street art & graffiti - found by a Sydney cabbie

The Prelude To Progress

Fri, 3 Sep 2010 18:48:17 +1000

First, the news...

The AMF crew are not only back, but they are painting in back lanes of Newtown.

I spoke to one of them who had served his time in a UK jail for their crimes. He wasn’t like some big noting paranoid, not glorifying his crim kudos. He was pretty straightforward about it all.

I asked him about the prosecution having pictures of their pieces in Japan and Sydney, and using that to portray the crew as international vandals. He said that they got all that from the hard drive of his own computer.

I told him that this case had fueled some concern about whether prosecutors might trawl Flickr and other online sites to make such a case. He reckons the authorities aren’t that well resourced.

I’m still a bit worried. You don’t have to be too well resourced to look around on line.

Here’s a pic of what they were doing when I spoke to him.

State Rail had provisional plans to build a tunnel from the western line near Macdonaldtown Station into the city. They would have demolished much of the Pine Estate, several streets of Victorian terraces built in the 19th century.

It would have destroyed the Three Proud People piece, that shows the medal ceremony from the 1968 Mexico Olympics 100 m sprint, with the African American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos in Gold and Bronze position with their arms raised in Black Power salutes, and Australian Peter Norman in Silver, wearing the same badge as them, in support of their cause.

About 300 proud people gathered on a Saturday afternoon last month to protest the plans. They were addressed by an array of local pollies, but the best part was hearing from Peter Norman’s nephew Matthew, and then the artist Daniel who painted the piece.

He told of doing the piece almost exactly 10 years ago, in the lead up to the Sydney Olympics, partly because Peter Norman was still being punished by the Australian Olympic Authorities for his part in supporting the gesture of his fellow competitors, and was not given any part in the Sydney Olympics. Peter Norman’s run on that day in 1968 still stood as an Australian record in 2000.

A letter from Tommie Smith himself was read out to the rally, and it was noted that African American activists seek out this artwork when visiting Sydney.

The Railways’ plans have changed now, and the piece is no longer under threat.

Here is a pic of Daniel in front of the piece. It also shows an image of Nicky Windmar, the indigenous Australian Footballer, pointing at his skin with defiant pride in response to racial abuse from a Melbourne football crowd.

That was put there as a suggestion for someone to paint it up near the Three Proud People.

There is a Sydney Fringe Festival going on this month, with some street art styled elements to it. Their website, with all the shows and exhibitions, is here.

One part of the festival, Art Riot, has been advertising with street art, as shown in this photo below.

And in other news...

The big Frankie paintings under the Concord Bridge have been buffed, alas.

Below are more pics of fave pieces from these past weeks, starting with a few inspired by the recent election campaign, which is still in extra time after a scoreless draw, and a penalty shoot-out to come.

At the bottom is a display of a great new House Of Sin piece, large scale on the side of a warehouse in the back of Marrickville.

We Scare Because We Care

Fri, 6 Aug 2010 15:51:42 +1000

It’s been a quiet election in my cab so far.

Only two passengers have mentioned it.

One was a twinky gay lad, a bit overly tipsy, berating Kevin Rudd in hysterical terms for taking $600 000 a year of his tax dollars, when - “He didn’t even stick it out as PM for a whole year!”

He thought it the worst theft ever, and he wanted to kill K Rudd for it, especially seeing , as he kept repeating, he didn’t even stay in office for a year. It’s not the sort of thing you can argue with, but I did correct him and tell that Kevin Rudd was PM for 2 1/2 years, but not his full term.

Surprisingly, he sat corrected! But he still wanted to kill Rudd for such outright theft.

So I said that as much as he’d like to kill Rudd, I want to kill the CEO of Telstra 40 times as much, because he got a payout of $24 million for running down its share price and making Telstra a general pain in the arse and unreliable network.

He didn’t care about that, he said, he doesn’t use Telstra, and that’s private enterprise.

But he does, I said. Whatever supplier he is with are running some of his network through Telstra infrastructure that he is charged for.

I was arguing with a drunk, and not a very bright drunk, so I didn’t expect to win. But it was fun anyway.

People still rail against having to pay taxes for public services like, say the ABC, even after the successful 8 cents a day campaign years ago. The same people don’t blink at wild corporate spending, as though they aren’t paying for that too.

The smallest of the commercial TV networks in Australia, Channel Ten, runs on a budget only a little smaller than taxpayers pay for the entire ABC.

