OBEY @ Stolen Space

Arch manipulator, scoundrel, chief propagandist, provocateur, Shepard Fairey is the man many hail as the originator of the modern urban art scene and is an undeniable phenomenon. First coming to prominence in 1989 with his now ubiquitous ‘Obey Giant’ sticker campaign, the self styled phenomenologist has since gone on to become one of the most recognisable artists of the early 2000’s.

His work, a mixture of parody and protest, serves to subvert the very medium to which it attaches itself. Wall paper posters adorn advertising billboards that in his own words ‘market nothingness’ while large scale posters with the simple one word message ‘obey’ stir the bewildered masses. His unique use of stencils, collage, photography and painting have led to collaborations with among others, DJ Shadow, Interpol, Smashing Pumpkins and more recently the poster art for the Johnny Cash biopic, ‘Walk the Line’.

In more than a passing reference to the surveillance culture of Orwell's 1984, Shepard Fairey brings his new exhibition 'NineteenEightyFouria' to London's Stolenspace. Comprised of a range of artworks, from large scale multi media installations to smaller album screen prints Shepard's artwork both scrutinises and distorts the narrative of the modern American Dream. Commenting on underpinnings of what Shepard terms the 'capitalist machine' it aims to critique those who support blind nationalism and war. Fairey addresses monolithic institutional authority, the role of counter culture, and independent individuals who question the cultural paradigm.

"NINETEENEIGHTYFOURIA" Opening Reception Thursday November 1st, 6:30pm - 9:30pm

StolenSpace, Old Truman Brewery, 87-89 Brick Lane 2nd – 25th November 2007

Artichokeltd

Graffit artist Blam is showing at the artichokeltd exhibition at 2 Ganton Street from Thursday the 1st of November; also featured in the show is Remi, Hush and Seamo.

Private View 1st November.
2 Ganton Street ( Off Carnaby Street | London W1

OBEY HAUNTS GLORIA's

In case you hadn't already noticed, Obey aka Shephard Fairey is in London at the moment and has been keeping busy hittin' up the streets of London, both North and South with some massive posters

With his solo exhibition opening at Stolen Space tomorrow evening, tonight will see Obey Clothing taking over Gloria’s for the next 4 days from 7pm. They will be filling the store with exclusive product that are not available anywhere else in Europe, so that’s a whole load of fresh crispy T’s that no one has seen yet.

The event will be running until Sat evening, so make sure you get down there before it’s all packed up and gone! There are going to be special pieces up for grabs for the early birds and rumour has it ‘DJ Diabetic’ will make an appearance!!

DESTINED TO FESTER

DESTINED TO FESTER LAUNCH & HALLOWEEN PARTY
South London based death metal artist French will be having an exhibition of "Gore" Prints at the Old Shoreditch Station.

To tie in with the show Jaguar Shoes will also be releasing a limited edition Zine on the night as well as T-shirts (Thanks to Carhartt) by the artist himself, so dress to kill!!!! It's Horror Fancy dress, and French is gonna play death / gore metal throughout the night.

Wednesday 31st October. 7pm till Late.
Show runs until 16th December
The Old Shoreditch Station | 1 Kingsland Road | London

BANKSY - NEW BOOK RELEASE

Home Sweet Home is a celebration of Banksy’s street art in his home city of Bristol. This book places him in the context of 3D, John Nation from the Barton Hill Settlement, Inkie, Nick Walker and the other artists and musicians who were instrumental in linking Bristol to the original New York hip hop scene.

It is the most revealing account of Banksy’s formative years and contains more than one hundred images of his Bristol art, as well as pictures of Banksy at work, many of which have never been published before.

Steve Wright, Venue magazine’s Art Editor, traces Banksy’s roots back to the rave culture of the Nineties and draws a rounded picture of an artist who is most famous for being anonymous.

Banksy’s Bristol is available from Tangent Books from December 1st 2007.

SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND

Right thought we would do a quick round up of some of the shows you might want to check out over the weekend if you havent already been.

"Heap" opened last night Thru Cargo Garden, Arch 461, 83 Rivington St, London, EC2A 3AY. Featuring the work of Swoon, David Ellis and Monica Canila.

