Global Graphica

Cute wheat-paste street art work of a dog in the meatpacking District of New York City.

– Posted by Supercore

The New York Times has published a story today about legendary New York City graffiti painter “Iz the Wiz,” who passed away earlier this month. The artist, whose real name was Michael Martin, was most active — and best known for — his illegal spray-can artwork on NYC subway cars in the 1970s and ’80s. There’s a great picture of his work on the Times website as well as a link to a recent video interview of Martins.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/arts/design/29martin.html

A few days ago we posted a video of Japanese artist Ken Hamazaki performing his sublime “Red Tea Ceremony” at the wonderful Kumukumu Gallery in New York City. (See post below.) Here we’re following up with a post of a still image of the event. Note the woman in the traditional kimono at left — she assists the artist during the ceremony.

We just stumbled upon an excellent and timely New York Times slideshow of Iranian art at an exhibition in Chelsea, in New York City. Given the recent election protests and government crackdown in Tehran, Iran, viewing this art work takes on a new cultural context and perspective.

This post is not about “street art” in the usual sense to which the website is devoted, but rather to a specific example of performance art by Japanese artist Ken Hamazaki, which can be seen in the video below. The piece is called “Red Tea Ceremony” and the artist performed it at the opening to his solo show of paintings at Kumukumu Gallery, on Rivington Street, in the Lower East Side of New York City.

Hamazaki is an Osaka-based artist who is well-known for his extreme use of the color red as a visual theme in a lot of his artwork. The Red Tea Ceremony is an aesthetic twist on a totemic Japanese tradition of preparing and serving macha, a kind of frothy green tea.

The exhibition of Hamazaki paintings are on show at Kumukumu from now through August 2, 2009.

We stumbled upon this massive wheat-paste street-art image of legendary actor Leonard Nimoy (who played Spock on the Star Trek television series and movies) by artist Mr. Brainwash in the Meatpacking District of New York City. The picture of the Nimoy has been put up in many variations of sizes and color on many places around downtown the past year. We look forward to seeing a lot more — We love the artist’s work.

- Posted by Supercore

Gothic-style font for this “Sauce” stencil street art on the exterior of the former “Inven.tory” clothing shop at the corner of Kenmare and Elizabeth streets in Nolita, in downtown New York City. We’ve seen a few other instances of this tag recently in lower Manhattan. Hope we’ll see more.

Wheat-paste street art of a shark’s head in the Meatpacking District (a neighborhood we hate and love at the same time) of New York City. The “Toot” label is a mystery to us. There are few of these pieces around the cobblestone-paved nabe. This artwork is near the corner of Washington and W. 13th streets, near the new Standard Hotel and the High Line park.

The past couple of week’s news video showing election protests and government crackdowns in Tehran, Iran is dramatic and riveting. The country may be at transformational political and societal crossroads.

Street art and graffiti have long been a medium for political expression. We wondered, What contemporary street art scene, if any, is there in the Iranian capital? And to what degree is there a political edge to it?

For a taste, we’ve found the Iranian Graffiti and Street Art group photo pool page on Flickr.

One of the group’s biggest contributors is A1one, whose photostream has some images of the protests, including snaps that show “protest pencil” sticker art in the frame.

Look at this awesome wheat-paste street art. This graphic artwork of a silhouetted penguin can be found near the entrance to the Standard Hotel in New York City’s Meatpacking District. LOVE! IT!

This street art painting in Minami-Horie, in Osaka, Japan is so funny and cute and creative. The person looks like and angel peeing. — Posted by Fujiwara

We’re in Osaka! It’s Japan’s “second city” after Tokyo. Here are some images of street art we discovered in the Minami-Horie neighborhood. This looks like two monsters crashing into each other. — Posted by Fujiwara

Very cool street art painting of a man’s face (he looks African) yelling or laughing in Naka-Meguro, in Tokyo, Japan. This image can be seen from the train on the outbound Toyoko Line from Shibuya Station, so it’s likely that tens of thousands of people see this image everyday. — Fujiwara

Promotional banner flag in Tokyo, Japan for the capital’s current bid as a candidate city for the 2016 summer Olympiad. We like the slogan “Uniting Our Worlds.” — Fujiwara

Street art in SoHo, New York City: Face of a cunning-looking and mysterious character that reminds us of the Mind Taker on the Cartoon Network Adult Swim series “Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law.”

Fresh wheat-paste street art work in downtown NYC. A lot of these have been put up in lower Manhattan in the past few months.

This wheat-paste image of a skeleton holding a cell phone is a classic by Spazmat. It’s practically an icon in the pantheon of global street art. The example is above the La Esquina mexican restaurant on Lafayette and Kenmare streets in SoHo, in New York City. It’s fresh work; We surmise that it was put up sometime in May or the first few days of June.

Lots of “Dickchicken” tags recently appearing in downtown New York City. This is in Nolita at the intersection of Kenmare and Elizabeth streets. Who is Dickchicken? And, really, who cares? These tags are absolute shite.

Another one of the cute cat-face character wheat-paste in Tokyo.

Stencil art on Orchard Street in the Lower East Side, in New York City. The rabbit-like creature is throwing a molotov cocktail. An homage to a famous Banksy artwork, perhaps?