Channel Ten gives Capital City audiences a lot of imported reality telly and The Simpsons. It’s paid for by advertising, which we pay for with every product and service we buy that is advertised. There is almost no accountability for how our money is spent by them.

The ABC gives the whole country three TV networks, reliable news coverage, an Australia TV service into the International region, and a bunch of radio networks including Radio National, JJJ, and local stations staffed by locally based people.

The ABC is under constant scrutiny for how our money is spent, how our services are being delivered, and for whether there is any political partisanship in the news content.

Whether its our taxpayer dollars, or via our grocery bills and ad campaigns, it’s our money either way. Who is making better use of our money?

The only other passenger to mention the election yet was a journalist.

As soon as they got into the cab, they were on the phone to a contact within the Liberal Party, saying “C’mon, you’ve gotta give me something fresh so I don’t have to kill another Liberal candidate tomorrow.!”

The journo spent the phone conversation trying to pump the source for some confirmation of Liberal Party polling about voter reaction to the colour of Gillard’s hair!

It seems they had a role in writing up colour tidbits from the campaign trail.

When they got off the phone, I asked - “Why do you need an excuse to kill another Liberal?” It seems that it was just an effective gambit to suck something fresh from the source. We had a short discussion about how odd it was that the campaign was so dull, given that both combatants are pretty vivid characters.

I like Julia Gillard and I like her hair. I’m used to being ruled by smart, red haired women, although my wife and my mother insist that I am not ruled by anyone.

Wyclef Jean is running for the presidency of his nation - Haiti.

His song “President” has the lines -

If I was president
I’d get elected on Friday
Assassinated on Sunday
Then go to work on Monday.

If he wins, Obama will have some competition for Coolest president in the world, at least for two days.

Should we vote for the coolest candidate for President?

If we in Australia ever stopped being subjects of Her Majesty, and took for ourselves the privilege of voting for a president, who would be the coolest candidate?

I’m thinking Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu. I’m not really into his music, but I like the look of him, and it would be way cool to have a president who doesn’t speak English. And, he is a true visionary!

It’s got me wondering...

Gillard’s campaign needs something exciting...

Something to differentiate the Labor program from the Liberal fear campaign...

Something that would shove Abbott into his dingy corner...

Might Gillard, at the ALP campaign launch, promise a process towards a Republic of Australia?

Tony Abbott would have to respond, and everyone knows that he is absolutely, and always, a forelock tugging monarchist. He never looks so backward and so much like a man of the past as when he is talking about his love of the institution of monarchy. If he tried to downplay it, he would look like the fake little twerp that he has been on this campaign.

Not that I want a president, but I do want a republic.

I want Australia to be a headless republic.

I fear the insistence that a president must be voted for directly by the people.

We all rail against election campaigns being reduced to personality contests between two party leaders - the ‘presidential style politics’ everyone whinges about.

Voters don’t need to have a degree in Political Science to know that they are not voting for one party leader or the other as Prime Minister. They only need to be able to read their ballot paper.

No voter in this election will be given a ballot paper which asks for a choice between Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott.

The position of ‘Prime Minister’ is not even mentioned in the constitution, as every voter with a degree in Political Science should know.

But, regular elections for a president would be everything we all claim to hate in campaign politics. They would be personality contests, with attack ads and smear campaigns much worse than we see now.

No candidate worth voting for would put themselves through it.

The Australian I would most like to call President, Mr Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, is much too smart and has way too much integrity to run.

Below is in Newtown, and I guess it’s the president of Haiti, getitng up to go to work on Monday.

Real and Concrete

Fri, 2 Jul 2010 21:14:39 +1000

Concrete is heavy stuff.

Will Coles is a burly man, who sets familiar domestic shapes in concrete as sculptures, and sets them onto footpaths, walls, and free plinths on the street.

This makes him one of Sydney’s favourite street artists. I was told of his concrete remote controls and mobile phones weeks before I ever found one myself, years ago. I have found and snapped many of his pieces since, and you can see them all here.

He has learned a thing or two by working as an artist with concrete - like that if you are travelling with suitcases full of concrete, better to take the train than to fly.

Will Coles’s pieces get a more enthusiastic response in Melbourne. He told me has only put a few hundred around that city, unlike the thousands here in Sydney. But in Melbourne, street art fans will treat them as a scavenger hunt, noting that there are 9 variations on a piece displayed on his website here, but only 7 they can find, so they email him to ask where the others are.

