Street Artist Turns Vandalism Into Charity

Following the graffiti history-promoting “Writer’s Bench” project, artists continue campaigning for public acceptance of the illicit art form. Bristol-based street artist IMBUE recently installed some small plaques alongside local tags. Engraved with the message, “this artwork was kindly donated by a local artist,” the gallery-style signs are intended to add some credence and sway people questioning whether the spraypainted pieces are vandalism or art.

Artists Honor Graffiti History With Plaque, Mock MTA Posters

Since the M.T.A. doesn’t appreciate the historical significance of the subway graffiti movement and in most cases refuses to even acknowledge it, this new “unsanctioned project” that utilizes the “camouflage of design to lend stature and authority to the Writer’s Bench at 149th St and Grand Concourse” is not only fitting, but in many cases necessary. Artists Erik Burke and Yale Wolf have been putting up faux SubTalk posters in stations and even installed a plaque at the legendary Writer’s Bench, the focal point for graffiti artists during the early years where they would meet up to compare notes, trade flicks, swap stories, and show off blackbooks. The illegal, but educational campaign is an interesting method to recapture and broadcast such an important piece of New York City history.

It was a matter of time before they would strike back!

In the summer of 2000, Amsterdam was invaded, by the French artist Space Invader

Who are you ?
I'm Invader (that's my alias). I always appear masked in public, so no one knows my face. Some people call me a polluter, others say I'm an artist. I prefer to think of myself as an invader !

What's the Space Invaders project about?
The idea is to "invade" cities all over the world with characters inspired by first-generation arcade games, and especially the now classic Space Invaders. I make them out of tiles, meaning I can cement them to walls and keep the ultra-pixelated appearance.

How many people are involved?
Just me. In the eight years I've been working on this project, I've traveled to 35 cities on all five continents with the sole intention of "invading" them!
Having said that, people have sent me photos of Space Invaders in towns I've never set foot in! I see it as a positive thing, a kind of tribute. I did consider setting up a group strategy but it's a hard thing to delegate. So while I don't encourage this kind of copying, I don't especially condemn it either.

What made you choose Space Invaders as the main character for the project?
Lots of reasons. I see them as a symbol of our era and the birth of modern technology, with video games, computers, the Internet, mobile phones, hackers and viruses. And "space invader" is a pretty good definition of what I'm doing... invading spaces!

Green Guerilla Tactics

After reverse graffiti, now in Brooklyn we’ve discovered ‘living graffiti’ — an idea which takes the idea of clean graffiti to the next level by creating street art out of living, breathing plants.

Edina Tokodi studied graphic art and design at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts and also completed urban design course work in Milan, Italy. Her work can be seen on the streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn and in unexpected outcroppings on a street near you.
http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/11/03/clean-green-living-graffiti-made-from-moss/#

Reverse Graffiti

Alexandre Orion creates images by selectively scraping off layers of black soot deposited on those walls in the short life of this orifice of modernity. He sculpts skulls in the layer of soot.

I find the irony in the fact that the police tries to stop him, yet can do nothing about it since he is cleaning, not spraypainting. Society has created something were institutions are trying to ban the art, but the pollution and other forced commerce is allowed. These officers struggle to understand and you can feel they try to find ways to a way to prohibit/forbid it.

enjoy the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwsBBIIXT0E&feature=player_embedded