Tag: street art

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MYLDN 1934

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Joanna Bumley apparently…

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I don’t necessarily disagree with this equation but did we really need a name for it? Is that helping at all? And why are you trying to make Britastrophe happen, yeah? How is that gonna get us out of this mess? It’s also not very good let’s be honest.

Why do we feel we have to labradoodle everything these days? It’s like everything has to be simplified to fuck and made hashtagable before anyone pays attention? It’s like our current government seem more focused on creating the right slogan rather than implementing genuine measures to combat Covid. The virus can’t read. It doesn’t give a shit what catchy phrase you use. Maybe now the Spin Doctor of Barnard Castle is gone, they won’t focus quite as much on advise that rhymes and think that’ means the job is done.

So featured this week are some random wall scrawls alongside some stickers & posters that have been plastered around to jolt people into thought. I think it is the fact that printing has got become much cheaper which has spurred on a new wave of slightly more professional executions than dragging a fat sharpie across a wall as presentation for people’s message out there on the streets. Its become more and more of a thing as you can see..

Many are of an anti-government nature but as in the drug one above, (which I don’t really understand tbh -are they drug shaming or class shaming ?) they can be sometimes quite oblique in their intention. Although most, it has to be said, are of a political nature as are most things these days and am quite astounded how over-politicised are lives have become recently.

It feels like almost everything goes through this political polarising filter. It would appear our persuasions are being pulled whilst others are pushing their own agendas. There was a time when not everything was about politics. It seems to really dominate all aspects of life at the moment. I think we all need to take a step out of the red corner and the blue corner and stop looking for a fight with the opposition at every turn.

I blame the 24 news feed which just wants to stoke our rage to keep us wired in and the easiest way to do that is to push our respective buttons & beliefs. But all it achieves is increased polarisation when we really all need to be coming towards the middle. I miss the centrism of 90s politics. Less black and white, less hostile, less like feeling you had somehow fallen into a civil war you don’t remember starting.

As for the anti-lockdown brigade trying to incite dissent, (well done on the logo & slogan, lovely work ;) they are seemingly the only ones oblivious to the irony that their activity will most likely prolong the very thing they want to end. And its pretty fucking pointless..I mean, go ahead, ignore the lockdown by all means, then what? What are you gonna do? Everything’s shut for fuck’s sake.

And so I will end this week of walled bulletins the way I started it, with some good ole fashioned sprayed graffiti with no real agenda other than to delight up your day…are you talkin to me? Awww, shucks n stuff..thanks!

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#MYLDN (1517)

Ok, personally they wouldn’t have been my first two choices…I’m not gonna go into the first one but full? really? You want the new world to be full? For what purpose? I mean, it’s going that way anyway but who actually wants that?

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When I was a kid I wanted nothing more than to travel into the future and with 2020 looming I realise I actually achieved my dream, I just did it the long way round, in real time. The future doesn’t look quite as shiny and as optimistic as we maybe imagined back then but it is definitely here, as am I.

What we do now will dictate what kind of actual future we will have but we must act now… doing nothing will not maintain the status quo. Doing nothing will propel us forwards towards a future none of us want to be in…

#anythingbuttory

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This week’s photographs feature the current Portobello Wall Public Art project by Anastasia Russa. Over the summer I passed by most days and saw it come to life during an endless stream of sunshine. On most days you could see the artist, mostly hidden under her customary sun hat, working on the next portrait.  It was great to see this work of art build and grow as the project progressed. The mural which spans one entire block along Portobello Rd shows the changing eras and inhabitants of the area. The artist is not from the area but spent months talking to locals as to who should be included.

Among those featured are Piers Thompson who runs Portobello Radio, Khadija Saye, an artist who died in the Grenfell fire and Tim Burke, who was a lovely man and a neighbour of mine, who tragically took his own life at the end of last year. These are interspersed with other locals from both past and present.

I am interested in how art on the streets, whether commissioned or not, affects the inhabitants of the area it appears in. Whether we are consciously aware of it, there is an interaction, a connection, a moment of reflection. Even though art is not technically essential for survival, it is still integral and necessary to our lives. Its presence can uplift and create a fleeting instance of calm in the chaos whilst also providing little pockets of  visual pleasure from within the humdrum of the daily backdrop. A lot of art related projects were the first things to be axed by councils when austerity measures slashed their budgets in half as they felt extraneous to living but I think art, of any nature,  is vital and can make the difference between being happy and not.

Last week I showed a lot of local tagging and how little it contributed other than to serve as a force for defacement. Maybe I was a little hard on Boner (sorry ;) but signatures used to accompany a piece of work, not be the piece of work and so, when you see actual art in action, as in this mural, you see how it can light up a street and bring colour to the greyness.

To see the full gallery please click on this link: https://babycakesromero.com/photography/artwall/ 

for more info on this project: https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/leisure-and-culture/culture/current-portobello-wall-public-art-project

Have been doing a lot of doorstep documentation recently so going to venture a little further afield..next stop, Paris!

 

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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

 

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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Nothing but positive messages and words of encouragement from the street this week…which are indeed rarities amidst the usual ‘everything’s fucked and totally shit’ statements normally scrawled across walls across the city. I do have to admit though, there is a part of me that finds positive messages irritating.  For example, even though I agree with the above statement I feel some irrational hostility towards overtly upbeat declarations. I know you’re just trying to help but it’s not really working…

All the shots this week are all part of my ongoing series “r u talkin’ to me” which explores the inward focus of our outward observations and makes us question our relationship with the world around us. Does the universe revolve around me? Is it trying to tell me something? Were these statements specifically designed for me to see? If so how is this even possible? And even if they were, will I take heed of this messages or ignore them? Am I the only one who thinks this way? Am I going to keep asking myself rhetorical questions?

 

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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

 

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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Now that is something I do understand.

This week’s photographs focus on unexplainable art I have recently ncountered on my travels through this city. The question is this: can art be art without meaning? Surely that is the requirement for it to qualify? But maybe the point of art is that it is indefinable. It slips through the cracks of our consciousness. We cannot always file it in our brains because it is unclassifiable.

I used to think that art was anything creative that was produced without the desire for financial returns. (That’s what I conveniently told myself anyway). Its existence was enough. It was free from the sullied hands of commerce and sought reward not in gold but in the human soul. In modern times, this is now very far from the reality for the Premiere league. Art is now one of the biggest commodities around and seems to be one of the few industries outside the city that is still raking in the cash.

As so many companies have been forced out of Soho because of extortionate rates the art world has moved  in. You only have to take a look at the square footage of the new Marion Goodman gallery off Golden Square to know that the art world is doing just fine. It makes you realise that this unquantifiable product of human expression, this abstract attempt to make sense of our world is obviously highly valued in today’s society. It is also apt that in these commodity driven times where everything is traded for middle men mark ups, even the industry devoted to the purist of intention has had its culturally enriching credits transformed into stock value and been rebranded as a luxury status symbol for the superrich.

The market worth of the art world does however show how important it is still regarded in society and how  much we must want it and need it and as soon many other areas fail to give us a sense of understanding of ourselves and the world around us, we turn to art, because it is in these fleeting moments of artistic appreciation and induced reflection that we get a brief calmness that allows us to feel like there is a purpose to it all. This is possibly incorrect and an inspired lie but it’s soothing nonetheless.

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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

I have no idea what this is or what its trying to say. I don’t even know if the two items are connected. Is this street art or is someone in the council parking department getting creative? Maybe people weren’t reading the signs so they felt they needed to jazz em up a bit. Or maybe they thought it would be nice to be look at something artistic as your car was towed away. I’m intrigued but I really have no clue. Any ideas welcome…