Newtown and Enmore people are used to finding his little things around them, and he always has a concrete monitor in a prominent site on King St. He has a range of pieces under the monorail in the city, at each pylon, including his fused guns and hard teddy bears.

Will Coles is the most active and coherent political artist in Sydney.

‘Coherent’ doesn’t mean that I can tell in words the solid meaning of his work. It does mean that it sticks together (he uses good cement) and that the proliferation of his work, and the gift that he makes of it, provokes thought about our world and our tools and our lives.

Many of his pieces contain a word or two cast into the form in an authoritative Times New Roman font.

Will Coles appreciates the mathematical grace of that typeface, as much as he likes the favoured building material of the ancient Roman people.

When I first found concrete remote controls with ‘hate’ and ‘fear’ on them, I fancied they were left behind by the previous Federal Govt, as that was their way of controlling the populace. Will Coles laughs at this idea. His work does not tell the viewer how to respond.

A street artist like Will Coles is at once generous and presumptuous. He has given a lot of his time and his effort and his own funding over years to grant to himself the privelege of getting his stuff into people’s faces.

He is also generous in his appreciation and his opinions of a lot of other street art around Sydney. I’ve had a few fine chats with him at May Lane launches and at his studio, where he is always sculpting and casting and planning new things.

We’ve spoken of how much street art uses the stylistics of pop art - taking images from popular culture and presenting them as art. One of his own occasional pieces - a concrete cast pistol extruding the head of Mickey Mouse - borrows from this.

We’ve talked of how some contemporary pop artists who show in galleries are, in their promotional literature, styling themselves as street artists now, even though they don’t actually do anything out here on the streets.

We’ve noted how some gallery artists are replicating the visual aesthetics of street art - including stencils on canvas replete with overspray!

And, we’ve even dissed a few of the more tiresomely dull street artists together. But the Invisible Man will go unnamed here.

We’ve talked a little about letter forms, dada, pop and other things, but we haven’t discussed abstract art.

There is to be a big exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW plotting various pathways to abstraction in painting from last century.

I hope to have a good look at it, because the more I learn to appreciate wildstyle graff writing, the more I feel that I am seeing the most vital contemporary form of abstract painting.

I am not an art theorist, not an informed and trained expert on all the isms and all the progressions and all the manifestos and and all the styles of the history of art.

I am but a pair of eyes and a shutterbug.

When I look at abstract painting, I see hints of visual forms from figures and landscapes obscured by the painter’s exploration of pure composition of shapes, textures, light and shade and colour. I see the design, but I look for the shapes and effects from the visual world around me. Sometimes, I see decorative patterns.

When I look at a lot of abstract painting, I see the move towards these forms from impressionism, expressionism, cubism and more. (By the way, Pablo Picasso can rightly claim to be a street artist - he painted sometimes out on the streets, without permission.)

In the same way, when I look at wildstyle graff writing, I look for letter forms that might not even be there.

To me, letter forms are abstract in themselves. It might be more correct to regard the alphabet as inconsistent phonetic signs, but that might only apply if you still move your lips while reading.

Graff writing might be the most alive form of contemporary abstract art, practiced for the sheer love of form and colour and shape and texture and light and shade and visual effect and composition, out in the real world, given freely to us by highly skilled enthusiasts.

Where else do you see abstract painting today, outside of the gallery?

Sometimes in the corporate boardroom, or the company foyer, perhaps, but many of the best works of abstract painting will spend years in storage, out of view.

Whatever the explorative impulse of the painter, any communicative or expressive intent is perversely snuffed by this treament.

The graff writer typically wants their work to be seen, and to compete with or to gain kudos from their peers.

Their impulse to explore form and composition is as intense as any art school trained painter, but they prefer to keep it real.

To illustrate the point, here is a graff writing piece from the FF crew at their Bottletop Park site.

Tell me this ain’t abstract!

Fun To Be Had

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 23:20:15 +1000

“Have as much fun as they let you - and then some more” I say to passengers as they pay and leave the cab.

“That way, you’re getting away with something” I tell them.

That is a large part of the fun of street art and graffiti.

The Banksy film “Exit Through The Gift Store” is a fun time to be had. I saw it at the second Film Festival screening at the opulent State Theatre, in a sold out session with the audience laughing together at every scape, jape and prank.