The Godfather of Graffit, Seen has a show which also opened last night at Stolen Space. The show runs until the 18th of November. STOLENSPACE GALLERY | Dray Walk | The Old Truman Brewery | 91 Brick Lane

Space Invader at Lazinc. Lazarides Gallery | 8 Greek Street | Soho, London.
Exhibition Dates: Fri 05th of October - Fri 09th of November

"Small, Medium and Large" with work from Adam Neate, Dalek , Anthony Lister , Delta, Futura, Jose Parla, Mark Dean Veca, Phil Frost, Ron English, Space Invader, Stash and WK Interact at Elms Lesters Painting Rooms | 1-3-5 Flitcroft Street | London WC2H 8DH

"Urban Sprawl" at Leonard Street Gallery with Judith Supine, Matt Small, Beejoir, Swoon, Herbert Baglione, Date Farmers, Elbowtoe, Aiko, Evan Hecox, Eine and more. Leonard Street Gallery | 73 A Leonard Street | London

and finally

"THE BUNNY SHOW" at Cosh Gallery with work from Ben Frost, Hydro74, Bemodern, Mudwig, Si Scott, Airside, Pure Evil, Keith Watts, KozynDan, Mr Ian Wright, Pandayoghurt, Sean Alexander, Slinkachu and John Cossey.
Cosh Gallery 69 Berwick St, W1F 8SZ. (Just off Oxford Street).

NEW DAVE KINSEY

To tie in with his new solo show "Sure, Why Not" at BLK/MRKT Gallery in L.A., Dave Kinsey has released a new screenprint. This beautiful new print titled "Terminal Solipsism is an impressive 9 colour screenprint on 100% cotton rag. Signed/numbered/stamped and an edition of 225. Get your self one now over here.

If like us your not in LA, you can check some of the work from the above mentioned solo show on Kinsey's website here and Juxtapoz has also posted some pictures from the private view on their website here.

HEAP EXBHITION

Printhouse and online gallery Black Rat Press is opening a stunning new gallery this week: a 2000 square foot, high brick archway in the heart of Shoreditch. They have a full program planned of contemporary, international shows with a street art slant including solo exhibitions of street art legends, Blek Le Rat and D*Face.

Their first exhibition is HEAP a collaborative installation designed specifically to fit their gallery space by the huge collective talents of Swoon, David Ellis and Monica Canilao. Each of whom view collaboration as a form of communication, a creative dialogue between their own mutual passions.

The show opens with a private view this Thursday 25th, its invite only but if you email the gallery they may be able to hook you up. This is a must see show and be sure and head down early as its gonna be mad busy.

Location:
Thru Cargo Garden, Arch 461, 83 Rivington St, London, EC2A 3AY

Be sure and keep your eyes open, as Swoon has found some time away from the show to hit up the streets of East London with some fantastic large pieces.

HOOKED ZINE ISSUE 2

Some Hooked news for ye. We are very excitied as we have just finished our second Hooked Zine and it's looking super fresh if we do say so ourselves. Finally finished, this one has only taken 6 long months to get together what with waiting for work from the artists and me having to re-learn how to use exposure units and what not. But here is it a DIY black and white photocopied publication with a splash of colour and a hand screenprinted cover!!!! A 34 page zine, A5 in size and featuring illustrations and doodles from a selection international street artists and illustrators. Each issue come individually wrapped. More pictures can be seen over on our Etsy page.

The featured artists in this issue include:
Lister, Elph, mjar, Muju, Twiy, Showchicken, 45RPM, Mudwig Dans, Miss Lotion, Jet-Pac, KMR, Mute-Id and Dist.



You can bag yourselves a copy over on our Etsy shop( need to register to use) or via the buy now links before. The prices listed below include postage and packaging of the zine. Hope ye enjoy.

UK £3.50 inc. postage

INTERNATIONAL £4.00 inc. postage

STREET SKETCHBOOK

We have finally got around to blogging this, " Street Sketchbook" is the newest book by Tristan Manco (author of Stencil Graffiti, Street Logos and Graffiti Brasil) and is set to hit the shelves on the 5th of November.

