Welcome to the new/updated site! Since 2002, your old-school website for all things stencils. Please consider donating what you can to support the much-needed upgrade. Photo, video, links, and exhibit info submissions always welcome. Enjoy and stay curious.
Straight and to the point in Vienna/Wien (ph BeneRegoef)
Stencil Archive has had a good time cutting back the X content searches. Over on Bluesky, most of our sources are now on there as of this week. BeneRegoef, who we share mutual friends and passions with, just joined, so there is a good community on that site. Might as well drop all the handles: @stencilarchive.bsky.social, @regoef.bsky.social, @radicalgraffiti.bsky.social. Sadly, @louniki.bsky.social hasn't gotten too active on bsky yet. We understand the tactic of staying on the site that probably needs it the most. Stencil Archive was never on X, but we have started to post our own photos much like our Zuck-IG profile. IG will be hard to leave for many people that may be over the whims of oligarchs.
Today's images are from these sources, especially BeneRegoef, and more. Enjoy!
Marshal Arts tapping a sensitive subject for 2025 (ph TXMX)
Hamburg legend TXMX drops last year's stencil images every January. It is now a long tradition here at Stencil Archive to get the hits from Germany (and sometimes other countries). This year, TXMX sent over photos of works from:
2025 begins, and we roll into the hours come what may. January is the month to get excited about receiving an email of last year's stencil photos from TXMX in Hamburg. Adding to the new year submission are a batch of photos from Rome, Italy via Adam K's latest travels. Finally, dear friend Kathleen dropped off one from Asheville, NC. We were just in NC and have some more to add to this one. Those, and more Hamburg photos, coming soon!
Trying not to get too comsumed today, but what can one do while wearing a red sweat shirt, with a terrorized gingerbread man that says "bite me" on it? Before the overwhelm begins, and the family arrives, what better way to sip your current beverage.... and cope.... than with non-holiday stencils? We're trying over here! The Stencil Archive backlog has been cleared out for the Q4 end of year. Gifts for you all.
Thanks to: Amanda, Jeremy Novy, Ben de Biel, Louniki, A Murray, BeneRegoef Spinning: John Coltrane Quartet at the Village Gate
DEMO down in New Zealand had perfect timing with new archive.
While updating all the European Stencil Archives, two artist archives needed to be updated with some newly discovered images in the country zones and not in their own archives. Here are a few other new image updates as well. Just a few.
Vinyl support for the moment: KGLW, Phish, Van Halen
Chaplin alive in the streets of Timisoara, Romania
Stencils have been in the streets of Poland for decades. While researching art history for the "Stencil Nation" project, a man painted protest stencils in the streets during the communist era. His father also tagged the streets during the fascist occupation during World War 2: The Nazi occupiers painted German propaganda on the walls, and this vandal would make minor adjustments to the text to create Polish-language culture jams. Talk about détournement!
"Great street artists have their own style and personality." Intrview with Blek Le Rat, father of stencil art by Federico Giannini (Instagram: @federicogiannini1), published on 24/05/2020 Original interview, in other languages, at Finestre sull'Arte
Blek Le Rat [his Stencil Archive] is one of the world's greatest street artists whose career is about to turn 40 years old. We interviewed him and got an insight into his art.
Street artist Blek Le Rat (Xavier Prou; Paris, 1951) is one of the pioneers of international street art and the father and initiator of stencil graffiti, the same technique that would be used and made famous by Banksy, who can be considered an epigone of the French artist. His career began in 1981, when he began painting on the streets of Paris after being fascinated by the graffiti he met in New York on a trip in the 1970s. Blek Le Rat is thus about to turn 40 years old: we caught up with him for an interview about his art and his latest works. The interview is curated by Federico Giannini, editor in chief of Finestre Sull’Arte.
Image
Upper Haight, San Francisco.
FG. To begin with, I would like to talk about your latest work, M.U.R. (Mobulable, Urbain et Réactif), made in Rennes in September 2019. Can you tell us about this work, how it was made, how the idea came about?
BLR. I am not used to working on modular walls: it was the first time I intervened in this mode. I had been invited by Patrick Daniello, president of the association Le mur de Rennes, and it seemed to me a beautiful thing, also because under these conditions, that is, when you work on an “authorized” wall, you do not work in urgency, and with the fear of being arrested by the police. Therefore, one can continue to think about the image while working, one can build in multiple times because mishaps do not arise due to the extreme urgency of having to quickly finish an image made illegally. Regarding this modular work in Rennes, a friend, Thierry Gauthé, known as Bergu, had arrived in the morning to see me paint. The fortuitousness of this encounter led us to agree that it would be wonderful if Thierry intervened on the image as he did on my stencils in the 1980s, adding his famous bats. It was a magical moment, I really enjoyed this work in Rennes, and looking back at the image today I still cannot help but see in it a relation to the Covid-19 epidemic.
