I Heart New Yolk site in the works?

Abztract Co-Founder and Featured Artist, Shai Dahan has been drawing the rad "New Yolk" chickens on both decks and the streets of NYC for a bit now.
This morning, this site popped up.

Nothing there yet, but it looks like something is brewing. We are excited to see what a New Yolk dedicated site will bring.

Around The World: Foma x Know Hope x Zero Cents x Klone

Seen on the streets of Tel Aviv. Work by Foma x Know Hope x Zero Cents x Klone.
Click on the image to get a larger view.

Sneak Peek: MOM & POPism Art Show

STORE FRONT by James & Karla Murray comes to roof top with a line-up of amazing artists

Gawker Artist Presents MOM & POPism
New York City (July/Aug 2009): Gawker Artists presents MOM & POPism, an exhibition curated by Billi Kid reinterpreting James and Karla Murray’s latest book, Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York, in unique collaboration with many of today’s hottest graffiti and street artists.

Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York is a breathtaking visual guide to New York City’s cultural heritage, with special emphasis on the historic streets and ethnic shops that have defined its many neighborhoods. Meticulously photographed, its powerful images of time-worn institutions will be printed at close to life-size scale and installed on the Gawker Media roof, becoming canvases on which select graffiti and street artists are invited to leave their indelible marks. The result will be a unique impression of a New York City that seems to be fading with each passing day. Our cultural and economic landscape will be called into question, the role of art, particularly graffiti and street art, will be subject to reinterpretation.

Curated by Gawker Artist Billi Kid, MOM & POPism brings together graffiti and street artists to create new artworks on top of the Murray’s photographs. The collaborating graffiti and street artists represent some of the most notable artists in the street art community and the media at large. These include Blanco, Buildmore, Cake, Celso, Cern, Chris (RWK), Crome, Cycle, David Cooper, Destroy & Rebuild, Enamel Kingdom, Goldenstash, Infinity, Kngee, Lady Pink, Matt Siren, Morgan Thomas, Peru Ana Ana Peru, Plasma Slugs, Royce Bannon, Shai R. Dahan, Shiro, The Dude Company, Tikcy, Under Water Pirates, Veng (RWK), Zoltron and Billi Kid.

MOM & POPism will be open to public on Saturday, August 15th from noon to 4 p.m. Additional exhibition viewings are available by appointment throughout August.

For more information or to request a viewing appointment please contact artists@gawker.com.

Prints from STORE FRONT: The Disappearing Face Of New York currently on display and for sale at the Clic Gallery ( clicgallery.com/pressrelease/09-07-murray/ )

Down With Protesting

Snapped at a protest in London. We just find this kind of funny.

VIA Urban Prankster

Fresh Stuff from NY Ghost

Our friends over at Public Ad Campaign have been following an artist known as NY Ghost. The artist has been replacing advertisement with his art in public places like phone booth kiosks and the likes (much like Public Ad Campaign artist Jordan Seiler).

The image below is a new piece by NY Ghost. To see more, you can click here: NY GHOST
We are also excited to see what will come of the collaboration between NY Ghost and PAC.



Image VIA Public Ad Campaign

From Around The World: The Treehouse

Wow. Just wow. This gorgeous thing took 9 guys, 350 cans and 7 days of work.






VIA Wooster

Fresh Stuff from Esao Andrews

We try and give props to artists here on BGB even if they are not Abztract featured artists. We come across many different bodies of work that we feel deserve exposure and much due credit, regardless if we have a relationship with those artists or not.

On that note, we just couldn't take our eyes off this beauty. This is a new painting by Esao Andrews. Just awesome in all kinds of ways.
Esao will be having a show at the Thinkspace Gallery in Los Angeles.

Twitter Street Art

Diggin' this shit from UK street artist Questionmarc.

Mark The Spot

The beginning of what ended up to be a very colorful weekend.

That's Random

Found this tag on a wall near Prince Street. We dig it. Drop that knowledge.

Click the image to enlarge.

Where The Oldschool Things Are

After we shared the new Where The Wild Things Are Exclusive Featurette, artist Shai grabbed a pen and a sketch book and did this fun quick remix.

Enjoy this friday fun sketch and go find something inspiring this weekend.

One Love

BGB/Abztract Team

Around The World: CHASE

LA Artist Chase has been busy. We had the pleasure of meeting Chase a while back for a very brief moment and he is taking walls across the world by storm. Check out some fresh stuff gathered around the world.

You can click on the images to view a larger size.

