Category Archives: Films

Book release: ‘Street Art’ by Lonely Planet

This Friday, Lonely Planet will release ‘Street Art’, a guide to street art featuring 140 street art hotspots in 42 cities around the world.

To mark the launch of Street Art, the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol will host a weekend of street art-inspired events, including the UK premiere of Saving Banksy.

‘Arnolfini X Future Tense’ will take place on Friday 14 and Saturday 15 April, and also includes street art tours, a book signing with author Ed Bartlett and a live panel talk featuring renowned street artists Ben Eine and Blek le Rat and Film Director Colin Day .

From Banksy’s stencils and Invader’s mosaics to amazing murals, this insider’s guide, compiled by independent curator & founder of The Future Tense Ed Bartlett, with a foreword by graffiti artist Remi Rough, provides stunning images along with practical details and maps of where to find secret stashes of street art, and introduces key artists, locations as well as festivals like Nuart (NO), Upfest (UK) or Mural (CA).

“This book is intended as a starting point to your journey,” Ed Bartlett mentions, “highlighting a selection of some of the key cities around the world to experience street art today, and providing guides to each city’s street-art hotspots to enable you to explore further. We’ve also included insights from some of its most important figures.”

Get a copy of the LONELY PLANET ‘Street Art’ book here
For SAVING BANKSY Screening bookings in Bristol  visit the  Arnolfini’s  website

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London: Daydreaming with UNKLE – The Road Soho @ Lazarides

Daydreaming with UNKLE

James Lavelle , infamous DJ and electronic recording artist, better known as founder of Mo ‘Wax record label and co-founder of music group UNKLE is curating a multisensory exhibition at Lazarides Rathbone titled: Daydreaming with…

Lavelle’s Lazarides show is celebrating 25 years of UNKLE and will kick-start the release of his brand-new album, THE ROAD. For UNKLE, this will be the start of a multitude of events celebrating his history in music so it was only logical that the first exhibition takes place where it all began: Soho.

The exhibition is focussing on creating an immersive experience  with UNKLE’s new music and combine the past, present and future of UNKLE over two floors at the gallery, with the first floor being a virtual reality experience featuring the first trailer to The Man From Mo’ Wax as well as two new videos for two new UNKLE tracks from the forthcoming album The Road. In the adjacent room visitors can experience with a VR headset  a new 360° version of Doug Foster’s Beyond the Infinite installation.

Daydreaming with UNKLEDaydreaming with UNKLEDaydreaming with UNKLE     Daydreaming with UNKLE

Featuring original canvases by Futura and 3D, photos by Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones  that were used to illustrate LP covers, screenprints,   limited edition toys, sneakers, and LPs,  there’s something to enjoy for every age and every background.

Some of the UNKLE collaborators attended the overcrowded opening including James Lavelle, Ben Drury, Elliott Power and Dorian Lutz much to the delight of the fans.

Daydreaming with UNKLE     Daydreaming with UNKLE
Daydreaming with UNKLE     Daydreaming with UNKLE
Daydreaming with UNKLE  Daydreaming with UNKLE   Daydreaming with UNKLE
Daydreaming with UNKLE
Daydreaming with UNKLE     Daydreaming with UNKLEDaydreaming with UNKLE Daydreaming with UNKLE

View the full set of pics here

Until 23rd February 2017
Lazarides Rathbone
11 Rathbone Place, London, W1T 1HR

Release: Underground Does not Exist Anymore

underground-doesnot-exist-anymore

Fresh from their return from their one year artistic residency at Villa Medici, Lek & Sowat present their latest book  ‘Underground Does not Exist Anymore‘ together with curator Hugo Vitrani. The book retraces the events between December 2012 and June 2014, where the two artists supported by curator Hugo Vitrani invaded the Palais de Tokyo through various official interventions, secret or ephemeral .

What started out as a mural on a peripheral space of the institution then evolved into an ambitious long-term project. We look back at the project in more details, as we’ve been keeping the secret for a very long time…

John Giorno x Lek X Sowat - Palais de TokyoJohn Giorno x Lek X Sowat - Palais de Tokyo     John Giorno x Lek X Sowat - Palais de TokyoJohn Giorno x Lek X Sowat - Palais de Tokyo     John Giorno x Lek X Sowat - Palais de Tokyo

After a first collaboration with the American artist John Giorno ( see more here) Lek and Sowat were invited a second time to the Palais de Tokyo in December 2012 to paint on the walls of an emergency exit overlooking the technical premises of the museum. Rather than acting as a duo on the agreed space, the artists invited a dozen of graffiti artists including Dem189, Sambre, Wxyz, Katre, L’Outsider, Swiz, Rizot, Legz, Seth to join them and created an immersive installation by painting from the floor to the ceiling and began an urban exploration of the building.