We are really looking forward to getting our hands on a copy of what looks set to be a fantastic publication. Having documented the graffiti and street art that we see on the streets every day in his previous books, Tristan has taken it to the next level with Street Sketchbook and takes us behind the secenes to bring us a glimpse into the minds of over sixty-five artists via their personal sketchbooks. The pages showcase an incredible diversity of working methods, innovative approaches and personal fixations, including declarations of love, typographic explorations, alter egos, storyboards, mythological creatures, anatomical studies, architectural drawings and extreme doodling. They may be diverse, but they all exude creativity and originality.

With over 500 colour illustrations the book is hard bound with rounded corners for the sketchbook look and a spot varnished cover, what more could you want. You need to have this book in your collection.


To mark the release of the publication, the recently opened Rough Trade East on Dry Walk will host a book launch on the 9th November – at which artists from the book will be present to doodle on copies of the book, as well as creating new works and scribbling on the walls. Artists set to appear at the book launch include:

Wet Shame Crew: Paris, Eco, Mudwig (Great Britten)
David Earl Dixon (Colchester)
Duncan Jago (Bristol)
Guy McKinley (Manchester)
Showchicken (London)

JOY RIDE

JOY RIDE an art show inspired by the bicycle. Curated by Brendt Barbur in association with Laura Fletcher.

Featuring:
Swoon | Phil Frost | Michel Gondry | Steve MacDonald | DAZE | Peter Sutherland | Julia Chiang | Ryuta Nakajima | Lauren Silberman | Kareem Black | Benedict Radcliffe | D*Face | Nik Ramage | Paul Calver | Ray Lewis | Selim Korycki | Roxy Erickson | Najla Mohamed Lamin | Mike Andreae | Fast Eddie Williams | Cheryl Dunn | Takuya Sakamoto | Madsaki | Ko Masuda | Erin Nicole Brown | Taliah Lempert | Amy Bolger | Tod Seelie | Daniel Leeb | Goods | Conrad Carlson | Erik Foss | Yohei Hanazawa | Jason Chaste | Wolfgang Paperchase | Andrew McClintock | MAKWA

JOY RIDE 17-21 OCTOBER

MAVERIK SHOWROOM | 68-72 Red Church St E2

SEEN AT STOLEN SPACE

The Godfher of Grafitti, SEEN returns to London this week, for this his second solo show titled 'SIGN OF THE TIMES' at the Stolen Space Gallery. This show will consist of new canvas works , found or stolen nyc objects, releif pieces, city signs & subway maps. The show opens to the public on Friday the 26th October and runs until the 18th of November.

STOLENSPACE GALLERY | Dray Walk
The Old Truman Brewery | 91 Brick Lane

Street Renegades: New Underground Art

While checking out the Pure Evil solo exhibition on Leonard Street at the weekend I got to finally meet the lovely Francesca Gavin. Francesca is a freelance features writer, critic and editor based in London. She is currently Visual Arts Editor at Dazed & Confused magazine, an associate editor at Marmalade and also interviewed me about the Invisiblemadevisible website for FACT magazine awhile back. Francesca has just finished a new book for Laurence King and told me it was hitting the shelves this week, although Magma apparently already have copies.

Her new book titled "Street Renegades: New Underground Art " highlights a new wave of artists who are subverting the three dimensional streetscape to shock, educate, entertain and reclaim the corporate theft of street creativity.

Frustrated by wholesale corporate theft of the scene, the latest generation of street artists are employing different techniques in their work, different means of dissemination, different materials, different ways of getting their work noticed. Using the detritus of the urban environment—advertising, fly-tipped rubbish, street signs—the new scene is subverting the streetscape in 3D to shock, educate, and entertain. This book documents the new graffiti with photographs of the work and interviews with major players around the world.

Artists featured include:
Brad Downey, Caliper Boy, Cut Up, Eine, El Tono, Faile, Cayetano Ferrer, Samuel François, G from Paris, Michael Genovese, Jorge Rodriguez Gerada, Graffiti Research Lab, Influenza, Invader, Mark Jenkins, Leopold Kessler, Knitta, Carla Ly, Adam Neate, Part 2, Psalm, Robin Rhode, Skullphone, Slinkachu, Judith Supine, Thought Police, Thundercut, Truth, Dan Witz, Zezao

Pictures Update

We have updated our invisiblemadevisible flickr
with a bunch of new pictures taken around East London over the weekend. Go check them out here.

