It’s been quite a week for England, we have witnessed our own youth creating havoc in the streets, overthrowing the force of the authorities and causing millions of pounds worth of damage. It is depressing and frightening however, the main positive to come out of the situation is the overwhelming sense of community strength that we have in our cities, I will be forever grateful for the Turkish shop keepers in Stoke Newington who protected our neighbourhood when no one else was around to. What happens next remains to be seen but what we can expect is a surge of creative responses to the riots such as the examples outlined below.
Posts Tagged ‘Banksy’
Ben Eine – Painting the town red (and blue and yellow and green and orange and…)
Monday, August 2nd, 2010
For someone who now has one of his pictures hanging on a wall in the White House, thanks to a much publicised Cameron/Obama gift exchange, Ben Eine appears remarkably unphased by being catapulted into the limelight – even though the mass media frenzy to get a piece of him has been “mental”. I am, in fact, the first of six interviewers he has booked in for today. Real name Ben Flynn, Ben Eine is a street artist who has now crossed the line from a graffiti “criminal” to “mainstream” enfant not-so-terrible. He’s been chased, arrested and fined more times than he can remember, and was given 200 hours of community service which took him about a year to complete. So what eventually inspired him to change his ways? (more…)
Graffiti wars
Thursday, April 29th, 2010
There is a grand tradition of animosity and grudge amongst any era’s foremost artists. Just think of the squabbles between Picasso and Matisse or even Michelangelo and Leonardo. But these cultural showdowns rarely take place on the towpath of the canal in Camden Town – until now.
Electile dysfunction
Thursday, April 8th, 2010
In 1978 a poster appeared in the high streets of Britain. Placed by Saatchi & Saatchi for the Conservatives, it showed a long line of workless Britons under the line ‘Labour Isn’t Working’. That poster is now widely considered to have been responsible for the Tories’ electoral victory the following year.