V I R A L - B L O G
* * * ALL CITY CANVAS - STREET ART IN MEXICO ! ! * * * *
by VIRAL on 05/17/12
Brooklyn Street Art
…loves you more every day.
Mexico City: High Art in Thin Air
Posted on May 16, 2012
Capital Soars with Huge New International Street Art Murals
An Amazing Week in DF with Interesni Kazki, El Mac, Saner, Sego, Roa, Herakut, Vhils, and Escif
Gazing out at the sweep of metropolis that is modern Mexico City, you’ll have to catch your breath once in a while. A culture known for it’s historic public murals of the 20th Century, it looks like a resurgence is at hand, but this time the muralist are international Street Artists, and the scale is soaring.
Escif (photo © courtesy of All City Canvas)
The project “All City Canvas” invited nine artists from around the world and locally to use some of Distrito Federal’s prime real estate as just that – a canvas. With cranes and rollers instead of ladders and cans, these are some of the largest works we’ve seen by some of these artists. Here’s Portugals’ Vhils on the Dolores Building near La Alameda, there’s Germany’s Herakut on the side of the oldest newspaper in Mexico El Universal, and look way up to see LA’s El Mac signature portrait on the side of the Hotel Reforma Avenue. After eleven months of work getting permission from building owners, convincing city leaders, and securing major corporate sponsors, the capital of Mexico now has a few more major public art pieces that will blow you away and the resulting collection further secures this city of 21 million as one of the growing hubs of the Street Art scene.
ROA (photo © courtesy of All City Canvas)
We spoke with the three guys who organized the festival to get an understanding of the logistics and their aspirations for the project. As organizers and innovators with ties to their own arts organizations in Mexico City, each one of these guys hustled to make it happen; Victor Hugo Celaya of ARTO, Roberto Shimizu of MUJAM, and Gonzalo Alvarez of MAMUTT. Participating artists were Interesni Kazki (Ukraine), El Mac (USA), Saner (Mexico), Sego (Mexico), Roa (Belgium), Herakut (Germany), Vhils (Portugal) and Ecif (Spain).
Brooklyn Street Art: Often Street Artists are relegated
to the buildings that are abandoned and in a state of decay. In this case, your
program featured work on the sides of some of the most important buildings in
Mexico City. How did you get permission to do this?
Victor Hugo
Celaya: Since the beginning, we wanted to offer an unique experience to
the city so we took urban art to everybody – youth, businessmen, doctors, moms…
In order to make a huge impact, we worked to obtain the best spots in Mexico
City. Each of these buildings is seen by thousands of people each day and are
all located in the city center of Mexico City. It was a difficult job, but in
the end we got everything set up. The impact would not have been the same if we
had painted other walls.
ROA (photo © courtesy of All City Canvas)
Brooklyn Street Art: Mexican culture has a proud
tradition of public murals. How does the style of Street Art in 2012 differ from
that tradition?
Roberto Shimizu: Obviously the Mexican
history with mural painters and our cultural background, with artists like David
Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera – played a big part while we were
conceptualizing the project. Mexico City has the perfect moral background to
invite the best urban artists in the world to intervene its walls to create huge
murals. We wanted to innovate and create a new link with the past with some of
the renowned urban artists of our time.
Brooklyn Street Art: Did you have difficulty persuading
building owners to allow this work on their property?
Gonzalo Alvarez:
It was difficult to get to the owners, since these people are important business
people that don’t have “a lot of time”. Nevertheless, after a lot of work and
perseverance we got to show them the project. Once we got to them, we realized
they are great people who were interested in getting involved in new innovative
projects for the city. At the end, all of them were very happy with the outcome
of the festival.
BBC NEWS - COVERS GRAFFITI ART IN CHINA - CHANGING CHINA
by VIRAL on 05/01/12
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Graffiti tradition
Graffiti is so accepted in the West it formed the basis of the new controversial logo for the London 2012 Olympics. In China too, which hosts the Olympics next year, graffiti has a long tradition.
It began with Mao Zedong in the 1920s who used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanise the country's communist revolution. Wang Mo, 24, is one of a new generation of Chinese graffiti artists using the art-form to comment on modern Chinese society. |
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/04/135985475/hong-kong-graffiti-challenges-chinese-artists-arrest
by VIRAL on 05/01/12
The bearded face of the detained Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is spray-painted on a nondescript gray wall overlooking the steep lanes of Hong Kong's nightlife capital, Lan Kwai Fong.
