New street art link: Time Out New York (TONY) magazine's interactive street art photo gallery. Some good stuff, including works by Banksy.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Kasabian- "LSF"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

More wheate-paste work from Billi Kid in dowtown NYC.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Kasabian - "LSF"
Kicks on our feet: Adidas "Marun"

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: LCD Soundsystem - "Daft Punk is Playing in My House"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

New York City bike messengers mass at a Chinatown park for a game of bicycle polo on the Lower East Side.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: LCD Soundsystem - "Daft Punk is Playing in My House"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

New York City bike messengers mass at a Chinatown park for a game of bicycle polo on the Lower East Side.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: LCD Soundsystem - "Daft Punk is Playing in My House"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: El Perro Del Mar - "Dog"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: East Star All-Stars Featuring Junior Jazz - "Subterranean Homesick Alien"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Fela Kuti - "Water No Get Enemy"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Beck - "Hell Yes"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Beck - "Hell Yes"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Detail from the massive "Obey" ("Giant has a posse") Wheat-Paste Mural by Shephard Fairey at 11 Spring St., in Nolita New York City.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Deerhoof - "Wrong Time Capsule"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Goldfrapp - "Utopia"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Goldfrapp - "Utopia"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

Large photo paste-up on the first floor, inside the building at 11 Spring Street in Nolita, New York City. This guy looks like a middle aged bad-ass mafioso type. This picture, like all the images of art work created and displayed inside the Building at 11 Spring Street, was taken during the two-day exhibition there in December 2006.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Photo gear: Canon PowerShot SD 630 ELPH digital camera
On the iPod: Goldfrapp - "Utopia"
Kicks on our feet: Puma "Easy Rider" Sneakers

We're back from a week off during the holidays. Hope everybody had a great winter break and a happy New Year! Big up on 2007! The new year sees Global Graphica in Osaka, Japan for a couple of weeks. Here 2007 is celebrated as the Year of the Boar in accordance with the adopted Chinese zodiac calendar. Look for postings of images from Japan in the coming weeks. The picture above is of an annual New Year's fire ritual at Hozenji Temple in Osaka.

Ivan Corsa Photo

In a special double issue that hit stands last week, New York Magazine published a feature under the teaser "123 Reasons to Love New York Right Now." It's, as they say, a keeper. But what we really love about this issue is the magazine cover. There's a photo of a street artist painting a massive line-drawing of a flower.

The flower image is instantly recognizable to New Yorkers, especially downtowners, and anybody who follows street art. The artist is known generally as "Flower Guy." His real name is Michael De Feo, an artist whose work has been exhibited worldwide. De Feo is also the author of "Alphabet City," one of several books on street art recently published in the U.S.

De Feo's flowers have become icons within NYC. Flower Guy's work can be found as massive paintings that appear on sides of tenement buildings and lofts (like the one on the New York cover) and as small wheat-paste posters on post boxes and the bases of lamp posts.

According to British author and graphic designer Tristan Manco in "Street Logos," his ever reliable book on street art around the world, De Feo started creating stencils of moons, flowers and safety pins around downtown New York City in the early 1990's, but locked onto the flower image while experimenting with a paint brush.

In a cheeky touch, the New York mag editors list De Feo as reason "NO. 124." (the cover teaser, as noted above says "123"). Love it.

"Happy New Year!" from the Global Graphica massive to all of our readers, contributors and friends around the world! Big up and best in 2006!

We've been on vacation at Global Graphica since the Thanksgiving holiday break, so apologies for it being kind of quiet around here post-wise for the past week or so. But now we're back with tons of new graphica to share with you from New York City and points from around the globe.

A close-up shot of the awning and signage of the recently closed Pop Shop. The Shop, on Lafayette Street in Soho, New York City, was part of the legacy of late downtown artist Keith Haring. The shop was an emporium of all things Haring and an example of how licensing and merchandising of an artists body of work could be lucrative and continue to promote a the artist's work long after his death. In fact, Haring's iconic graffiti-inspired imagery was virtually a brand in and of itself. As is often the case with Manhattan real estate in neighborhoods that have changed dramatically through gentrification, leases property prices and rents skyrocket. The Pop Shop can no longer afford the landlord's new asking price on the lease of the current retail space. So long, Pop Shop.

Ivan Corsa Photo

The Pop Shop on Lafayette Street in Soho, New York City, was part of the legacy of late downtown artist Keith Haring. The shop was an emporium of all things Haring and an example of how licensing and merchandising of an artists body of work could be lucrative and continue to promote a the artist's work long after his death. In fact, Haring's iconic graffiti-inspired imagery was virtually a brand in and of itself. As is often the case with Manhattan real estate in neighborhoods that have changed dramatically through gentrification, leases property prices and rents skyrocket. The Pop Shop can no longer afford the landlord's new asking price on the lease of the current retail space. So long, Pop Shop.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's a nice up by "Dr. Sex," whose tag is no stranger to the Lower East Side, in New York City. We found this tag on Orchard St. at Stanton on the front shutter of the popular bar and cabaret club the Slipper Room. The club was opened at the height of the dotcom boom by the founders of Razorfish, the biggest web design agency, that is, until the tech bubble burst a few years ago and the company was swallowed up in a merger. Anyway, the Irish rock band U2 filmed a music video on location at the Slipper Room a few weeks ago.

