Last week I mentioned Hosier Lane, one of Chopchop’s new hang-outs. This week I thought I’d show you some more of the ever-changing lanes of Melbourne. Artists such as Meggs, Fafi and Vexta regularly work there, as well as the usual anonymice. Canada Lane, in Carlton and Center Place in the city are also extremely impressive. It is definitely worth wandering the lanes regularly, as this graffiti- like all the good stuff, is constantly evolving.

taken by Trimba, Flickr Creative Commons

taken by Trimba, Flickr Creative Commons

taken by Trimba, Flickr Creative Commons

The notorious Mark "Chopper" Reid has been popping up round the streets of Melbourne lately. Anyone who knows anything about this versatile Aussie gangster knows that it is not necessarily a good thing.

"Chopper" stencil art, Melbourne.

Chopper hits headlines semi-frequently. He was arrested this week after getting in a fight on an inner city Collingwood street with a man wielding a tomahawk. Recently, attempts have been made to ban a children’s book that Reid wrote a couple of years ago, titled Hooky the Cripple: the grim tale of a Hunchback who triumphs.

Hosier Lane is Melbourne’s most famous laneway for street art, but watch out if you see Chopper, you might just lose an ear for Christmas…

Fill in the blanks / complétez les champs:

_    l _ v _     C h _ n _ .

as seen in Beijing, one of the residues from the ‘encouraged’ frenzy leading up to the Olympics.

graffiti as seen on 13 Dec 2008 in Beijing

tuya (graffiti), Beijing, Olympic touch

tuya (涂鴉/塗鴉): noun, graffiti.

as seen on the street of Beijing

Winnipeg is the coldest city of over 500,000 people on the face of the planet — that is what you call bragging rites and the preamble to a don’t mess with people from this place kind of town. It is pretty much, as with a lot of prairie towns, an island to itself. Apparently, you have to drive four hundred days just to get to Minneapolis — which puts Winnipeg geographically somewhere hovering around the planet Jupiter. It has tended to deal with isolation and its share of challenges as far as poverty, unemployment and homelessness… by constantly punching way above its weight in terms of artistic output.

Case in point:

Winnipeg has become mural city… The murals of Winnipeg is a web site and work of astounding scale featuring thousands of photos of murals all over in Winnipeg. Bob Buchanan and his wife Louise do this as a pretty much full time labour of love in their retirement and along with Bob Bruce have taken this on for 6 years. It all runs so deep that it boggles the mind. Most of all, what shines through on the site is a real personal touch and a clear sense of care for the community and the artists.

Featured above is Charlie Johnston’s mural of West End Winnipeger Adam Beach. A lot of the murals figure heavily with themes of native art and native pride. As the seat of urban native Canada, Winnipeg has used murals to showcase the talent and culture of its very sizable native community. Of his mural figured above Charlie Johnston says:

“In one day, I had about 50 different people say something to me while I was working there. Everybody recognized him, knew him or was related to him. So talk about a Mural that ties into the community! It was really powerful in that respect. Here’s a person who comes from a hard background and yet, in our society’s eyes, has really made it. He’s an ‘A’ list aboriginal actor; he succeeded, he’s made the big time and he comes back to his community and lends his time which is now more valuable than ever before; speaking to people and children in his previous community about life issues like drug abuse and solvent abuse.”

Trudy Turner: “When Adam and I speak about the Mural, he’s choked and overcome with emotion. He’s such a humble guy. He’s a movie star without ego; he’s just a West End kid who happens to live in Hollywood.”

Charlie: “How far can a man go? I think that Adam Beach must be a man who dared to dream, for he has traveled far in his lifetime. With this Mural I hope I have brought him back to his roots by casting a reflection of his life and work on the community he grew up in. As I was working at that spot, with the incredible response to the Mural by those who know Adam, I really got to know his community in a very special way. As I worked on Adam’s portrait through the day, I would see the sun rise over the wall, cast high noon shadows on the bricks and finally turn the rich colours to a searing red and twilight before fading to black. And I thought, cool! This is poetry!”

Below are some shots of political graffiti from the back alley behind Parc Avenue between Fairmont and Saint Viateur of a kind of panicked fight.

From what i can tell some french lads started crossing out unilingual english personal parking signs and ghetto enforcing bill 101 and then some english lads lost their shit and essentially told them to learn english… a fun old game it is, but perhaps not the best use of paint.

THE OLD:

I am happy that others of us here in Quebec are using paint to explore culture from deeper angles. That is one of the many reasons why we at kngfu (one of the companies behind CitySpk) started whoweare.ca

The film Antipodes, a selection from the whoweare.ca project, is directed by my friend and mentor Daniel Canty, a writer and filmmaker born and raised in the ruff and tumble west end Montreal city of Lachine.

The film features Point Saint Charles painter Raphael Sottolichio

THE NEW:

Warsaw in Poland probably has more aerosol painted Popes per square mile than communist era building bricks. The place is just covered in graffiti.

http://www.concretemagazine.org/

Hey ya’ll

While I was thinking of what would make a good first post on this blog, I stumbled upon this visual delight. Alphabet Trucks, which kind of plays on the same letter theme as Cityspk, is the work of photographer Eric Tabuchi. Remember the games you’d play as a youngster, on those long car rides ? That’s exactly what I was thinking when I first saw this. Tabuchi apparently spent a few years on endless highways to create this project, which will later be turn into a book, Alphabet Trucks.

On a deeper note from the artist:

“Through language (Alphabet) and displacement (Trucks), Alphabet Truck therefore questions, beyond its formal aspects and references, the notions of membership, identity and coeducation.“

It’s truck typography…nuff said

-craig

via LENS CULTURE

Those of you who have been walking around the Montreal plateau lately might have noticed this mysterious rebus tagged on doors and walls in the neighborhood. The ones I photographed are spray painted around St-Laurent, Duluth and Roy near our office. Apparently there has been a sighting in NDG too.

Makes me wonder if it is a a weird Montreal urban statement or some marketing scheme part of a teaser campaign that will reveal itself soon. I took a few shots from my phone and also found this golden one on Flickr. Hmmmm.

Keep an eye open for this NFB doc on Montreal conceptual stencil artist ROADSWORTH. He was charged and narrowly escaped jail and $100,000 fines a few years back. This summer after plying his trade for hire in Berlin and all over Europe he was hired to do his clever magic on the streets of Downtown Montreal… talk about a turnaround…