Ai Weiwei's Installation Opens In New York
On Wednesday, an exhibit of Ai Weiwei's work opened in New York City — without the detained artist. The installation, called Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads, is on a six-city tour. Each of the animal heads weighs about 800 pounds and stands atop a marble base.
Given his real-life circumstances — summarily disappeared at the hands of the Chinese authorities with no charges yet laid — the furrowed forehead and hooded, tired eyes of the image now seem a representation of suffering. Underneath his face is one simple question, "Who's afraid of Ai Weiwei?"
This graffiti, appearing all over Hong Kong, has become a political statement, more than a month after the world-famous artist was detained by the authorities at Beijing airport. The campaign could yet lead to a jail term for the young graffiti artist responsible. And that fact has led to fears about the erosion of Hong Kong's distinct freedoms, which are a legacy of its colonial past under the British.
Despite causing consternation for the authorities, many Hong Kong residents like both the graffiti's aesthetic and its political message.
"It's cool," says passerby Peter Chan. "The graphic is cool, and the presentation of protest against China is cool."
"It's all over the place," says Leonardo Guzman, gesturing left and right. "Before there was graffiti here, there was graffiti there. It's kind of good."
But as his words indicate, the immediate official reaction was literally a whitewash.
Crack teams of street cleaners took just three hours to remove or cover up many of the Ai Weiwei stencils sprayed around Victoria Harbor, while other instances of the same graffiti elsewhere were dispatched with similar speed. That's in stark contrast to other graffiti in Hong Kong, which is often ignored for months, if not years.
Graffiti Artist: A Counterculture Icon
This campaign is the work of 22-year-old graffiti artist Tang Chin, also known as Tangerine, whose aim is to warn Hong Kong people that Ai Weiwei's detention does affect them.
"He's one of the most prominent contemporary artists in the world right now," she explains. "And if he can be arrested, then there's no identity we can hide behind: Being a Hong Kong citizen doesn't help anymore; being rich or social status doesn't help. There's no shield any more against this very naked power that's trying to engulf us."
Kacey Wong, who helped organize a march in Hong Kong in support of Ai Weiwei, took along a homemade 6-foot-tall Grass Mud Horse, a mythical animal that Chinese netizens use as a way of indirectly criticizing government censorship. In his hand, he holds a picture of Ai Weiwei riding his own Grass Mud Horse.
Kacey Wong, who helped organize a march in Hong Kong in support of Ai Weiwei, took along a homemade 6-foot-tall Grass Mud Horse, a mythical animal that Chinese netizens use as a way of indirectly criticizing government censorship. In his hand, he holds a picture of Ai Weiwei riding his own Grass Mud Horse.
Tangerine's graffiti campaign has turned her into an inadvertent counterculture icon. Few people know what she looks like. She's not exactly on the run, but a police unit is investigating criminal damage charges against her, which carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail.
Such a stiff sentence for graffiti is extremely unusual, especially since a lesser offense of "graffiti" exists, which carries a maximum penalty of a fine and three months' imprisonment. Stranger still, the investigating unit is a serious crime squad that usually deals with murder and rape, not vandalism.
Tangerine's unusual treatment unleashed a furor among Hong Kong's outspoken press. But she is unfazed, retorting, "I have to thank the police for drawing so much attention to this issue. Even if I have to go to jail, I think that would be a very, very worth it price to pay."
'An Issue Of Morality Rather Than Politics'
"For us, this is a big, big alarm," says local artist Kacey Wong, founder of a new concern group called Art Citizen. He believes recent events are galvanizing and politicizing local artists, who until now have lived in "a bubble."
About 2,000 of their number marched through Hong Kong's streets for Ai Weiwei on April 23. Some doused themselves in paint and others drummed, while Wong made his own slyly subversive statement, sitting on the back of a 6-foot-tall homemade Grass Mud Horse, an animal that bears some resemblance to an alpaca.
