A new bold and evocative public work of art from Banksy

Banksy Scaled the Prison That Once Jailed Oscar Wilde to Paint His Latest Mural, by Sarah Rose Sharp, Hyperalleric.com, March 5, 2021

Banksy confirmed the artwork in a clever video stitched together with a Bob Ross tutorial.

Blockbuster street artist Banksy has laid claim to his latest work of public art — an olde tyme prison escape stenciled on the wall of the defunct HM Reading Prison in Reading, Berkshire, England. The prison, also known as Reading Gaol, was built in 1844 and operated until early 2014. Until this week, it was perhaps most famous for housing writer Oscar Wilde during a two-year imprisonment (1895-1897) after a conviction for “gross indecency.” Following his release, Wilde published The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a poem that narrates the 1896 hanging of Charles Thomas Woodridge, convicted of murdering his wife.

The Banksy mural features a figure in prison stripes and a cap. He appears to be climbing down the exterior brick wall on a rope ladder instead of a ream of paper, anchored by a typewriter. The image is likely an allusion to Wilde as Reading’s famous inmate and his subsequent poetic work that both documents Woodridge’s hanging while also identifying with him as a fellow prisoner.

Watch the Instagram video:

The artist left his work open to speculation for a few days before taking to Instagram with a video documenting the mural’s clandestine application, with narration supplemented by overlay from Bob Ross’s famous public access painting program, The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. The audio selections first seem to merely narrate the creation of the mural, details of which are captured in the tight halo of the artist’s headlamp, but once we cut to shots of the mural in full view the following day, the audio clips telegraph the artist’s statement on the work. Read the whole article here.

I love telling success stories about my former SVA students. I now have the opportunity to boast about Michael De Feo. His book, “Michael De Feo: Flowers“, was just released by Abrams Books.

Michael De Feo’s dedication and singularity in the use of his iconic flower image has taken him on a creative adventure of self-discovery in a very public arena.

Michael paints flowers on walls and other public spaces. He has also appropriated advertisements, transforming them, much like billboard liberators, taggers, and graffiti artists do, to dramatically change one message to another. His choice to violate these public spaces with his decorative flowers has great irony. It’s non-threatening. One could paint bullet holes. Michael paints flowers. Bullet holes are obvious. You don’t have to think much about the message. But a flower…

The greater irony is that Michael’s work has now been appropriated by the advertisers whose campaigns he altered because of the positive attention he brings to their work. From my perspective, Michael has created a new meaning to the phrase “flower power.”

Lori Dorn, from Laughing Squid, reports on a magnificent, ephemeral work of art created by French artist JR

Street Artist JR Uses 2,000 Sheets of Paper to Turn The Louvre Pyramid Into an Incredible Optical Illusion
by Lori Dorn
Laughing Squid
April 3, 2019

Three years after he made the Louvre disappear into the facade of the Paris Museum, the remarkable award-winning French street artist and photographer JR created an equally stunning optical illusion centered around the I.M Pei designed Louvre Pyramid itself, in celebration of its 30th anniversary. Over 400 volunteers help the artist paste over 2,000 sheets of specifically designed paper strips onto the [Napoleon] Court, making it appears as if the pyramid was submerged in a rock quarry.

…The images, like life, are ephemeral. Once pasted, the art piece lives on its own. The sun dries the light glue and with every step, people tear pieces of the fragile paper. …This project is also about presence and absence, about reality and memories, about impermanence.

Unfortunately, the installation only lasted for a single day…

Read the whole story here.

Banksy’s new mural in collaboration with Borf, aka John Tsombikos, brings jailed Turkish artist Zehra Dogan’s work to New York.

New Banksy NYC mural supports jailed Turkish artist
by Janon Fisher
New York Daily News
March 17, 2018

The mysterious British graffiti artist Banksy created a 70-foot mural on the Houston Bowery Graffiti Wall showing Turkish artist Zehra Dogan trapped behind hashmarks. (FRANK FRANKLIN II/AP)

Mysterious British graffiti artist Banksy can't stay away from the Big Apple.

After tagging the clock face on a West Village bank, he moved east Thursday, with a sidewalk to rooftop display drawing attention to the plight of a jailed artist.

The 70-foot mural on the Houston Bowery Graffiti Wall shows Turkish artist Zehra Dogan trapped behind a set of hashmarks meant to symbolize her prison bars.

Dogan was sentenced to nearly three years in jail for painting a the town of Nasybin laid waste by the Turkish after a battle with Kurdish forces.

She copied the photo from a newspaper then painted it in watercolor, adding Turkish flags to the scene, according to her publicist.