It will be having a run at the Dendy in Newtown from June 24. You can find session times when they are decided here, and see the 5 minute trailer here.

I came out from seeing that film feeling good, from having such a fine laugh together with such a crowd, but feeling that I had already reviewed the film before I saw it, two blog entries back here.

The film plays a bit like the old Sex Pistols classic “The Great Rock And Roll Swindle”. It is not as raucous, but it has a similarly joyful feeling - the fun of sticking it up the establishment and having the money pour in from that same establishment at the same time.

Banksy comports himself well throughout - he is witty and playful and gets away with stuff and makes trouble that you must cheer.

His role in the farce that is Mister Brainwash and his incredibly silly art career is the swindle part of this film. The body of work and the extravagant opening of Mister Brainwash creation is a foil to Banksy’s own achievements. They are mildly amusing things, these inventions of the French enthusiast, and they are not unlike Banksy’s own work, but they are stuck on the wrong side a fine line.

In the days after I saw the film, I wondered just what is the source of the fun in Banksy’s art. Much of what appears on the streets is quite recognisable as being the product of Banksy, and not some wannabe copyist. Banksy has created a strong and consistent personality that shows in his work.

Most of it is situational and pranksterish in spirit, so when he performs purely situationist pranks, like the pink elephant in the exhibition or the orange jumpsuited detainee at Disneyland, Banksy’s creative spirit is expressed as clearly as a stencilled chimp on a wall.

But, I still wondered, mainly at what the fun is in putting a blow up doll dressed in orange jumpsuit and hood, like a Guantanamo prisoner, by the side of a Disneyland ride.

It was a prank performed with Mr Brainwash as accomplice and documenter. The account of it, and of Mr Brainwash being held for questioning and released, while Banksy himself went on a ride and then walked out, was a core spell towards the end of the film.

I enjoyed that part especially, but what was I cheering?

Partly, it is the audacity of it, and the idiocy of the authorities, and the two merry pranksters getting away with it.

But, it gladdened my heart to see the prisoner propped up in full visibility right by that amusement park ride. Why?

I can’t speak for Banksy and his conception of the prank.

I can only guess at what gladdens me about seeing a potent and current image of American authorities’ shameful behaviour being placed at a site where America presents itself and its aspirations in its best, most glossy light.

It is a highly political act, and there is some malice in it.

I like to imagine some American children on that ride, having the day out they have travelled across country for, queued hours for, anticipated for months, coming around a turn on that train and seeing that there.

I like to imagine that little Bo and little Amy Lou might be so shocked at the sight that they dropped their icecreams and bawled at it.

I like to imagine that it might have ruined a big day for some children.

What does that make me?

Love Lost

Sat, 5 Jun 2010 03:08:18 +1000

Long ago, as I scrubbed a bath, it took me a full ten minutes of effort to make this discovery.

You can wipe off a spot. You can scrub out a stain. But you can’t scrub out a shadow!

Not much to say just now, but lots of pics of fun and fresh stuff to show.

Looking forward to seeing Banksy’s film “Exit Through The Gift Store” at the second Sydney Film Festival screening Monday night at the State Theatre. More screenings later at the Dendy.

Bugaup - Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions - used to do lots in the Sydney in the 1980s, mainly altering ads for cigarettes and alcohol.

This below appeared to be their work in Glebe for a week or so recently, but it may have been someone else doing thier schtick, which I think they would approve of.

Exit Through The Gift Store

Mon, 10 May 2010 21:41:13 +1000

“Sometimes crime becomes innocent, even fun, in the splendour and glory and excess of it” - written into an early graff style Banksy piece.

Banksy didn’t start out being the stencil king of Brighton, Bristol or London. He was a fairly ordinary graff writer and tagger to start with.

I’ve been trawling the web to find something bad to say about Banksy. He is an art star, and he has become the acceptable, lionised face of streert art, so I feel obliged.

But there is nothing there to whack him with.

Banksy hasn’t gotten carried away with all the attention. He seems to enjoy the notoriety, but many of us would.

He pays his respects to his forebears, and to others around the world who do street art.

He cheerfully rates his own drawing and painting skills pretty humbly, but he gets up great images.

Every image I have seen by Banksy, I’m glad that someone went to the trouble to make that image, and to get it out there, in the faces of the passing parade.

