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DVD Review: Street Art - Painting the City: London, Paris, Madrid - by Tate Media

To coincide with the recent exhibition, talks and screenings at the Tate Modern, they’ve released a DVD to celebrate the scene we all know and love.

Street Art - Painting the City is a documentary about the scene and is more of an educational tool than a full blown documentary. The film covers Paris, London and Madrid where the focus is on current big names who like to flit about their respective cities making their mark(s).

Blek le Rat, Nano 4814, Nuria, Sweet Toof, Eine, Nonose, Pure Evil, D*Face and Nunca all make an appearance.

I was impressed with the quality of production, and namely the soundtrack, which featured some choice cuts from The Emperor Machine. The docu is a little short, but the story follows the artists in their respective cities and we can hear them talk about the varying approaches to street art across the globe.

You also get a chance to meet (on screen) some of the artists who took part in the first ever Street Art exhibition at the Tate Modern, and they explore the rapidly expanding commercial market, explaining how it’s turning street artists into big earners at the auction houses. Unfortunately this section is rather short, so I do hope they make a return or follow up DVD of sorts to explore this matter further.

Overall, they Tate has posed the question: “What does this growth mean for the formerly underground and anti-establishment scene.

Even though, as previously mentioned, it’s sort, it’s still an interesting watch, and certainly worth the £9.99 price tag. Go grab yourself a copy now

Title: ‘Street Art - Painting the City: London Paris Madrid’
Duration: 22 minutes
Date: 2008
Category: Visual Art
ISBN: 978 1 85437 832 3
Price: £9.99 RRP
Published by Tate Media
© Tate 2008

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Urban art auction at Philips de Pury & Company

On September 6 Philips de Pury & Company (PP & C), the US based contemporary art, design, jewelry and photography auction house, will present work for sale in London from a selection of the ‘urban art’ scene’s biggest players.

Artists involved include Bansky, Bast, Beejoir, Blek le Rat, DFace, Faile, Shepard Fairey, Insect, Invader, KAWS, Dave Kinsey, Adam Neate, Nick Walker, Barry Mcgee, Micallef, Skullphone, and Swoon.

Viewings take place everyday from September 2 - 6. Visit the PP & C site here for more info. 

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Blek Le Rat interview

To coincide with the Tate Modern talk this Friday we have an interview with one of the pioneers of the stencil scene, Blek Le Rat. It’s an honour to have such a great name involved with the site, and as you read through his answers it’s evident that Blek has a real passion for what he does. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we did.

Read the rest after the jump

[Read more]

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The Urban Art Sale at Village Underground, Shoreditch, June 17

From 6pm on Tuesday June 17, Dreweatts is holding the first Urban Art sale to be held by a UK regional auctioneer at Village Underground, Shoreditch.

As well as hauling together works from all the usual suspects like Banksy, Faile, Micallef, D‐Face, Nick Walker, Eine, Swoon, Paul Insect, Adam Neate, Beejoir, Matt Small, Blek Le Rat, Seen, Lucy Mclaughlin and Goldie, the sale will also showcase a number of newly executed works by the likes of Inkie, Dicy, Mudwig, Graham Paris, Eko, Silent Hobo, Dr D, Jim Starr, Motorboy, Mau Mau, Guy Denning, Cyclops, Adam Koukoudakis, Flx, Pinky, Dora, Mr Jago, Rowdy, DBO, Kev Munday, Eelus, Hine, Tinho, Titi Freak, Carlos Dias, Ramon Martins and SPQR .

All works going under the hammer are on show at the Ultra Lounge in London (from now until June 1), at the Paintworks Gallery in Bristol (June 5 - 10) and finally at Village Underground (June 13 - 17).

For more info visit the Urban Art Fair here

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The Cans Festival - Photo update

Went back to the tunnel today after checking out the Street Art at the Tate Modern, and was glad to see that it’s not been defaced too badly :) When I originally went (on the first day) - the end part wasn’t open, so I wanted to go back today to see what was down there - and here are the results…

More photos after the jump…


[Read more]

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Blek Le Rat - Cans Festival

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Getting Through The Walls - Black Rat Gallery, London

A little taster before tonight’s event

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‘Street Art Chile’ released at Nelly Duff tomorrow night

Tomorrow night’s another biggie on the London street-art calendar. If you’re not heading to the Black Rat Press for Blek’s show, Nelly Duff are releasing Street Art Chile by Rodney Palmer. Both Blek and Rodney will be on site at the respective galleries.

