Hogan Rebel recently released his book Rebel journey: Dream-Believe-Create
, narrating the career of a dozen of famous modern rebels, and defining the founding values of the Hogan Rebel lifestyle collection.
We were asked to look closely at one of these artists, Paola Pivi, to come up with a quote for an upcoming video. You can see the video below.
Here are a few words from the artist herself –
What’s your definition of rebel?
Not a sheep, not a wolf.
Who do you consider rebel?
Somebody who creates their own system.
What’s your dream?
Freedom and peace, which I lost the day I saw somebody was about to abuse a person I love and I started a trial to try to defend him.
In what you believe?
Now that I see on my own skin how unbelievably hard it is to try to stop bad actions in other men, I respect whoever did something like this.Why man creates?To develop our brain.
There is no much to say about Jim Lambie‘s work apart from what he does with vinyl tapes rolls is simply amazing and definitely eye catching. Gigiantic and intricated geometric floor designs is what I am talking about here. Each design takes him several weeks to complete. Included below are a few examples.
There seems to be a trend amongst many other on the web right now – animated GIFs. I must admit, I love some of them.
Some are hilarious and other rather cleverest than funny. How about this one below (You’ll all have recognised a famous street art work from Banksy)?
Now, to all things, they are better things? To creativity, there is always more creativity. To animated GIFs, there are Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg’s animated GIFs or rather photos. Next level? Yes, defintely.
Take Jamie Beck and motion graphics artist Kevin Burg and “cinemagraphs” as they are called, are here for us to enjoy, are here to mesmerised us. Subtle and soft are the feelings that come to mind when I look at these.
How did these come about? The pair was inspired to create these cinemagraphs while preparing to cover Fashion Week this past February: “We wanted to tell more of a story than a single still frame photograph but didn’t want the high maintenance aspect of a video,”
Tunisia has been the stage lately of a surge of intolerability towards creativity and especially towards anything to do with a spray can. As a result, the French-born Tunisian graffiti artist El-Seed took action.
The result is Tunisia’s largest mural but what matters above all is the the location; he painted on the country’s tallest minaret, at the Jara Mosque, located in the industrial city of Gabes. Pictures after the fold.
Here is what El-seed says about the project “I decided to do the mural because it was close to my heart. It had been a while I had wanted to paint a wall in Gabes,” the artist told Ahram Online.
“The primary purpose was, and is, to inspire people to get together and build community around positive action,” El-Seed told Ahram Online via email. “
The mural, which has been embraced with open arms by the mosque’s Imam, was painted on the 57-metre high minaret, and is meant as a message of tolerance and mutual respect.
El-Seed got interestd in the art of graffiti back in 1998 in Paris, where he spent his childhood. Later, when he moved to North America, he started combining graffiti with his passion for Arabic calligraphy (usually associated with the Quran and religious scripture). The artist likes to mix traditional script and contemporary pop-culture, giving birth to a distinctive urban graffiti.
We’ll bring you a moghty artistic collaboration between Matthew White and The Dirty Toyz, 3 electrodub producers & DJ’s. The result is an eye catching work of mixed media illustration on a 150×120 board of wood.
Song “So Real” by The Dirty Toyz
Produced by Cinematic Luna. Directed, shot and edited by Luca Naddeo.
It was lunch time and I was again walking towards the place that would put an end to the hunger I had been victim off all morning.
I then once again walked past the Frameless gallery in Farringdon which I had never bothered to visit until today.
I certainly knew about it but either the thought of a mighty sandwich (I work really nearby) or a recurrent weak interest in what I could glance at, had always been dragging me away from it. Not today. Otto Schade’s show – Street art Olympics, was on.
It really adds a dimension to any show when the artist paints something onto the front of the building where his/her show is held at and Otto Schade just did that.
The one who knows Otto Schade’s works will recognise this familiar face – see picture. (more pictures after the fold)
There is a clear Olympics theme for the pieces on canvases that can be seen in the first part of the show (upstairs that is – it is worth to point out that I was not aware of the downstairs bit of the gallery which adds so much to the whole space and make it one of the best venues I have been in recent months).
Next to those, sit a series of more traditional prints.
The earthy colors scheme used for the Olympics themed pieces which are all on a black background gives them a very warm feel whilst the black – red – white scheme used for the prints does the opposite and seems to freeze the image.
Head downstairs and find a variety of other pieces from Otto Schade from portraits of the Queen Elizabeth to the representation of a panda which seems to have found a ball to play with. It was hard to find an obvious link with the Olympics here – let me point out that the show is called “Street art Olympics”.