There are thousands of professional artists in the world today who have highly trained artisan skills at drawing, drafting, composition, painting, sculpture, all sorts of techniques for making and distributing images. Some of these artists are exploring and enhancing long traditions of fine skills, and some are creating new forms.

But am I glad when a great painter produces a fine portrait or landscape or still life in their studio, with reference to centuries of technique development, then lets it show in a gallery for a few days or weeks, then has it sold to a private buyer to put away in a bank vault as an investment? That looks sick to me.

Banksy promotes his stuff, but you feel that he does so to get it seen, for the same reason that he chooses a prominent site in public space.

But, for all his promotion, he stays anonymous.

But, for all his anonymity, he has become the most prominent and celebrated artist in the world.

“In the future, everyone should be anonymous for at least 15 minutes” - Banksy.

There’s a story being told now, of Prince Charles doing his royal duty at an art opening, taking his turn to speak, to give the royal acknowledgement of the occasion, and saying to the crowd - “I have a confession to make...”

The crowd hushes. Many of them might be bracing for a fuddy duddy lecture on the Prince’s distaste for contemporary architecture - a favourite theme.

“I am Banksy” says Chucky Windsor of Buck Palace.

Maybe Prince Charles wishes he could be Banksy.

Banksy practices the most direct protest against modern architecture there is - vandalism.

People are talking about Banksy in Sydney now because the film by Banksy - “Exit Through The Gift Shop” is being screened at the Sydney Film Festival.

There are only two screenings. The first, on the festival’s opening night, is sold out already. My lovely wife got us tickets to the second screening, on June 7. You can maybe still get tickets to this screening from the Festival website here.

There is a generous five minute trailer for “Exit Through The Gift Shop” here.

“Graffiti is always an attack on property” - Me, last blog.

And that’s often the best thing about it. It trades on the outlaw context. There is more skilled art in galleries, in books and comics, in the daily newspaper, in magazines, online, even out on the streets in your face, brought to you by advertisers.

But I am not gladdened by much of that.

I am glad every time I find a new piece of street art, in an illegal place.

It helps that my taste in images is pretty crude. I like drawing and painting that is dashed off with verve and vigour and vim. I like the overspray of a stencil painting, and how that makes an informal frame for a piece. I like watching paste-ups decay over time. I appreciate bold, sharp statements that bear the pang of the artist’s desire to put it in the face of the public.

But most of all, I love that the upright citizen, for whom laws must be obeyed, and for whom property rights are sacrosanct, is being attacked.

I get a little bit dismayed by legal graffiti style murals. They often lack lustre to my eye. They might be done by highly skilled painters, with time to get their vision of the piece rendered just right. If these painters have a history of real, illegal graff, some of that sheen seems to carry into their legitimate practice

Colin, who prefers forbidden fruit.

Backshots

Tue, 4 May 2010 15:08:06 +1000

Why do Labor politicians make tough action poses against graffiti?

They must think it wins them votes.

Who decides their vote on this issue?

Perhaps, those who obsess about their property rights and values. Graffiti is always an attack on someone else’s property. Some property owners worry that graffiti in their street will make the value of their property lower.

But, there is a party in our political system to protect the values and rights of property owners. That party is the Liberal Party. People who think that way about graffiti, who worry about it enough for it to change their vote, are voting Liberal anyway.

Graffiti doesn’t upset as many people as the pollies might think. Many people enjoy some graffiti. Almost everyone remembers some piece of graffiti they enjoyed. In some parts of town, graffiti is part of the appeal of the neighbourhood - it adds life and colour.

However - politicians are smarter than me.

They know that votes aren’t cast one way or another by any single issue. Politicians know that they must send a range of signals, by gesture and by action, to create and reinforce impressions in voters that make them electable. A politician must let it be understood, by target voters, that they are on their side.

The target voters that anti-graffiti chest thumping is aimed at are not only those who cannot abide their property being attacked, or their property values lowered.

There are also old folk who feel threatened by young people taking liberties. They ride the trains and buses and they see a tagger doing their stuff, and they are scared, and they feel powerless to tell the youngster to behave themself, to show some respect.

Feeling powerless can enrage them. A Labor politician must coddle these voters, and assure them that they will be tough on graffiti offenders. Many of these voters don’t own property, or that is not the most important thing to them, and many have voted Labor for a long time. But, when they feel so enraged and powerless, their votes could go to conservatives.

