Check out this stunning work by Sao Paulo artist Yusk.

The plan is to bring Yusk, along with Horoiwa and Miss G to Australia mid next year.
Hopefully for 6 weeks while Horoiwa and Yusk create a show which will tour in Melbourne and Sydney. It’s a sketchy blueprint, but more news soon.

Enjoy.

On a totally unrelated note, apart from the fact that the title of this post reminded me of it, if you havn’t checked it out already check The Tuss. Aphexs new project, good for a laff. Never fear, the tuss is here.

WWW.REKAONE.COM.AU

Lets not lie to ourselves, we’ve all thought, often talked about, doing it… Haven’t we?

One of the icons, standing to highlight the hypocrisy and ignorance of the Melbourne city council and its confused stance on Street art and graffiti has been capped.

The Banksy stencil opposite the police station on Flinders lane which the Melbourne City council had “protected” by a perspex sheet sitting a couple of inches off the wall was ceremoniously covered in silver paint this weekend and finished off with a “Banksy Woz Ere” tag, either by same or different person. Nice touch.

The perspex sheet was put up to “stop vandalism” of the stencil which the council has recently deemed valuable as a tourist attraction and land mark, no doubt thanks to the main steam media coverage on the collectability and value of Banksy’s work.

Ironically while proving to have had negligible protective value the perspex most likely motivated the capping.

Tale of a confused city.

• Melbourne has introduced new harsh penalties for anyone found carrying spray paint that include jail time and astronomical fines.
• It is also the same city which uses graffiti as a predominant theme in advertising. Lifting artwork by Phibs for its designs throughout the cliché “loose yourself” tourism campaign.
• Yet…. it’s the same city who’s tourism and major events minister Tim Holding attacked organizers of Disney Worlds “Mini-Melbourne” display for predominantly featuring work by Phibs and other Melbourne graffiti artists in recognition of the cities global reputation for innovative street art.
• Melbourne council will go to lengths to “protect” a Banksy stencil because it has read some article about the value of his artwork.
• Yet if any of the internationally recognised Melbourne street artists were caught putting up something similar they would be faced with such harsh punishments that you could pretty much rule their life as over.
• But still, Melbourne funds “street art tours” throughout the city.

Amazing.

We’ll never know for sure, but I think these conflicting points and more such as the obvious futility of protecting street art, were going through the head of whoever capped this piece, no doubt as a direct message to the city council rather than as a critisism of Banksy’s artwork.

It’s a shame that our city is run by people of such myopic and vulgar tastes that they need the value of artwork or of an artist to be spelt out to them in big bold letters by a respected source from overseas before they can recognize it for themselves.

Was in Sydney last week for the now postponed No Comply launch, which at this stage is looking like it’ll be relaunced on Friday 13th of Feb when construction is finished. But i digress.

Highlight of the trip..

The rooftop of 1,000 drunken throwies.

Beautiful scene, but you get a spooky feeling from that door in real life, like the residents are in there busily mutilating their genitals while listing to enya.

Alphabet was the last show of the year from Monster Children gallery, a gathering of associated artists working their way through the alphabet which launched last night to the usual shinanigans despite the miserableness of the weather.

A is for Andy Jenkins

B is for Ben Brown

C is for Andrew Cowen

D is for Mark Drew

E is for Edward Woodley

F is for Ben Frost

G is for Mike Giant

H is for Evan Hecox

I is for Luca Ionescu

J is for Jeff Canham

K is for Kelly Searl it’s also good for a fun night in.

L is for Anthony Lister

M is for Reg Mombassa

N is for Numskull

O is for Beci Orpin

P is for Pam

Q is for Mickie Quick

R is for Robert Moore

S is for Sarah Larnach

T is for The Idiots

U is for Steve Uren

V is for Vaughn Dead

W is for Ozzie Wright

X is for Stefan MarX

Y Is for We Buy Your Kids

Z is for Jonathan Zawada

Yup, its on tonight and runs until 22nd Dec
NO VACANCY GALLERY
27-33 Red Cape Lane Melb
QV Centre

Was there for set up last night – mad stuff!

I took a night walk with some friends the other day and could finally took some shots, which are not as good as I´d like but I think you´ll get to see what it´s about, of this awesome work by OsGemeos, on the school they used to study and where it all began, people seeing how good they were drawing, where they did their first graffitis, as far as I know, and now the school is closed and they painted it outside, with themselves on it !

Check it out !

They used beads glued to the wall,  which gave a real nice touch to it !

…and couldn´t help to take a shot from an old work of NINA, right beside it !

Keep your roots strong !

<b> THE DRAWING MACHINE II</b>

Ghostpatrol and I are again curating The Drawing Machine, featuring our favourite Melbourne artists.

Opening night: Thursday, 11 December  – 6-8 pm

Green-Wood Gallery, 1 Hotham St, South Melbourne {112 tram, stop 127}

Featuring:

ACORN
AL STARK
BONSAI
BRADDOCK
CHARLOTTE LANCE
GHOSTPATROL
HANA DAVIES
HYPER COLOR CASTLE
JAMES REKA
KAORI KATO
MEGGS
MISO
NIOR
NATHAN GRAY
TRISTAN JALLEH
TWO ONE