Dogan was arrested after she posted the image on social media.

The timing of the mural marks the one year anniversary of her incarceration.

Her watercolor stretches out across the top of the building where Banksy has painted his mural.

"I really feel for her. I've painted things much more worthy of a custodial sentence," Banksy told The New York Times in a statement.

Artists Plastic Jesus and Joshua “Ginger” Monroe bring the Hollywood casting couch out of the shadows, just in time for the Oscars.

Gold Harvey Weinstein Casting Couch Appears Near Oscars Venue
by Emmet McDermott
Hollywood Reporter
March 1, 2018

The piece is the work of Plastic Jesus and Joshua “Ginger” Monroe, the artist behind the infamous naked Donald Trump statues.

A robe-swaddled Harvey Weinstein statue, sitting arms spread on a golden chaise lounge urging pedestrians to sit beside him, appeared in Hollywood on Thursday days before the 90th Academy Awards ceremony.

The sculpture, located on Hollywood Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, is a collaboration between street artists Plastic Jesus, best known for his annual Oscar season installations that take aim at the dark side of show business, and Joshua “Ginger” Monroe, the artist behind the infamous naked Donald Trump statues.

The piece was intentionally crafted to allow passersby to sit beside Weinstein and take photos with him. Clenched in Weinstein’s right hand is an Oscar statue, strategically placed near his groin.

“For many years the exploitation of many hopefuls and established names in the industry was brushed under the carpet with their complaints of harassment and sexual abuse being ignored or worse,” Plastic Jesus tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Hopefully, now in the light of recent allegations against many leading figures in Hollywood the industry will clean up its act.”

Plastic Jesus does not give his name but has said that he is a former London photojournalist who moved to L.A. many years ago to explore installation art as a way to tackle sociopolitical issues. His works include last year’s Kanye West crucifixion sculpture, on which he also collaborated with Ginger, and 2015’s coke-snorting Oscar statue. Ginger is a Las Vegas-based artist. His naked Donald Trump statues were installed across multiple cities in 2016.

According to the artists, the life-size Weinstein sculpture took two months to produce. A casting was initially taken from a friend of the artists, and Ginger subsequently molded the face to match Weinstein’s. (more…)

The Brooklyn artists once again sculpt an environmental statement.

“Kauai plastic going into Belgian sculpture”
by Jessica Else
The Garden Island
August 23, 2017

Plastic from Kauai's beaches is going to Belgium where it will become part of a 30-foot tall blue whale sculpture.

It's all part of Brooklyn-based Studio KCA's project to create larger than life reminders of human impacts to the environment, and most of the materials for the sculpture are coming from Kauai.

"A lot of our plastic waste is collecting in Hawaii - the northern part of Kauai and the southern part of Hawaii Island," said Jason Klimoski, co-owner of Studio KCA.

Klimoski and his partner Lesley Chang are also gathering plastic from the United States' west coast and east coast for the project.

Klimoski and Chang are architects and artists who got their start in gigantic sculptures with eco-friendly messages in 2013 with a sculpture on Governor's Island, New York. Read more.

Brooklyn Street Art blog showcases creative civic repurposing.

“Art Silos Rise in the Harbor of Catania, Sicily”
By Stephen P. Harrington and Jamie Rojo
Brooklyn Street Art
May 4, 2016

They”™ve been here since the 1950s, these silos for wheat and corn on the harbor of Catania on the east coast of the island of Sicily at the foot of Mount Etna. 28 meters tall and facing the Ionian Sea, they are now some of the largest canvasses in Italy by a small group of international and local Street Artists.

Interesni Kazki. Detail. (photo © VladyArt)

The “Art Silos” project includes works completed during an eight month installation begun in June 2015 as part of Festival “I-ART” organized by “Emergence”, thanks to Angelo Bacchelli, curated by Giuseppe Stagnitta. The artists taking part in the project were Okuda (Spain), ROSH333 (Spain), Microbo (Italy), BO130 (Italy), VladyArt (Italy), Danilo Bucchi (Italy) and the duo Interesni Kaxki (Ukraine), mostly all from the graffiti/Street Art world. A separately organized but related project on the harbor-facing row of eight silos was completed by one artist alone, the Lisbon-based Vhils.

Interesni Kazki. Detail. (photo © VladyArt)

The project”™s completion at the turn of the year culminated in one of the largest Street Art/Graffiti artists”™ collective shows in Italy held in the city”™s main public gallery Palazzo Platamone, entitled “Codici Sorgenti” (Source Code), which was curated by Stefano S. Antonelli and Francesca Mezzano from Rome”™s 999 Contemporary Gallery.