The Sex Has Made Me Stupid

Dave the Chimp drops his second music video for electro pop superstars Robots In Disguise, "The Sex Has Made Me Stupid" video sees the girls settling in for an evening on the couch watching porn on VHS!!!

The single is released Monday 15th October on President Records

PURE EVIL SHOW

Pure Evil Solo Show

The most controversial work yet from Pure Evil, 'Car Crash Paintings' runs from October 10th for the next 3 weeks.

108 Leonard street | London
Old Street Tube

Urban Sprawl

Urban Sprawl is a collection of some of the most exciting artists that Leonard Street Gallery has shown in the last year. A fusion of some of the most prolific artists to date including Judith Supine, Matt Small, Beejoir, Swoon, Herbert Baglione, Date Farmers, Elbowtoe, Aiko, Evan Hecox, Eine and more.

Show opens 11th October and will run until the 1st November.

Leonard Street Gallery | 73 A Leonard Street | London

LIL TUFFY POSTER EXHIBITION

For the past few years, Lil Tuffy has been designing posters that challenge the traditional roles of art and advertisement. Armed with an arsenal of styles and a keen eye for color and typography, Tuffy has made an international reputation for himself as a leader of the new generation of concert poster artists. His hand-screened posters adorn the walls of clubs, galleries and music fanatics in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia.

Drawing on the influences of past screen-printing greats such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and rock poster pioneer, Art Chantry, Tuffy has created provoking images that have graced hundreds of flyers and posters. He has created artwork for a variety of artists including Devo, The Flaming Lips, The Melvins, Bloc Party, X, Bright Eyes and the The White Stripes as well as for landmark events like CBGB's 30th Anniversary.

For one night only on the 11th October, as part of a European tour Jaguar Shoes will will be displaying a collection of his works through-out the Old Shoreditch Station from 7pm onwards....

The Old Shoreditch Station | 1 Kingsland Road | London

THE BUNNY SHOW

Soho based gallery Cosh open this week with a new show titled " Thats all Folks! - The Bunny Show" and will feature work from Artists Ben Frost, Hydro74, Bemodern, Mudwig, Si Scott, Airside, Pure Evil, Keith Watts, KozynDan, Mr Ian Wright, Pandayoghurt, Sean Alexander, Slinkachu and John Cossey

Originals and very limited editions prints will be available. - Also feature magic by Dynamo on the opening night!

Cosh Gallery 69 Berwick St, W1F 8SZ. (Just off Oxford Street).
Opening Night 9th October - Invite Only.

RE-BAG

Curated by Progress Packaging, Re-bag is an exhibition of limited edition reusable canvas bags designed by 15 leading UK design practitioners. Designers responded to a brief to create an image for a bag on the theme of sustainability and reusability. The resulting bags not only promote this idea but are also in themselves, an eco-friendly alternative to the use of non-green materials in everyday packaging. Bags will be available to buy from the show or via Blanka.

Contributors Include: AIRSIDE, BB/SAUNDERS, BROWNS, DESIGN PROJECT, MADETHOUGHT, MULTISTOREY, NB:STUDIO, NON FORMAT, ODD, SATURDAY, SEA, SPIN, SUPERMUNDANE, THE DESIGNERS REPUBLIC AND WINKREATIVE.

5th - 11th October

The Sea Gallery

Sony Does It Again.

Sony does it again with "Play-Doh". The third TV commercial for Bravia is the most ambitious piece of stop-motion animation ever undertaken. Devised by Fallon and shot over three weeks in New York, the commercial employed 40 animators and used 2.5 tonnes of plasticine. Check the sony website here to see some behind the scenes footage.

Cor Da Rua (street colour)

The largest show of it's kind, Cor Da Rua is a 2-month 10-artist celebration of Brazilian urban art, considered by many to be the most significant genre of the global urban art movement. All of the artists are highly acclaimed in their native Brazil and have a huge international following. These shows are not to be missed and will definitely be worth the trip to Brighton.

The first show, opening this Friday will see work from titifreak, andrei muller, daniel melim, silvana mello and kboco and will run for one month, the 6 October to 4 November 2007.