In his hand, Wong waved a photograph of a naked Ai Weiwei mounted atop his own Grass Mud Horse. This mythical animal is a political symbol of opposition to government censorship among Chinese Internet users. Its name sounds identical to a particularly obscene profanity, so it is used by netizens to circumvent official censors.
Now Wong fears that political censorship could be spreading to Hong Kong, which he worries could lose its special freedoms if people don't defend them.
2012 THE YEAR OF THE DRAGON - CHINESE ZODIAC GRAFFITI STREET ART PIECE
by VIRAL on 04/02/12
The Dragon (simplified Chinese: ?; traditional Chinese: ?), is one of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac and Mongolian zodiac related to the Chinese calendar and Mongolian calendar, and the only animal that is from a fairytale. The Year of the Dragon is associated with the earthly branch symbol ?.
http://viral-one.com/YEAR-OF-THE-DRAGON-by-VIRAL.html
YEAR OF THE DRAGON PIECE BY VIRAL LOS ANGELES - The year of the dragon piece uses several cans and shades of spanish montana red spray paint as well as various paint markers and inks including molotow, krink, Iron Lak, on the run , decco , uni paint and hardcore. This piece has over 5000 individual dragon scales. This piece uses over 20 shades of red and gold inks and dyes. This is a five clawed dragon. CHINESE NEW YEAR YEAR OF THE DRAGON GRAFFITI ART - STREET ART. The dragon piece is available on canvas giclee in a 10 x 30 inch giclee canvas. CLICK HERE - THIS IS A ONE OF A KIND YEAR OF THE DRAGON PIECE
Occupying the 5th position in the Chinese Zodiac, the Dragon is the mightiest of the signs. Dragons symbolize such character traits as dominance and ambition. Dragons prefer to live by their own rules and if left on their own, are usually successful. They’re driven, unafraid of challenges, and willing to take risks. They’re passionate in all they do and they do things in grand fashion. Unfortunately, this passion and enthusiasm can leave Dragons feeling exhausted and interestingly, unfulfilled.
While Dragons frequently help others, rarely will they ask for help. Others are attracted to Dragons, especially their colorful personalities, but deep down, Dragons prefer to be alone. Perhaps that is because they’re most successful when working alone. Their preference to be alone can come across as arrogance or conceitedness, but these qualities aren’t applicable. Dragons have tempers that can flare fast!
Health
Considering their hard-working nature, Dragons are healthy overall. They do get stressed and suffer from periodic tension/headaches, likely because they take so many risks. Dragons could benefit from incorporating mild activity into their lives. Yoga or walking would be good as these activities can work both their minds and their bodies.
Career
Dragons prefer leading to being led. Jobs that allow them to express their creativity are good choices. Some good careers include: inventor, manager, computer analyst, lawyer, engineer, architect, broker, and sales person.
Relationships
Dragons will give into love, but won’t give up their independence. Because they have quick, sometimes vengeful tempers, their partners need to be tough-skinned. Dragons enjoy others who are intriguing, and when they find the right partners, they’ll usually commit to that person for life.
Dragons and the 5 elements
Metal Dragons – Years 1940 and 2000
Metal strengthens this already strong sign. Metal Dragons are more determined and they’ll fight for what they believe in. They enjoy the company of those who feel mighty enough to challenge their beliefs. They’re true leaders and usually find plenty of others willing to follow.
Water Dragons – Years 1952 and 2012
Water calms the Dragon’s fire. Water Dragons are able to see things from other points of view. They don’t have the need to always be right. Their decisions, if well-researched, are usually better since they allow other’s to become involved.
Wood Dragons – 1904 and 1964
Wood Dragons also are willing to entertain the opinions of others. Their artistic side is strong, and Wood Dragons enjoy being creative and innovative. They get along with others, but will always be the dominating force.
Fire Dragons – 1916 and 1976
A Fire Dragon’s emotions can flare instantly. Fire Dragons put themselves on pedestals, and because they react quickly and recklessly, they sometimes make wrong decisions. Fire Dragons need to slow down and keep their tempers in check as that’s when they’re best.
Earth Dragons – Years 1928 and 1988
More rooted in the ground, Earth Dragons make better decisions because they act more rationally. Earth Dragons are level-headed and able to control their behaviors. They’re more supportive of others, but they prefer being admired by others.
