Street Art Recognized in France

Okay, I am just cutting and pasting this short blurb in today's New York Times. Recognition for the street artists at last!

March 30, 2009
Arts, Briefly
Toasting Graffiti Artists
Compiled by LARRY ROHTER
It’s not quite the same as having one of your paintings in the Louvre, but a French exhibition, above, is enhancing the international recognition of graffiti artists. Among those honored in the show, called “Tag,” at the Grand Palais in Paris, are four New York pioneers who have been active since the 1970s: Toxic, Quik, Seen and Rammellzee, the last of whom showed up for an opening event in a Darth Vader-style mask. The exhibition, which runs through April 26, was commissioned and organized by Alain-Dominique Gallizia, a French architect who became interested in graffiti as an art form when he encountered examples of it at his work sites. Some 150 graffiti artists prepared works for display in the show; most are from the United States or France, but countries including Australia, Brazil, Chile and Japan are also represented.

The Triangle Chalk Project

File this under memorial art but it is also a type of street art. The Triangle Chalk Project commemorates the women and men who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 1911. This horrific fire which claimed the lives of 146 garment workers - mostly young immigrant women - helped launched the unionization of the industry.

The company employed approximately 600 workers, mostly young immigrant women, some as young as twelve or thirteen and worked fourteen-hour shifts during a 60-hour to 72-hour workweek. According to Pauline Newman, a worker at the factory, the average wage was six to seven dollars a week, at a time when the average yearly income was $791.

A fire started on the 8th floor of the factory building in Greenwich Village. Women on the 9th floor soon became trapped - the owners of the factory locked the doors so the women could not leave early or take breaks. Fire truck ladders could not reach higher than the 4th floor of the building. There was only one way out - they jumped out the window ... to their deaths. The scene was devastating.

Every year volunteers go to the doorsteps of the women who died and write a memorial to them in chalk on the sidewalk.

Here are three of the ones I chalked:







For those who would like to learn more about this horrible tragedy, check out these Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire books


See more chalk project photos from 2009 here:
http://www.streetpictures.org/news/2009/03/27/chalk-2009/

Papa Loves Baby .. All Over Town.

Papa Loves Baby. And how! I have seen Papa Loves Baby all over New York - all around downtown and into parts of Brooklyn. Who is Papa? And who is Baby? What is their story? Anyone out there know?

Who is Watching the Watchmen Advertising?

The new movie Watchman had graffiti based advertising campaign. While I liked the movie I did not appreciate the faux-graffiti all over town saying "Who Is Watching The Watchmen".



I think that this type of campaign contributes to the idea that street art is blight and makes it more difficult to see graffiti as an art form to be welcomed and appreciated.




But there was one bit of Watchmen movie based street art that I believe was not part of the studio advertising effort. This was spied in New York City's West 4th Street subway station. Our President Obama as Dr. Manhattan....?

5Pointz

5Pointz in Long Island City, Queens, New York is an extraordinary place where many street and emerging artists have gallery space. It is a series of industrial buildings covered with street art. Here is a short snippet of the ever changing work on the outside of the buildings which was taken in January 2009. But the best way to see this magnificant living art project is in person.

Art Raw Gallery

Four small artist proof versions of my photographs were part of a large group inaugural show at the Art Raw Gallery on 210 11th Avenue, #905, in the Chelsea art district of New York City.

The opening night on February 19th was too crowded with 300+ artists and their friends and family attending. It was hard to move around, some work was not yet hung and some of the lighting needed to be adjusted. The work could not be appreciated.

So I came back another day to video the gallery and the work. All the work was hung, more lighting was installed and it all fell into place. I was very happy to see how such a wonderful and beautiful range of small works all came together to form a great inaugural show.

The show comes down on March 21 so try to see it before it's over.

Have a look:

Poop Street Art

Before the pooper scooper laws in NYC there was an artist who would quietly and stealthily add whipped cream and a cherry on top of the mounds and mounds of dog poop that lined Minetta Street in Greenwich Village NYC. I wish I had a photo of that because it looked amazing!

Many years and a pooper-scooper-law-in-place later, there is a new dog poop decorater in town now on Manhattan's Upper East Side according Jennifer 8 Lee of the New York Times. Stan O’Connor, a local tour guide posted a video of the work on YouTube. The artist spray-paints dog droppings that are being left on the sidewalk and after the dog waste is removed, the bright rings of orange and green spray paint remain, reminding passers-by of what used to be there.

Bravo, brave and intrepid pooch poop artist!