The second month will see another group of artists Speto, Carlos Dias, MZK, Ramon Martins and Zezao taking over the gallery and this will also have an opening preview night on Friday 9th November. The second show will run from the 10 November to 9 December 2007.

ocontemporary | 80 trafalgar street | brighton

SPACE INVADER HITS LDN

Space Invader’s new exhibition opening on 5 October at Lazarides Gallery will be his first London solo exhibition. Space invaders was a video phenomenon of the 1980s, heralding the birth of a new era in both technology and popular culture. 30 years on, French artist Space Invader has filled the streets with pixellated mosaic tiles of his work inspired by the original game, spreading them over the walls of more than 35 of the world’s biggest cities in the last ten years alone.

The first part of the show, LONDON INVASION, documents the contribution Space Invader has made to the streets of London since 1999. This is illustrated by an installation of photographs that chart the production of over 100 pieces on the walls of the capital. The second part, BAD MEN PART II, displays the artist’s most recent rubikcubist works - portraits of infamous and
notorious fictional bad boys from the world of Hollywood made with Rubik’s cubes. These striking images are unrecognizable when seen up-close, but the visitor need only to take a step back to come face-to-face with such nightmarish figures as Charles Manson.

While Space Invader’s murals illustrate the aggressive nature of our popular culture, they simultaneously critique it by pixellating and therefore distorting the images we encounter in everyday life. His hundreds of unique and individually numbered ‘space invaders’ catch our gaze as we walk by, granting us access to his dynamic and disorientating world. In doing so, Space Invader points to the important transformation of society that information networks have brought about. His pixilated versions of contemporary icons, rendered in the age-old medium of mosaic, forefront the immaterial and transient nature of twenty-first century data.

Lazarides Gallery | 8 Greek Street | Soho, London.
Exhibition Dates: Fri 05th of October - Fri 09th of November

REMIXED MEDIA

Remixed media is an exhibition opening this evening, at the amuti gallery and featuring new works from Part2ism - urban artist extrordinare and Ninja Tunes engineer. The show presented in association with Duck-art will run until the 13th October with a private view tonight 3rd October 6:30 til 9:30. If you are not familiar with his work be sure and check his myspace here.

Amuti gallery | Woburn Walk | London WC1H OJT.

PMH WEBSITE GOES LIVE

Keeping it on a new websites tip, PMH who we've mentioned loads on this blog has just dropped his newest website THEPMHQ.com . Author of the Le Dilly Blog and publisher of the zines of the same name, his latest website is all about his own work. Drawings, paintings, collage, street work and some great great doodles are all featured. And if that wasnt enough PMH has also included a selection of his photograph for our viewing pleasure.

Along side the release of his website, PMH has also released a new Dilly zine featuring the artworks of Simon Redekop. Simon is part of the same art collective as Mike Swaney, who created the artwork for the previous Dilly zine. Both are part of the Candian Human Five art collective and are available from the Le Dilly website.

MATT SEWELL WEBSITE

Illustrator Matt Sewell is finally back online with a brand spanking new website. The new site showcases his illustrations, canvas and outdoor wall work. To tie in with the launch of the new site, Matt has produced 3 new screenprints which are available to buy from the site and include "A walk in the dark" print pictured above. But as with any screen print release these days you gotta be fast, as these prints are going quick with one of the prints already sold out!!! Go check the site and bag yourself a print here.

SMALL, MEDIUM and LARGE

Following the success of the PAINTINGS, POTS AND PRINTS exhibition in August, Elms Lester Painting Rooms is set to open this week. with its newest show "Small, Medium and Large". This exhibition will give visitors a unique and unmissable opportunity to see new works by some of the world’s leading figures in the radical movement of street art spreading all over the globe as a reaction to the old school contemporary art scene.

Adam Neate, Dalek (first image above) , Anthony Lister (second image above), Delta, Futura, Jose Parla, Mark Dean Veca, Phil Frost, Ron English, Space Invader, Stash and WK Interact will show work at this show. The Elms Lesters Painting Rooms has invited these twelve cutting-edge artists to submit three pieces of work each; one small, one medium and one large, plus a small object for display in a cabinet or on a plinth.

The show opens Friday 5th October and runs until Saturday 10th November 2007

Elms Lesters Painting Rooms | 1-3-5 Flitcroft Street | London WC2H 8DH
Nearest Tube | Tottenham Court Road