Category Archives: GRAFFITI

GRAFFITI

Teufelsberg (Devil’s Mountain) – street art in a forest

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In the centre of Grunwald Forest in the former West Berlin is an artificial mountain, Teufelsberg, made by man using the rubble from approximately 400,000 buildings that were destroyed in WWII. The structure that sits on top is ‘The Listening Station’ built by the US National Security Agency to spy on the Soviet’s. .

The listening station was decommissioned at the end of the cold war. There were many plans for it’s use in the future, all of which fell through. With that, over the years it has attracted the likes of vandals, youths, graffers and urban explorers. Amongst the broken glass from all the smashed windows and beer bottles, the collapsing stairwells, the gaping holes from the dilapidated flooring and the pitch black hallways, a diverse collection of pieces, dubs, tags, paste ups and stencils can be found.

See the full set of photo’s here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chasingghosts/sets/72157626450243676/

GRAFFITI, STREET ART

His name is #codefc

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If you are keen on graffiti, you must have seen #codefc stuff on some walls, one of his latest and probably most seen is the Olympic runner with the message “Fuck 2012 – I am ready now ”

The man behind #codefc has been active as a graffiti artist for a long time, for about 22 yrs actually but he has been using #codefc for the last 12 years. #codefc references to a hexadecimal color code use in web technologies which coincidentally can be broken down into the word “code” and “fc”, the initials of our artist in question.

#codefc started to do graffiti in Rome where he got arrested doing a train carriage. Keen on using stencils, most of his stuff are location related, some of his projects are coDe-DAY in Normandy , stuDIED in Cambodia or viet-code in South Vietnam where fictive characters are invented and stencil on a surface.

Some of you will have notice the use of what looks like a filming camera. Talking to #codefc, we found out that he is also a keen film maker and that the camera depicted in his works is S8 cinecam which is also used as a logo.

#codefc paint as much as in London than abroad and some of of his works can be seen below.

2012Sprinter from #codefc on Vimeo.

GRAFFITI

Jumping on the bandwagon – The Foundry

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The Foundry has really been doing the rounds on the street art/graffiti blogs and websites over the last month or so. Some people are loving it and others are getting sick of hearing about it.

As we are huge fans of many of the artists that have been adorning the walls, we decided to jump on the band wagon and do a write up about it, yet to be slightly different we wanted to drop a little history to give you a understanding of this locations significance to the local community and art scene.

The Building operated as a bank originally and was decommissioned in the 90’s when Tracey and Jonathan Moberly took out a lease on the space and turned it into a gallery for local and emerging artists. To cover costs, they opened the Foundry bar in the front section of the building, but wanted people to know that it was predominantly a art space. The bar however became a hang out for many current and future celebrities, Pete Doherty was known for hosting his poetry nights there.

The walls of the basement are heavily covered in early work by many big name graffiti and street artists such and Banksy and Faile. The walls have also been heavily tagged by regulars and visitors alike.

The Foundry came into the spotlight for a different reason in early 2010 when Hackney council approved the plans to build an 18-storey hotel and retail complex on the space, of course this successfully outraged the local community. Its not the first time that underground venues have had to make way for big business, but in this case the anger was directed at the blatant attempt to cash in on emerging trends.

The back of the building has a 6 meter high Banksy on the rear wall that is to be preserved and made a focal point of the commissioned ” Art’otel” and a large wooden hording has been placed over the artwork to preserved for future placement as a feature in the hotel (the murals by Zezao & Mr.Sperm currently cover the front of the hording).

Of course this profiteering by the corporate world on a mainstream encroaching subculture angered the art community and resulted in heavy protesting. But as always this was a valiant but futile effort and the building is in the process of being shut down and ready for demolition.

So how this links into the current surge in artwork? Through the right channels and with permission of the current lease holders, local and travelling artists have been given the green light to go to town on the space.

Check out all the shots we have ever taken of the foundry here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chasingghosts/sets/72157626097759963/

Featured artists: Milo Tchais, Run, Zezao, Mr.Sperm, Elmo, ATG, Stik and of course ROA.