So, maybe there is an electoral pay-off for Labor pollies when they make strong laws against juvenile graffers and invite the media to watch them participate in events like Graffiti Action Day.

It might ever be thus.

Below are four of many shots I got visiting a stormwater drain near Camperdown recently, all good stuff by law-breaking, trespassing kids.

Below that is a range of slap-ups on street signs and such that I got from a walk down Oxford St, Paddington, probably by troublemakers in their twenties.

AMF are back

Sat, 17 Apr 2010 00:57:09 +1000

They want to clean it all up.

They want to stroke their righteous selves about it.

They wanna get community groups and schools involved.

The wanna make a big day of it.

They wanna link it with “Keep Australia Beautiful” and “Clean Up Australia” Day.

They wanna get on the news that night.

They wanna show themselves to be doing something to protect us from the horrible scourge of graffiti.

They wanna make the city all pristine and beige, with no signs of life, only deadening advertising.

They are the NSW State government. The day is to be May 2 - Graffiti Action Day.

You can read all about it at their new Graffiti website here. It has lots of useful information about their new laws - 12 months for graffing, 6 months for carrying a graffiti implement without a good excuse, fines for shops selling aerosol cans to people under 18 etc.

Beige is just a browned off yellow.

I suppose I encourage some of this law-breaking. I certainly celebrate it.

anyhow...

I’m not going to preach.

I have little to say about it that you can’t think up yourselves.

But I will add this link, that LC Beats pointed to on Facebook - to Keep Australia Colourful, here.

I know nothing about them, except what’s there.

It seems they plan some sort of counter protest to the Graffiti Action Day on May 2.

In other news, another new Sydney street art blog is Acid Midget, here.

Thanks to Acid Midget for this link to the 5 minute trailer of the new Banksy film, here.

The Acid Midget is Bondi based, and he finds stuff around there that I haven’t got yet. He posts one thing at a time, but frequently, and with his own response to each piece he features. That makes his blog worth checking out often. He also posts stuff from other places than Sydney, and he doesn’t try to be as comprehensive in Sydney as I do.

In still more news, I’ve been having too much fun with parties, film shoots and more to write all about here.

But all these pictures have got to be shown.

Starting below with a study of Teaza and friend’s new piece in Glebe.
Note the bollards made
into test tubes.

Learning from Mistery

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:40:26 +1100

On a perfect Saturday recently, as part of the Sydney Hip Hop Festival, a band of 20 or 30 folk set off from Newtown Station to look at street art. They were guided by a legend of Sydney graff writing and wall illustration - Mistery.

He led them at a brisk pace, straight down Enmore Rd, eschewing the array of paste ups on The Hub, past the Oh Really Gallery, for the first stop to look at the Phibs writing piece on Masala House.

Phibs was given his due. Mistery spoke of Phibs’ bold outlines, and how that has influenced many other writers in Sydney and Melbourne.

He spoke of the process of getting permission from business owners to paint on their walls, and pointed to the signage element that identifies the restaurant, as part of the trade off.

He also spoke of the wall opposite, which has been blank for years, but once featured a big graff writing production by Mistery and his friends. He showed us photos from his folder.

Mistery stood right at the pole that you can see here, with its guerrilla knitting by Grrl + Dog, and there were more such poles about, including one decorated by Mini Graff, but they were not mentioned.

He hadn’t mentioned the Oh Really Gallery either, nor its frequent shows of work by street artists.

Then it was into the back lanes, down that street to the great Big City Freaks wall. It was at this second stop that Mistery really began to warm to the task.

Here he is, looking fit and strong and right into what he had to say. He’s wearing his ‘Krosswerdz’ T-shirt. That’s the name of one of one of the many crews he paints with.

It was a treat to hear him speak with such passion and with so much knowledge about graff writers he has known for a long time. Mistery is one of the true originals of Sydney graff writing. He was schooled by those who started it all in New York and Philadelphia, as the creation myth goes.

Mistery pointed specifically to this piece, as a fine example of the 3D style. You can see how the firey red background makes it seem to fly off the wall. He said that some German graff writers claim to have invented this form, but he knows that a Melbourne writer called Murda had done this style before then.

The tour proceeded to the right, where Teaza and Water were given much credit for good writing with pieces like this new one.

The tour went past the Gladstone street Big City Freaks wall, where solid stuff by Set and Zen were pointed out, and we learned that Zen is a bhuddist with a military job.

