It's been a while...

Sorry folks, been a long while since I posted up anything, and I'm not gonna make any excuses except for I was away in NZ for a month, then in Wales, then working full-on on a magazine for a friend, but in the meantime, here's a few nice pics from some friends around the world...

New Banksy on the streets of London 

Great modified street sign 

Fag break - unsure whether it's Banksy or not? 

Trim the grass... 

Be the first to like my post - brilliant! 

Skeleton drain 

Fantastic vehicle signage for USS (United Sprayer Service)

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Off Brick Lane

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Some bits from the disused lot off Brick Lane (almost opposite the big Asian supermarket) mentioned in the post that follows this one....
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Student uses art to make a car disappear

Lancashire design school student Sara Watson and the car in situ

Sara Watson, a design student studying drawing at the University of Central Lancashire, spent three weeks taking a battered old Skoda and making it "disappear" by painting it so that it blends in with the surrounding area.

The BBC reports that the car is now being used as advertising for the local recycling firm that donated the vehicle.

Banksy print for just 1p

Banksy - Trolleys

No. 57 - the big winner on the night

Yorick: No. 53 - close, but no cigar

Huw: No. 55 - close as a close thing

No. 174 - not close, but I got to chat to Reeps One

Yorick & I registered with a PR and Promotions company called Artichoke Ltd during March to be in with a chance to grab a signed Banksy ‘trolleys’ print for just 1p.

Throw into the mix the fact that there was free beer all night (courtesy of Brahma - showcasing a very tasty lager from Brazil), djs, a special performance by beatboxer Reeps One (of Secret Wars fame), and artists painting live in a secret location, and we're sold.

Easy online registration reserved us an invite, but we had to be there to be in the running to win the prize (and obviously to drink the beer). The first 400 were assured of entry, and anyone after that missed out. We were running late, but by the time we arrived they hadn't let in too many peeps (about 60 by my calculations), so we joined the back of the queue. I guestimated there were probably about 200 people in front of us, so, unless a whole bunch of invites or queue jumpers hoped in in front of us, we were in.

Took a while (a long while) but we made it through the front door and got ticked off the list, given a registration number and a beer. Every one who got in got a number. The winner would be picked out of a lotto type spinny thing, and could claim their signed, framed Banksy upon validation of their number and redemption of 1p.

We walked around the two and a half story art space chatting with punters and watching artists paint live for about an hour, being lubricated by free Brahma the whole time. Brilliant! That's my kind of Friday.

Duly the winner was announced by Pete from Artichoke. Number 57. Quite a wait and no. 57 came down the stairs to claim his prize. He was, as you can imagine, well chuffed. Less chuffed but well lubed was Yorick with number 53, and our new friend from the queue, Huw, who had no. 55. That was well close, but didn't bother me as I was well out of the running with 174. Ha!

All in all a top night. Thanks and respect to Artichoke Ltd, Brahma, Reeps One and all the artists involved.

Old Person's Home by Sun Yuan and Peng Yu at Saatchi Gallery, London

Marwan Rechmaoui - Beirut Caoutchouc 2004-08 (click to enlarge)

Ghost - Kader Attia 2007 (click to enlarge)

On Friday, after going down to see a very disappointing exhibition near Sloane Square featuring photographs of Russian Prison Tattoos, I decided to check out the always reliable Saatchi Gallery. The exhibition featuring there at the mo is called Unveiled: New art from the Middle East. Some really nice pieces running through their 12 gallery spaces. However, when I got to the 13th room (located in the basement) I had my mind blown by possibly one of the weirdest installations I've ever experienced.

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Sun Yuan and Peng Yu - Old Persons Home (click to enlarge)

Sun Yuan and Peng Yu are two of China's most controversial artists, renown for working with extreme materials such as human fat tissue, live animals, and baby cadavers to deal with issues of perception, death, and the human condition.

In Old Person's Home, Sun & Peng present a shocking scene of an even more grotesque kind. Hilariously wicked, their satirical models of decrepit OAPS look suspiciously familiar as world leaders, long crippled and impotent, left to battle it out in true geriatric style. Placed in electric wheelchairs, the withered, toothless, senile, and drooling, are set on a collision course for harmless ‘skirmish' as they roll about the gallery at snail's pace, crashing into each other at random in a grizzly parody of the U.N.dead.

This sculpture was produced in 2007, and features 13 x life size sculptures and 13 x dynamoelectric wheel chairs. You can observe the installation from a mezzanine floor, or venture down onto the gallery floor and stand amongst the action, but beware - these guys aren't looking where they're going - they don't even know where they are!

There is a very trippy video of the installation on the Saatchi site:
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/yu_yuan.htm

... are you 'avin a bubble?

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Couldn't help but start this article with the words of my friend Jonathan echoing in my ears - "are you 'avin' a bubble" - a comment he uses at least several times a night (Cockney rhyming slang for "bubble bath" = "laugh".

Creative Review commissioned photographer Jason Tozer to shoot these pictures on behalf of Sony using its new Alpha digital camera.

They are, in fact, all common-or-garden soap bubbles, shot in-camera. They’ll be revealing more on how Tozer obtained these stunning images later on. The full series is shown on CR’s photostream, or the link I've added below, and to see them at a larger size simply click on each image. I think they're awesome, and anyone whose ever tried to shoot this kind of shit in the studio has gotta be impressed with 1/ the shot quality, and 2/ the beauty of the subject.

www.creativereview.co.uk/crblog/planet-tozer/

Mona Hatoum Exhibition

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Came across an interesting artist during the week. Mona Hatoum has been exhibiting in various forms since the late 70's, but has got quite a bit more experimental in recent years, including this installation that transforms during the course of the exhibition. Nice conceptual stuff...

The revolution continues: New art from China at Saatchi Gallery

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Ok, so not street art this time, but got a bit of kulcha in on Sunday. Visited the Saatchi Gallery with the lovely Fiona, and checked out the new art from China exhibition. Some fantastic and creative work from across the ocean, and well worth checking out if you're down Chelsea way.

Cang Xin's 'Communication' at Saatchi Gallery, London

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Cang Xin is a bona fide shaman; he holds the profound belief that all things have spirit – both animate and inanimate objects – and is a member of an order of enlightened holy men who have the ability to enter various forms at will. As one of China’s most celebrated performance artists, Cang approaches his work as a means to promote harmonious communication with nature. His works have included bathing with lizards, adorning the clothing of strangers, and prostrating himself on icy glaciers: each act representing a ritual of becoming the other.

Cang’s Communication is an ongoing piece, begun in 1996. Engaging with the world at large with his tongue – one of the most intimate and sensitive parts of the body – Cang’s performance represents an internalising of knowledge and a religious communion with place/person/thing. Sites for this performance have included Tiananmen Square and The Coliseum. In the work presented here, Cang recreates this performance in the gallery with a realer-than-real sculpture of himself. Cang minimises the concept of representation, creating an engaging ‘environment’ in life scale. The realer-than-realism freaked a few of the people at the exhibition out tho!