffiti collective. He has invited anyone and everyone, worldwide, to upload a photo portrait for free to his project site. His team will turn these digitally uploaded images into posters and send them back to the participants, to exhibit in their own communities. JR encourages participants to place posters anywhere, from a solitary image in an office window to a wall of portraits on an abandoned building or a full stadium. “It is about making invisible people visible,” JR said.

His street art since 2004 has staged dramatic interventions of social justice across the globe. The TED foundation, which awarded JR $100,000 to execute the Inside Out project, described JR as a “true humanitarian,” whose art inspires people to look at the world differently.

JR says, “It is about taking the virtual world back to the streets.” To prospective participants he advises: “If you are going to paste it in the streets, then choose a good wall…If you choose the wrong one, get ready to run.”

To submit a portrait and get a poster, go to www.insideoutproject.net.

Maxwell Colette Gallery and Pawn Works have joined forces to bring internationally lauded contemporary artists to Chicago, who are known for their involvement in the Street Art movement. The first of these joint ventures, GAIA: Resplendent Semblance, launches this month with a series of projects showcasing the artist Gaia. The events will include a show of new, large scale paintings and decollage on wood art works at Maxwell Colette Gallery, a site specific installation and show featuring additional pieces at the Pawn Works space and a massive window installation at State Street and Adams presented in conjunction with The Chicago Loop Alliance's Pop Up Art Loop initiative.

Maxwell Colette Gallery and Pawn Works will co-host an opening reception for GAIA:Resplendent Semblance on Friday, March 25th from 6 - 9 pm in Maxwell Colette's space at 833 W. Chicago Ave, suite 200.  

Keep an eye on our Flickr and our Facebook page for further details and photos of the projects, the new work, and the installations.

the best alley in Wicker Park vol. IX: winter wonderland

We've been slacking on the flickr updates lately.  This is not to say that we haven't been shooting pics, we just haven't been posting as regularly as we should.  In an effort to catch up, we present a series of pics from the best alley in wicker park taken over the past several weeks.  There's nothing like the clean facade that snow provides to accent the ever changing work.  See what you've missed over the past couple of months in our flickr set "the best alley in Wicker Park".

FAILE & BAST together again in the street

(photo via  plaztikmag)

Last weekend BAST and FAILE got together to do an outdoor piece for the Factory Fresh All City Street Art Block Party in Brooklyn.  Reminiscent of the FAILE wall that used to exist across the street from the FAILE studio, the work immediately caught the attention of street art fans and practitioners alike.  Jaime Rojo from Brooklyn Street Art caught the amazing scene below: that's Futura sitting on the top of his car to get a shot of the finished gate.

photo © Jaime Rojo (via Brooklyn Street Art)

PLAZTIKMAG and BROOKLYN STREET ART were both present for the evening's activities and each has posted amazing behind the scenes pics of the the entire happening on their blog.  Thanks for sharing!

a painterly approach to street art...

The railroad underpasses off of Hubbard Street have seen it all.  Long a staple of the local street art and graff scenes, they have been regularly bombed for years. But something very interesting has been occurring under the train tracks lately.  It's painting.  I'm not referring to aerosol artistry, I'm talking about good old fashioned brush-and-paint-can painting.  And it's on a monumental scale.

There are seven paintings in total that we found. Some are huge- nearly 20 feet in length. They appear to be in various states of completion.  It seems the artist starts with a basic form (see below) and then elaborates with increasingly drippy broad strokes until the original form is obscured.  The process appears to require a fair amount of time as there are clearly layers that were dry before the next color was applied.  The resulting murals have elements that are reminiscent of Willem de Kooning and the abstract expressionists; a visual reference seldom witnessed in todays street art scene.

All of the paintings incorporate some text as well.  They bear slogans (titles?) like "Love No Fear | Fear No Love" "the magic you don't c." and "Griots & Bacchanalia".  Sometimes the text is next to the painting, and sometimes it is incorporated in the painting itself.  The artist states on one work "my name is a four letter word" but signs all the pieces with a black spade (or many spades as the case may be).  Since we don't know what to call you, wer're going to call you "Spade".  So, hello Spade. If you've got a problem with us calling you that, let us know and we'll correct it.

We first noticed the hand painted stylings of "Spade" last month, and posted pics of the work here, here,  and here.  Chicago Art Magazine noticed as well and wrote about a piece in their Top Street Art Picks for the month of August.

View pics of all the Hubbard Street pieces by "Spade" on our Flickr set "Hubbard Street Viaduct".

it's time once again...

This coming weekend the international graffiti festival Meeting Of Styles comes to Chicago.  There is a great lineup of acitvities and talent for the three days (and nights) and it looks to be very cool this year.  Check out the event flyer with all the listings and keep an eye on the Meeting of Styles website for info and pics from its stops around the globe.

Shepard Fairey murals in Cincinnati

Recently we found ourselves in Cincinnati.  After taking in some of the local cusine (a Skyline Chili "3-way"; yes that is the actual name) we decided to see if we couldn't find some of those Shepard Fairey murals that went up in conjunction with his retrospective show "Shepard Fairey: Supply and Demand" at the city's Contemporary Art Center.

We figured that since Cincinnati was a hotbed of right wing, anti-art types (remember the prosecution in 1990 of Dennis Barrie for showing Mapplethorpe?), most likely the murals would have been painted over (like this one in Kentucky was within days of it's completion) or vandalized (like the Dietch mural).  Many in Cincinnati, no doubt, believe that Shepard Fairey was the Joseph Goebbles of the 2008 presidential election.  Surely they wouldn't allow for gigantic propaganda installations from a progressive, communist, socialist, fascist, muslim-loving, supporter of the destruction of traditional marriage like Shepard Fairey to go unchallenged.

To our amazement, many of the murals we were able to locate were pristine.  The others were only slightly damaged, exhibiting varying degrees of minor peeling, and some super light toy tagging.  There was also one individual with a can of brown spray paint and a small stencil of Michael Jackson (ca. 1971 / Jackson 5 era) who had left his mark on a couple of the larger installations, but that was the pretty much the extent of it. There were no visible political attacks directed towards the murals, anywhere. Way to go Ohio!

Check out the murals on our Flicker set.
Stay on top of all things Shepard Fairey related at OBEYGIANT.