There is talk about the possibility that this exhibition of about 60 artists work will tour throughout Europe with its message of the historic roots of modern graffiti and Street Art along with many of its most impactful practitioners pushing into the contemporary art world.

Danilo Bucchi (photo © VladyArt)

Okuda (photo © VladyArt)

Full story and more photos here.

From artist Brian Kane:

Healing Tool is art designed for people in cars.

A temporary public art installation using digital billboards on interstate freeways. June 28 June – July 26 , 2015

Read more about this at Huffington Post here.

Graffiti artist Mobstr tells the story with pictures of his grand experiment taunting authorities:

I cycled past this wall on the way to work for years. I noticed that graffiti painted within the red area was “buffed” with red paint. However, the graffiti outside the red area would be removed via pressure washing. This prompted the start of an experiment. Unlike other works, I was very uncertain as to what results it would yield. Below is what transpired over the course of a year.

It went like this:

Continue to next page to see the rest. (more…)

From Deborah Thomas:

There’s a Massive, Illicit Bust of Edward Snowden Stuck to a War Monument in Brooklyn
by Bucky Turco
AnimalNewYork.com
April 6, 2015

While most people slept, a trio of artists and some helpers installed a bust of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in Brooklyn on Monday morning. The group, which allowed ANIMAL to exclusively document the installation on the condition that we hide their identities, hauled the 100-pound sculpture into Fort Greene Park and up its hilly terrain just before dawn. They fused it to part of the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument, a memorial to Revolutionary War soldiers. As of press time, the sculpture was still there.

Read the full story of the erection on AnimalNewYork.com and the very quick removal by City park officials on NYDailyNews.com.

Watch the video:

Los Angeles has an obnoxious habit of neglectfully erasing its own history. Before Hugh Hefner helped restore it in 1978, the city’s iconic Hollywood Sign had fallen into disrepair. It was during this low point that a few tenacious pranksters (and recreational drug enthusiasts) decided to temporarily alter it.

In the words of redditor bmwnut, “I do wonder where they put a 45 foot letter on which to practice.”

“In 1976, pot-head pranksters made ‘HOLLYWEED’ out of the iconic Hollywood sign”
By Rusty Blazenhoff
Dangerous Minds
February 27, 2015

On January 1, 1976, Tinseltown”™s iconic sign read “Hollyweed” after art student Danny Finegood and 3 of his college pals used $50 worth of dark fabric to transform the famous Hollywood landmark temporarily. They had practiced it first on a scale model Finegood had crafted.

It was more than a simple practical joke, Finegood considered it a statement on the relaxed California marijuana law that went into effect that day.

Read more here.

Naked Satan Statue Has Vancouver Locals Asking, ‘What The Devil?’
by David Moye
The Huffington Post
September 9, 2014

What the hell?

That’s the question some Vancouver locals were asking after a naked, anatomically correct statue of Satan was mysteriously erected in a local park.

The 9-foot-tall statue was a representation of the devil, complete with red skin, a pointed tail and horns atop his head. The statue also holds one hand up in a devil-horn salute familiar to heavy metal fans the world over.

But what has aroused controversy is the statue’s prominent, erect phallus, CTV News reports. Read the whole story here.

Watch the video

Philip Romano invites bystanders to create art on his car:

“The Artmobile”
by Dan Lewis
Now I Know
August 18, 2014

“The license plate tells 90% of the story. It reads ‘DRAWONME.’ The other 10%? That”™s alluded to by the three or four pieces of sidewalk chalk left on the roof of the car “” by no means a coincidence.

“The car is owned by a 20-something Westchester resident named Philip Romano. He coated his 2004 Hyundai Elantra with chalkboard paint and then drove it around to strategic locations, making sure to provide the utensils of not-quite-graffiti. In the summer of 2013, for example, he parked it in front of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) to see if true art enthusiasts would take the license plate literally. It proved popular – one report claimed that the line went ‘around the block.'” Read more here.

image: DRAWONME Tumblr

Reddit user Jazus ur lookin well starts new selfie trend:

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15 Captivating Works Of Art That Challenge The McDonaldization Of Society
by Kevin Short
The Huffington Post
April 24, 2014

…In protest of this overwhelming “McDonaldization” of society, a term first coined in 1993 by sociologist George Ritzer, artists around the world have created some highly vivid pieces that assail the symbols of McDonald’s omnipresence.

Artist:Zoltron
Year:2011
Location:San Francisco, California

Artist: Banksy
Year: 2009
Location: Bristol, UK

Artist:Peter Pink
Year:2012
Location:Berlin, Germany

(more…)