Belgium; a collaboration with Remed, Resto & Bue. The text is “Sommige Harten Kloppen Op’t Straat” (“Some Hearts Beat on the Street”)

Great wide angle photo by Kriebel of the “Remember Who You Are” collabo piece with Bue in Gent, Belgium.

Prague, Czech Republic - 'Remember who you are'

Centre Pompidou, Paris - 'Awareness Geezers'

El Born, Barcelona - 'Remember who you are'

Around The World: Urban Angel Group Show

Fresh stuff from the Urban Angel Group Show which is running in the UK.

Around The World: Little People

We came across a gem of a site this Friday. Little People is a blogsite run by an artist named Slinkachu out of London. The beauty about his street art is that he photographs little hand-painted people in outdoor settings and then leaves them there to "fend for themselves" as he puts it.

This amazing Tiny Street Art Project just made us smile with some of these creative settings he placed them in and we had to give this project props. Check out some of our favorites below and we highly recommend checking out the rest of the fantastic gallery by clicking here.

You may click on the images below to view a larger version.

McCaig-Welles Gallery in Brooklyn is closing

We are sad to hear that McCaig-Welles Gallery in BK is closing down.  We received the news via email this evening and we actually feel really saddened by the news for multiple reasons.

McCaig-Welles was one of the first galleries to open up in Williamsburg (before it became the art community it is today). They opened up in 2002 and has since hosted some amazing artists and events. 

The most unfortunate is that we recently spoke with Melissa prior to having her newborn and she loved the artwork of our Abztract artist and had explored interest in hosting our artists into their gallery.  It is sad to hear that we will not have a chance to work with Melissa and the fantastic gallery. 

We wish her and the rest of the McCaig-Welles team (and family) all the best and thank them for the great artists they supported and value they added to the art community.

Guardian interview with Banksy was with an imposter

Can you say "Embarassing!"

The Guardian's Guide, a UK based news paper ran an article on Saturday who they thought was an exclusive interview with the now overly trendy street artist BANKSY.  The interview ran on Saturday but as of Tuesday, the Guardian ran a correction explaining :

"An interview purporting to be with Banksy in last Saturday's Guide (One last thing ... , 18 July, page 98, the Guide) was, it transpires, conducted with someone impersonating the graffiti artist. We apologise to Banksy for this error and for any offence and inconvenience caused."

We kind of find this funny.  The media has been trying to get an exclusive with the Brangelina private artist ever since he became as trendy as Kanye's glasses.  The problem is, Banksy has played his "under the radar and faceless man of mystery" so well that this kind of slip up comes as no surprise.  From con artists duplicating his art and getting busted selling them to people practically running around town and stenciling his famous cut outs and even going as far as signing them with BANKSY's signature, it is not shocking to find out that people go around claiming to be him to do interviews.

We love the man's work. It really has paved the way to bring street-art into the mainstream. Unfortunately, when you are a man without a face its kind of hard for the mainstream to be able to know who they are adoring. 

Via a facebook post by AM

 

Street Dreams - New Flying Fortress and RWK

Robots Will Kill and Flying Fortress had these new gems pop up earlier this month in Brooklyn. The piece has work from both Veng (on left) and Chris (top right) of RWK. Lower right is done by FF.



Great stuff.
VIA eyegunk

Around The World: Sean Martindale and Eric Cheung Poster Plant

We came across this via Wooster Collective and couldn't resist reposting it here on BGB.
Toronto artists Sean Martindale and Eric Cheung have been putting on a project that ads a bit of green to the neighborhood by cutting up advertisement posters. To read the full story, you can check out Torontoist

VIA Wooster Photos VIA Torontoist

From Around The World: Alexandros Vasmoulakis

This beautiful mural in Athens was done by Alexandros Vasmoulakis. Really digging the color and the beauty of this piece. Truly amazing.

Alexandros has a solo show in 2010 at LeBasse Projects. VIA AM

Philip Lumbang Original Art Coming Soon

Abztract featured artist Philip Lumbang who has been gaining fame with his famous woodsy creatures (bears, bunnies, squirrels) has delivered us with two amazing pieces of art. The two pieces will be available for purchase on our Abztract Shop soon.  Stay tuned for official release dates.

Enjoy these images of the pieces and if you would like to pre-order any of the pieces, you can inquire about them by hitting us up at order@abztract.com

Haters Are Bastards

We dislike haters. There are a lot of individulas and groups out there that hate on street art and their form. We here at BGB call those haters a bunch of bastards who obviously lack talent and had father-issues. They are like that kid in class in Junior High who used to tell on you to the teacher when you spent time doodling ninjas on your book instead of focusing on reading "Fahrenheit 451".