Palais de Tokyo - ParisPalais de Tokyo - Paris    Palais de Tokyo - Paris      Palais de Tokyo - Paris     Lasco Project - Palais de Tokyo

In October 2013 with the complicity of the president of the Palais de Tokyo, Jean de Loisy, new spaces were made available and the project now titled ‘Lasco’ in tribute to the prehistorical cave paintings, the first wall paintings. Curator Hugo Vitrani with Lek and Sowat decided to pay tribute to French graffiti writers with individual dedicated spaces featuring Azyle, Bom.K, dran, Monsieur Qui, ….

In parallel to the authorized areas,  Lek and Sowat as well as invited artists like dran, Alëxone, Kan, Blo, Evol, Cleon Peterson  would also discreetly wander corridors, push doors, paint unofficially and create hidden or ephemeral installations,  illustrating the evanescent nature of graffiti and its ability to penetrate everywhere.

Palais de Tokyo - ParisLasco Project - Palais de Tokyo  Lasco Project - Palais de Tokyo  Lasco Project - Palais de Tokyo

The results can be seen within the video ‘Invisible Vandalism’.

 

Traces Directs / Direct Outlines

The book also features all the artists ephemeral interventions on a blackboard ( see our coverage here) from Philippe Baudelocque, Wxyz, Alëxone, Smo, L’Outsider, Sowat, Babs, Skki, Jay one, Tcheko, Apôtre, Kan, Seb174, Sambre, Nassyo, Popay (pictured below), Spé, Fléo, Lek, Dem189, Swiz to  Jacques Villeglé.

Popay

The short feature film Traces Directs is now part of the permanent collections of the Centre George Pompidou.

 

La Trappe 

Pushing their exploration of the building further and further, Lek and Sowat discovered a hatch leading to the ventilation lines underneath the Palais de Tokyo.

This is the epilogue of their artistic journey. Lek and Sowat adorned the narrowed and out of reach spaces with graffiti and with curator Hugo Vitrani invited legendary Mode2 and Futura to paint using ochre, black and white colours, reminiscent of the sacred prehistorical paintings in the Lascaux caves.   Large graffiti letters by Mode2  form the sentence  ‘Underground doesn’t exist anymore’.

Lasco Project - Palais de Tokyo                  Lasco Project - Palais de Tokyo Lasco Project - Palais de TokyoLasco Project - Palais de Tokyo     Lasco Project - Palais de TokyoLasco Project - Palais de TokyoLasco Project - Palais de Tokyo

View the full set of pics here

Due to the nature of the space and for security reasons, the Palais de Tokyo has now closed  the access to the hatch permanently. While these paintings will never be accessible to the public, they have been documented in the following video.

Underground Does not Exist Anymore by Lek &Sowat and Hugo Vitrani
ISBN: 978-2-91-917217-81-8
340 pages – Format 17 x 24 cm
Editions Manuella
€ 30 Available here

In parallel Le Palais de Tokyo just released a special issue  Palais Magazine #24 focussing on the urban interventions together with artist interviews from Andre, Azyle, dran, Craig Costello, Futura, Mode2 to Os Gemeos.

udea-palais-de-tokyo

Palais Magazine # 24
ISBN: 978-2-84711-071-5
216 pages – Format 22.5 x 28.5 cm
€ 15 Available here

 

Video Teaser : JR – Les Bosquets @Tribeca Festival

French artist JR will be presenting his latest movie “Les Bosquets“, on a music by Hans Zimmer, Pharrell Williams and Woodkid, as a world premiere at the NY Tribeca Film Festival in April. Inspired by Portraits of a Generation (2005), where he shot portraits of residents in the French suburbs during the riots of 2005, and following his New York City ballets projects (2014), JR returns to the guetto of Montfermeil.

The film “Les Bosquets” brings the audience in a place where art, social uproar and the power of image interweave. The film is a continuation of his first project, Portraits of a Generation, for which he uses various means of expression and narration : video archives, choreography and testimony.

The short film will be presented exclusively in galleries and museum shows.

Some shots from Portraits of a Generation below:

JR ACTIONS
JR ACTIONS
JR ACTIONS

Movie: Jellyfish Eyes by Takashi Murakami

With over ten years in the making, Jellyfish Eyes is the feature film debut by renowned  Japanese multidisciplinary artist Takashi Murakami.

Set in a post-Fukushima world,  the sci-fi fantasy film blends computer-animated graphics with live-action cinematography. The movie tells the story of Masashi, a young boy who moves to a sleepy town in the Japanese countryside with his mother in the wake of a natural disaster. After returning home from his new elementary school one day, Masashi discovers a flying jellyfish-like creature whom he befriends and names Kurage-bo. Masashi soon discovers that all his classmates have similarly magical pets, known as F.R.I.E.N.D.s, which are controlled by electronic devices that the children use to battle one another. Despite their playful appearances, however, these F.R.I.E.N.D.s turn out to be part of a sinister plot that will threaten the entire town. 

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Takashi Murakami – Jellyfish Eyes, 2013. Film still
© 2013 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Murakami is currently doing a screening tour of art institutions and cultural venues across the United States. For more info visit  www.jellyfisheyesthemovie.com