Then back into the small lanes, to see this piece inspired by the movie “The Warriors”.

Mistery spoke of some of the inspirations for the illustrative elements of graff writing pieces - the movies and the comic books. He spoke of Bode, and his son, who keeps the comic going on, and their characters like Cheech the Wiz. Here’s Cheech on another wall, in another part of town.

We all went through the subway
to see Mistery’s own big
production, of which he is very
proud, and which took him
three years or so.

It is one that I enjoyed as it was
created. It is the series of
Marshall Art movie poster
replicas on the back wall of the
Shaolin Kung Fu studios off
Kingston Rd near the railway
underpass.

The studio was very happy to allow this one, so long as it included a couple of Shaolin movie posters.

Here’s Mistery’s own sign off for that production.

From there, it was up Liberty Rd past the wall with the Deb picture, that Mistery happily pointed out, along with some remarks about how prominent walls like this one are often done over, which means losing good pieces, but gaining new ones.

Mistery took us back towards Newtown through a back lane behind a church hall, where he has another big production, this one for that church. It depicts the seven days of creation, and includes some biblical text in Hebrew, which he added in homage to his own Jewish roots.

That brought us past a large scale paste up by Zap and Jumbo, which Mistery acknowledged, but it was soon time for him to tell of Andrew Aiken.

In sight of the Mona Lisa mural, Mistery gestured towards Erskineville as he related tales of the painting of the Miles Davis and the Idiot Box murals, now both gone from there.

At this point, Juilee Pryor became half of a double act with Mistery. She too did much work with Andrew Aiken back in those days, including the landmark Martin Luther King “I Had A Dream” mural.

She stood on a bench and spoke compellingly for several minutes, describing the process, the gathering of resources, the planning, the loan of a cherry picker, the slight attempt to get permission, the decision to go ahead without permission, the cops who attended on the night, her talking to the sergeant and getting agreement to finish the piece, just so long as they all present at Newtown Police Station once they’d done it.

There was also a lot more talk about Aiken, and what a larger than life character he was, and how Mistery had first encountered Aiken as a church youth worker, when Mistery was running with a local gang.

The owner of the wall, and the three vacant blocks that provide the little square in there, that exposes the wall, was and still is a Wollongong businessman. He objected to the piece vehemently at first, but has since changed his mind about it.

The community has grown to love this piece. It tells people that they are in Newtown, and that Newtown means something, more than just odd shops and Thai restaurants.

After that, the tour hurried along towards the finish at Carriageworks, with the Skippy Girls. Only stop before then was at the Sydney Morning Herald “No Time” piece. Mistery told of it being a last remaining part of a much larger production across three walls.

At the Skippy Girls, Mistery stopped us at the first panel, which tells of the piece, and remarked on the fact that locals keep restoring the Skippy Girls when they get attacked.

I wanted to show where the
slashes of red paint had become
extra colour in those panels
further down, but time was out,
and Mistery had to take
another tour on the same path
in just an hour or less.

There was so much to learn
from Mistery on this tour,
that I was only a little
dismayed at how much he left
out on that path.

The whole tour was of graff writing pieces with illustrations, and wall murals. Mistery was oblivious to almost all of the incidental pieces of street art along the way. He didn’t acknowledge the guerrilla knitting. He noticed one Will Coles telephone when he nearly stepped on it, but didn’t know about the artist. He referred only briefly to the Zap and Jumbo paste ups.

Mistery wasn’t studiously ignoring this stuff. He seemed to be simply and honestly oblivious to it. His disdain did not look like a deliberate posture, just how he is, what he sees, and what he doesn’t seem to see at all.

The divide between graff writers and street artists is very real. I feel that I’ve been on about that too much, in this blog. That topic seems a bit overdone, to me. But I keep getting indications, from this tour, and from all sorts of encounters, that point to this divide.

anyhow...

Back to the graff writing. A piece by Set of the BCF crew that Mistery pointed out is this one below.

I presume that it is the same writer as the throw up outline to the right, in another part of town.

I like the skill in the line of the throw up, and the personality in the interesting letter shapes.

Colin, who is learning to appreciate these things.

Real men

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:07:24 +1100

Real men don’t make lifestyle choices based on what it says in a hairdressers window in Darlinghurst

Real bloggage to come late tonight.
Mainly an account of a tour with Mistery.