Lately, there has been a few punk ass haters who shot up a Banksy piece up with a paintball gun. It got a lot of attention in the blog world and even Lance Armstrong Twittered about it saying “Quit shooting paintball guns at the Banksy please!"

Well, it looks like one of our Abztract Featured Artists and one of a few street artists who can actually pull off street art that is both thought provoking and cute at the same time, was hit up in the same manner that Banksy was. Philip Lumbang, a Los Angeles native and one artist we truly believe will be bigger than any of us hopes he will be, had one of his iconic "Peaceful Bears" splatterd with paintballs.

We are not sure why people go out of their way to destroy art. If it's to prove a point about how street-art is destroying public property, well than shooting it with paintball guns is not really an effective way to do this. Nobody ever gets away with killing a murderer to prove that killing people is bad.

It is especially upsetting when they do it to work like Philip's awesome bears. How can you hate on cute little bears who add value to an otherwise boring and bland asphalt? It ads a way for people to enjoy the uninteresting surroundings and helps add art into the community (which is way better than stuffing it with advertisements).

So this post is for you haters. You got the attention you obviously lacked from your parents. We give you two thumbs up for being world class douchbags and while, as Philip puts it in his tweet "Are an awesome shot", apparently, aiming forward is the only thing you are good at.

Perhaps its time to stop aiming at art, and aim for the sky instead. Be someone who ads value to the world instead of destroying the hard work of those who already are making a difference in it.

Stay Happy as a Bear Yall!

Abztract Fam

D*Face-d

D*Face is one of our favorites here at BGB. Seems like anything the guy produces is extremely fresh. It came as no surprise then when we saw photos on his site of a new mural he did for Pisa Town Council out in Italy named "Heavens Above". The piece was a tribute to Keith Haring who also did a piece in the city in the late 80's.

The D*Face piece is truly something that deserves to be up for the next 20 years too.

Banksy @ the Orleans Museum of Art

Famous and highly duplicated British street artist BANKSY has one of his famous pieces at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

The NOLA Girl has been famous since Banksy bombed New Orleans nearly a year ago. The stencil was placed on a wall on St. Claude Ave near the French Quarter.

The Museum reps claim that the stencil is going to be at the Museum for a long term loan by some London collector and has been certified to be a true Banksy piece.

Recently, a few art counterfeiter criminals were arrested in Britain after they were caught duplicating stencils of the famous street artist on canvas and re-selling the fakes as authenticate pieces.

If you are in N.O. anytime soon and want to catch a glimpse of the girl, the NOMA hours are Wed, noon to 8; Thur-Sun, 10 to 5.

Via NOLA

Public Art is the Frisco way

Photo by Louis DeLuca

When a community joins together for the sake of art, we have to give it props. We came across this article in the Dallas News. Frisco, a small city in Texas has been taking charge in opening its doors to public art. Actually, they encourage it.

Too many towns "are becoming homogenized – same stores, same restaurants, same street names even, as other towns," said Katherine Wagner, chief executive officer of North Texas Business for Culture and the Arts and a member of the public art committee for Dallas. "Art can give us something to be proud of that is uniquely ours, and which we can build around."

Frisco has been installing art into their town for a while now. The city even requires every municipal project to set aside money for art to be installed. From installing art at their local Pizza Hut to a terrazzo floor at the Fire Station, Frisco has been able to show that a city can flourish with art rather than succumb to Billboard advertisements and the cookie-cutter streets that you find across America. They are even building a curriculum around the collections.

We give props to the city of Frisco, TX and encourage other towns to follow. Its when a city stands up and recognizes that public advertisement (legal or not) is an eye sore, and that public art (legal or not) can be something to enjoy, teach and talk about, that is when the value of artists and their hard work will truly be understood.

Check out the full article here: In Frisco, There's Art To Be Found

Midnight Marauders

Artist Shai D was painting away test samples lastnight for a new series he is working on. The new series is inspired by Midnight Marauders (legendary ATCQ album). The last series he did named "Animals & Guns" which mixed weapons as heads of animals was very successful and got a lot of love so we are excited to see what he will be releasing next.
Shai plans to have this new series up for sale on Abztract very soon. Judging by this cardboard sample, it is sure to be another classic (much like the Hip Hop album in which it is themed after).

Our Brooklyn Sunday

Abztract rolled deep into Brooklyn this weekend to enjoy some sunshine. We walked across the bridge and made sure to catch some good vibes while spending some good Abztract Family time in the BK. Here are some of our favorite photos taken during our exploration of Crooklyn, New York.