Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
If you want to see full gallery “Street Wall” please click here
This week features a collection of street art from New London, as it is now officially known, well, it isn’t, apart from by me that is…yes, I am trying to make “New London” happen. I just feel the wealthy & prohibitively expensive modern metropolis it now is needs a new name as it has transformed quite so extensively from what it once was…
New London appropriately houses a very new type of graffiti. You are more likely to find corporate sponsored murals than anything generated by illegal sprayers. You can mosey around Shoreditch these days and see great examples of aerosol applied art but its reactionary street edge has been transformed into standard advertising. The only difference is it is on a wall not a billboard. Even their biggest enemies, rebellious youths & anti-establishment anarchists, are eventually adopted by big business…does everyone cave into cash in the end? Is it always that inevitable? Does capitalism always win?
Graffiti art used to be done under the cover of night. Stencils were invented so that spraying could be done quicker to avoid potential capture and arrest. Nowadays it is done in broad daylight as they are hired for their services and no longer need to remain anonymous. In fact, graffiti artists are now actively trying to get noticed so they can hopefully cash in. Gone is the desire to remain a mystery. They actually now leave their website address, as in the one above, so they can get potential work. A friend of mine is a graffiti artist and he now gets paid handsomely by corporate companies to give lessons in street art to their staff.
There is even an estate agent in Notting Hill that has commissioned a huge street art mural on the side of its building (in gallery-see link above), Given the nature of its covert illegal origins this is the equivalent of drug dealers selling their contraband goods in Boots the chemist….umm, I’m looking for the coke dealer. Oh, he’s right there in the corner, over by the deodorants. Its part of the meal deal if you get a wrap of Ketamine and a sandwich with it. Cool, thanks.
Having said all that you do still see some remarkable works of graffiti art in the city. The skills remain, just the intention & context has somewhat changed. I rarely take photographs of street art as always presume someone else has got it covered but this selection caught my eye and reflected this new paradoxical wave of street legal illegal street art.