And there I saw it, I saw the piece I want to own: a make over of the Queen of Diamonds playing card by Otto Schade. The colors work so well, the intensity of this piece obtained by hiding the face of the character is intense and seductive.
Would you agree?
“Street art Olympics” by Otto Schade rund until the 12th August
Frameless gallery | 20 Clerkenwell green | EC1R ODP | London
Opening Hours: 11am – 7pm Monday to Saturday
On February 16, 1990, at age 31, Keith Haring’s life was cut short due to an AIDS-related illness. He would have been 54 today and as a homage, here are a few words and a tribute to his most iconic pieces of art.
I wonder what Keith Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) would make of the global phenomenon that street art is now, art form very much confined to the street of New York City at the time when he decided to move there in 1978, aged 19.
Having studied commercial art and then Fine Arts, he took a keen interest in graffiti art, Haring would go out there and paste collages of fake New York Post headlines on lamposts or news stands. He explored the likes of SAMO (Jean-Michel Basquiat) or Fab Five Fred (Fred Brathwaite) graffiti art to quickly put in practice his own interpretation of this form of art and would develop his future vocabulary of primitive cartoon-like forms. The Haring’s chalk-drawn “radiant babies” and “barking dogs” were born (see pictures) and woud become familiar sights on the matt black surfaces used to cover the old advertisements in the subways.
These chalk drawings in the subways of New York got Haring in the public eye and he would go on from there to have his first exclusive exhibition in the Tony Shafrazi Gallery which put together a retrospective a few years ago about it – see picture. Willing to reach a larger public, he immersed himself in popular American culture and befriended individials such as Andy Warhol, Madonna or Grace Jones (whom he would body-paint).
Haring was also a keen social activist and as a result of his ever increasing political involvement; he designed a Free South Africa poster in 1985 (see picture) and painting a section of the Berlin Wall in 1986 (see picture). Other works include design for Swatch watches or the Absolut Vodka advertisement (see picture)
Keith Harring’s work are just simply one of the best examples of how consumerism, popular culture and fine art merged in the 1980s.
Recommended readings
Keith Haring: The Authorized Biography by John Gruen (1991) includes interviews with the artist and those closest to him and is an invaluable source for understanding the art and life of Haring.
The early work is illustrated in Art in Transit: The Subway Drawings (1984) and Keith Haring (Shafrazi Gallery, 1982). An enlightening interview by David Sheff appeared in Rolling Stone (August 10, 1989).
Elizabeth Aubert directed an insightful video entitled Drawing the Line: A Portrait of Keith Haring (Biografilm, 1989).
Later an attempt was made to place Haring within a broader art historical context in Keith Haring, edited by Germano Celant (1992). □
I have always been sceptical about abstract art, never knowing whether I like it or not. I can enjoy it but can rarely get ecstatic about it. Well Remi Rough and the likes of Augutine Kofie or Jaybo Monk are maybe about to radically change this.
They are (and a few others – find out who here) are members of what is called the urban abstract movement which has for starting point the reshape of letters of the alphabet and their integration into an urban context – find out more here
A exhibition presents us with works from Remi Rough and Steve More but I will here focus on Rough’s stuff and what an amazing display I had in front of my eyes!
Rough’s mix of shapes and forms combined with an excellent choice of colors make his works come alive. The perspective he manages to bring to his compositions seems to give some sort of pace to the whole thing making it anything but boring.
I may be well on track to love this stuff and ask to see more of it.
The show is now over.
PS: You will excuse the so-so quality of the pictures below but I had to use my i-phone that day.
One more time, Stolen space has put together a remarkable show. Group shows are so rich in diversity by definition and therefore always please a large number of people.
Shepard Fairey’s Sound and Vision show has been the hot topic in town for the last few weeks. The artist and his crew has hit hard for this show since not only the Stolen Space gallery is hosting the show but another much bigger one a few yards away has also been necessary to give a roof to the impressive amount of pieces the artist has produced.
Since the Hope portrait of Obama back in 2008, Shepard Fairey and his brand OBEY has become something people recognize and like. You see a Shepard Fairey and you know it is one – the typography, colors and subject will give it away. OBEY is a brand here to stay.
The result is Tunisia’s largest mural but what matters above all is the the location; he painted on the country’s tallest minaret, at the Jara Mosque, located in the industrial city of Gabes. Pictures after the fold.
It was lunch time and I was again walking towards the place that would put an end to the hunger I had been victim off all morning.