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Stencil Art installation by Blek Le Rat at the Conran Shop on the Fulham Road, London

Blek le Rat is one of the most loved and most influential figures in the world of street art. Blek le Rat today created a unique stencil art installation on the window of The Conran Shop, Fulham Road prior to the launch of his book ‘ Blek le Rat – Getting Through the Walls’, published by Thames & Hudson.

The book is a unique view inside the life and work of the one of the most private, but also one of the most applauded figures in the vibrant world of street art. Blek le Rat is revered and acknowledged by the international street and graffiti community, and his work has influenced record and CD design, advertising and graphics, as well as the work of many street artists around the world, including Banksy.

To order your copy of the book for a small sum of £11.95, head over to Thames and Hudson here

And a bit about the book:

From small, simple stencils to complex multimedia events, Blek’s distinctive art is showcased here for the first time, demonstrating the development of his technique and creativity over two decades. Whether it’s his unique images of Lady Diana and kidnapped French journalist Florence Aubenas or his iconic silhouette of a rat, we see why ‘The Genius of Blek’ is hailed in King Adz’s film about this elusive, deeply creative figure.

See
Sybille Prou’s video for the book
King Adz’s trailer for his film

The book features photographs of hundreds of Blek’s works and an in-depth exploration of the method and meaning behind his stencils, as well as a look at the evolution of urban art from New York, Paris, Barcelona and Buenos Aires to London, Taipei, Naples and Berlin. It will inspire anyone interested in design or contemporary urban culture.

See Blek Le Rat’s website

Sybille Prou studied art and literary history in Cologne and is the author (with Bernhard van Treeck) of Pochoir and Graffiti in Paris. She is married to Blek le Rat and has photographed his work for many years.
King Adz is a filmmaker and Creative Director of 100proofTRUTH, a PDF magazine that celebrates and promotes urban creativity. He produced and directed Original Stencil Pioneer, a film about the life and work of Blek le Rat in 2006.

Photography of the stencil installation at Conran by Paul Jenkins

Big thanks to Amy at Camron for the heads up on this!

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The Cans Festival 3-5th May 2008 - London

As we speak, some of the world’s most amazing stencil artists from all over the world are flying into London to create new work at an undisclosed location for the Cans Festival that will take place this weekend. Artists include Bsas Stencil, Prism, Roadsworth, Blek, Sten, Sadhu, Lex, Faile, Logan Hicks, and many, many, more. Should be an incredible event.

More info here.

Source: Wooster

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Blek Le Rat solo show - 08.05.2008 @ The Black Rat Gallery

Blek Le Rat, father of stencil graffiti will be the star of our forthcoming Blek Le Rat solo show \\\’Getting Through Walls\\\’. The show celebrates over 25 years of work by this remarkable artist and will mark the UK launch of a new book being published by Thames and Hudson on Bleks lfe and work. It promises to be one of the shows of the year.

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Blek le Rat ‘Getting Through The Walls’

Considered to be the father of stencil street art, Blek Le Rat (aka Xavier Prou) has had a profound influence on today’s current crop of street artists. Almost all of whom arrived a whole generation after Blek started hitting the streets of Paris back in the early eighties. Banksy is on record as saying that, “Every time I think I’ve painted something slightly original, I find out that Blek LeRat has done it as well. Only twenty years earlier…”

Indeed, it was Blek’s silhouette stencil of a rat (an image Banksy was later to adopt for Bristol and London) as early as 1981 that broke away from the graffiti political slogans and injected it with a fresh new language of political art. Blek has always used his art as both a democratic means of bringing the gallery walls to the people and to change the way we interact with the urban spaces around us. This is essentially the blueprint street artists the world over are still reading from today.

In recognition of this Thames & Hudson have published a beautifully produced retrospective book entitled, Blek Le Rat: Getting Through the Walls. To celebrate the book launch the Black Rat gallery is staging the largest Blek exhibition to date.

The show will feature many new works as well as iconic images tracing the history of Blek’s career, along with a number of prints – available from the gallery on the night. Invites will be sent out in the next few days.

And to whet your appeitite you can pre-order a copy of Getting Through the Walls here: www.thamesandhudson.com/en/1/9780500287354.mxs

Doors open 6pm, Thursday, May 8th.

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