On a weekday evening earlier this month, as the sun set over the Williamsburg bridge, passengers on the JMZ may have noticed an addition to one of the Brooklyn buildings that wasn’t there on their morning commute. Throughout the day, the French graffiti artist JR and his crew had pasted a giant black and white snapshot of an eyeball on the side of a seven-story building near the East River. Read More
Yarn-happy street artist Olek stars in a commercial for Samsung smart phones that debuted this week. Watch the full video below. Read More
A 21-year-old director who really likes Shepard Fairey is asking Kickstarter for $30,000 to make a 25-minute narrative film about early life of the street artist. Read More
This week, the graffiti wall at Houston and Bowery was painted by Los Angeles artist Retna with a work entitled A Conversation With a Great Friend. With the help of two assistants, the new public artwork was completed on Monday. But the painting of the wall has coincided with the departure of a longtime resident of a spot on the same block, Billy’s Antiques & Props, which offers antique wares like school desks, wood-framed mirrors and signage from defunct gas stations that the store’s owner, Billy Leroy, would set up along the sidewalk on the north side of Houston Street along the tent that the shop occupies. Read More
If you’ve never seen Style Wars, the brilliant 1983 documentary about the rise of hip-hop in New York and its connections to the graffiti art and breakdancing movements of the early ’80s, you should probably stop what you’re doing and go watch it right now. It’s 69 minutes, edited down from about 30 hours of 16 mm film shot between 1981 and 1982.
Here’s the bad news. There are hours of outtakes that risk disappearing forever: the original footage is damaged and fading and in desperate need of being restored. Read More
Over the weekend a tipster wrote in to say he’d spotted a piece by the graffiti artist André on Perry street, just across from the restaurant Sant Ambroeus, and sent in the photo to the left, which seems to feature the artist’s signature character “Mr. A” on a construction wall protecting what will apparently one day be an A.P.C clothing store. Read More
Street artist Agata Olek has struck again, this time covering the cube at Astor Place with a surprisingly snug sweater. Read More