Style Notes:
Currently listening to: Iggy & the Stooges' "Search and Destroy"
Sneakers on my feet: Puma "California" (w/ Velcro strapping)

Ivan Corsa Photo

NYC was recently treated to the work of experimental Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, who is known for his use of low-cost, re-purposed and recycled materials to create stunning cleverly designed structures. These buildings can be built and torn down quickly. Pictured above and below in this Global Graphica series, is Ban's Nomadic Museum on Pier 54 in lower Manhattan. The Nomadic Museum was designed for a massive exhbition of photos and film by the artist Gregory Colbert. The structure is a long cathedral-like building that fills the full length of what was disused pier on the Hudson River. The museum's walls are made of box-car-sized shipping containers, which still bear the colors and logos of the shipping companies that once used them to ferry goods across the world's oceans and seas.

Ivan Corsa Photo

A closer view of the Nomadic Museum by architect Shigeru Ban at Pier 54 on the Hudson River, New York City.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's a close-up shot of the underside and roof structure at the east face and entrance of the Nomadic Museum at Pier 54 in New York City.

Ivan Corsa Photo

A stack of shipping containers make up the walls and basic structure of Nomadic Museum by architect Shigeru Ban.

Ivan Corsa Photo

In this image, the ticket office to the Nomadic Museum, in New York City, is seen tucked in a space between shipping containers on the right flank of the structure.

Ivan Corsa Photo

The exterior gateway on Pier 54 near the entrance of the Nomadic Museum.

Ivan Corsa Photo

The top of old the ironwork above the exterior gateway on Pier 54 near the entrance of the Nomadic Museum.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Well-designed Hudson River Park Map sign outside the gateway to Pier 54 in Manhattan, NYC, site of the Nomadic Museum by Shigeru Ban.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's another view of the Time Magazine graf billboard at Houston and Wooster streets in Soho.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Another shot of the Time Magazine graffiti billboard by Cope2 (CopeII) at Houston and Wooster streets in Soho, New York City. To think this space could be used to sell Puma sneakers or the new Sony PSP.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Time Magazine is engaged in an unusual billboard advertising stunt. On a white fabric screen hanging from the side of a building at Houston and Wooster streets in Soho, a large colorful tag has been aerosoled. The graffiti is first rate and unhurried (unlike a lot of "ups," which are often written with hasty economy). The artist, or "writer," is Cope2 (or "CopeII"), a well-known veteran of the NYC-graf underground. According to sources, the idea is that each week, more aerosol art will go up on the screen. By the end of a month, Time magazine's branding will go up in the space. Now who said advertising wasn't fun anymore? We'll document the series here on Global Graphica in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

Ivan Corsa Photo

A wheat-paste graphic of a badminton shuttlecock (that's "birdie" in American English) in downtown NYC, somewhere on a wall amid the luxury lofts and apartments of Nolita and Soho. THe graphic is a poster for the "Badassminton" event in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Ivan Corsa Photo

This shot shows the spiral interior of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The iconic Upper East Side museum was designed by celebrated architect Frand Lloyd Wright and holds one of America's greatest collections of modern art. Major shows are exhbited in the main spiral, an atrium with a single, circular ramp that visitors walk along while viewing art works. The ramp gradually ascends nearly ten floors high. At the time this photo was taken, a retrospective of American pop artist James Rosenquist was being held. The Guggenheim's permanent collection is shown in an adjacent wing.

Ivan G. Corsa Photo

The Meadowlands sport complex sits in East Rutherford, New Jersey, is home to several professional sports teams. At the heart of the Meadowlands is Giants Stadium, named for the NFL football team the New York Giants. (Yes, the Giants are from New York, but their home turf is in the neighboring state of New Jersey.) When not the stage for gridiron battles, the stadium is used as a venue for concerts and other sporting events, notably Major League Soccer games. Here the grounds crew is prepping the playing field as spectators fill the seats for an exhibition soccer game between European titans Liverpool and AS Roma. (Liverpool won the match 2-1.)

Ivan Corsa Photo

The steel shutters in front of commercial spaces get battered over time by people and the elements. In New York City especially, they also get bombed by graffiti--some of which is art, some just plain vandalism. Occasionally, a shop proprietor will commission art for their store front or take the DIY approach and paint the shutters themselves. Here the protective skin of the popular Lower East Side bar Barramundi has been given an eclectic decorative treatment. The paint is faded and the style is rough, but the effect is like that of folk-art. Behind the arty facade is a dive bar for rock kids, artists and assorted alcohol-swilling hipsters. We like the animal pattern along the top of the shutter and how the painting uses a different color and pattern for each horizontal shutter strip. Note the address on the center door shutter and the bar hours on the right.

Masumi Hawkins Photo

Ah, the good old summer block party. A New York City nabe wouldn't be the same without one, especially when it's the real old-school neighborhood kind, where the residents and business owners of a particular block get a permit, close off the street and pitch in for free food, drink and good times. But no block party is complete without a sound system and a couple of DJs. At this recent party in Nolita, on the stretch of Spring St. between Elizabeth St. and the Bowery, these DJs were spinning all kinds of tunes--dirty rock, classic hip hop, as well as cheesy 80's dance pop.

Ivan Corsa Photo

With the Spiderman sequel hyped to be among the blockbusters of the summer movie season, marketing for the film has resulted in this larger-than-life balloon of a crawling Spidey attached to an apartment building in Union Square. There's no denying that it's a cool form of promotion. We just want to know what the residents were paid for allowing a giant superhero to cling to their building.

Ivan Corsa Photo

APT. (as in apartment) is a club and lounge in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan. The club's interior design and lighting are amazing. The first-floor bar and lounge are like some beautiful high-rise dwelling (complete with a queen-size bed), but on a giant scale. The DJ booth and dancefloor are downstairs in the basement, where the decor is very un-apartment-like--a dark minimalist space illuminated by a wall of light. This image was taken in the basement, where DJ Spinna was doing a set at a CD-release party.

Ivan Corsa Photo