Occupying the 5th position in the Chinese Zodiac, the Dragon is the mightiest of the signs. Dragons symbolize such character traits as dominance and ambition. Dragons prefer to live by their own rules and if left on their own, are usually successful. They’re driven, unafraid of challenges, and willing to take risks. They’re passionate in all they do and they do things in grand fashion. Unfortunately, this passion and enthusiasm can leave Dragons feeling exhausted and interestingly, unfulfilled.
While Dragons frequently help others, rarely will they ask for help. Others are attracted to Dragons, especially their colorful personalities, but deep down, Dragons prefer to be alone. Perhaps that is because they’re most successful when working alone. Their preference to be alone can come across as arrogance or conceitedness, but these qualities aren’t applicable. Dragons have tempers that can flare fast!
Health
Considering their hard-working nature, Dragons are healthy overall. They do get stressed and suffer from periodic tension/headaches, likely because they take so many risks. Dragons could benefit from incorporating mild activity into their lives. Yoga or walking would be good as these activities can work both their minds and their bodies.
Career
Dragons prefer leading to being led. Jobs that allow them to express their creativity are good choices. Some good careers include: inventor, manager, computer analyst, lawyer, engineer, architect, broker, and sales person.
Relationships
Dragons will give into love, but won’t give up their independence. Because they have quick, sometimes vengeful tempers, their partners need to be tough-skinned. Dragons enjoy others who are intriguing, and when they find the right partners, they’ll usually commit to that person for life.
Dragons and the 5 elements
Metal Dragons – Years 1940 and 2000
Metal strengthens this already strong sign. Metal Dragons are more determined and they’ll fight for what they believe in. They enjoy the company of those who feel mighty enough to challenge their beliefs. They’re true leaders and usually find plenty of others willing to follow.
Water Dragons – Years 1952 and 2012
Water calms the Dragon’s fire. Water Dragons are able to see things from other points of view. They don’t have the need to always be right. Their decisions, if well-researched, are usually better since they allow other’s to become involved.
Wood Dragons – 1904 and 1964
Wood Dragons also are willing to entertain the opinions of others. Their artistic side is strong, and Wood Dragons enjoy being creative and innovative. They get along with others, but will always be the dominating force.
Fire Dragons – 1916 and 1976
A Fire Dragon’s emotions can flare instantly. Fire Dragons put themselves on pedestals, and because they react quickly and recklessly, they sometimes make wrong decisions. Fire Dragons need to slow down and keep their tempers in check as that’s when they’re best.
Earth Dragons – Years 1928 and 1988
More rooted in the ground, Earth Dragons make better decisions because they act more rationally. Earth Dragons are level-headed and able to control their behaviors. They’re more supportive of others, but they prefer being admired by others.
YEAR OF THE DRAGON STREET ART GRAFFITI ART PIECE BY VIRAL 2012
by VIRAL on 03/28/12
http://www.viral-one.com/YEAR-OF-THE-DRAGON-by-VIRAL.html
YEAR OF THE DRAGON STREET ART GRAFFITI ART PIECE BY VIRAL 2012
Obama 2012 – Will Obama Get Re-elected
by VIRAL on 03/21/12
http://recovering-republican.com/obama-2012-reelected/
Obama 2012! President Barack Obama will get reelected! Some on the right will take this prediction as political heresy. If the economy continues to improve, unemployment goes down and we save face in Libya, Obama will win reelection; barring anymore global catastrophes. The main reason Obama will win reelectionare the potential Republican candidates that will oppose him.v
WHO WILL BE OUR NEXT PRESIDENT - WHO WILL BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT IN THE USA
by VIRAL on 03/21/12http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/03/pat-robertson-president-2012-god_n_1181669.html
* STREET BOMBING LOS ANGELES GRAFFITI ART - STREET ART - *
by VIRAL on 03/21/12BRISTOLS STREET ART SCENE UK ! !
by VIRAL on 03/21/12
http://www.bristol-street-art.co.uk/gallery/photo/jody-batman
Bristol's street art scene is extremely diverse and has many talented street artists at its forefront. This website aims to catalogue past and present work by collecting photographs and logging the location of these street art pieces. As the collection grows a unique picture of Bristol street art will emerge.
