Street Artist 'Sign-Bombs' Downtown Neighborhoods With 450 'Honey Bears'
Mon. January 29, 2018, 4:34pm
by Nathan Falstreau for hoodline
 

Street art is part of San Francisco's landscape, but one local artist recently installed hundreds of pieces of his work to spark a conversation about using public spaces as a canvas for self-expression.

Over the weekend, fnnch [Stencil Archive album], best known for his depictions of honey bears, ladybugs, seashells, flamingos and turtles, fastened 450 pieces to utility poles between Market and Harrison and the Embarcadero and 5th Street. To comply with city rules for posting signs, he mounted the artwork using zip ties.

The installation, which features an array of honey bears and was billed as "sign bombing," aims to bring attention to what the artist deems "an excessive and absurd amount of [legal] signage." According to fnnch, adhering a "simple sticker" to public property could result in possible felony or misdemeanor charges.

The artist hopes to sway future legislation with the work and has teamed up with Care2 to start a petition urging members of the Board of Supervisors to decriminalize certain types of street art. As of this writing, the petition has garnered 10,816 signatures of support out of a goal of obtaining 11,000.

In particular, fnnch wants the city to decriminalize the application of stickers and wheatpaste—a removable adhesive that's commonly used by street artists.

“What I want to do is show the absurdity of our laws," he said in a statement. "Had these signs been affixed with adhesive to the poles, I could go to jail, but if they are put up with tape or a zip-tie, then it not only becomes legal to hang them up, but illegal for anyone to take them down.”

In Memory of MICHAEL ROMAN
Stenciled Visions of Love, Peace and Chaos
at the Mission Cultural Center
his Stencil Archive photo set

In remembrance of our artist friend, we invite you to come and celebrate Michael Roman’s creative works. Michael was a long time artist-in-resident and supporter of the Mission Cultural Center. His signature works left a lasting legacy for the Bay Area Community and beyond. We honor his artistic contributions by showcasing some of his works. This exhibition will feature works from personal collections.

Opening
JANUARY 26, 2018 | $5 Admission | Inti-Raymi
Exhibit Dates:
JAN 26th - FEB 17th, 2018 | $2 Admission | Inti-Raymi

Music support by Robert Zimmerman, via WREK.
<<< Ana Rossi mourns the Mission on Dia de los Muertos.

Clarion Alley

Financial District

The Mission

Western Addition

Haight Street

Valencia Street

SF Protest Sign (just one)

Up on Market Street (just one)

Eclair

Sol Mission

Solis

Tunes while working, compliments of KPOO, WREK, and WFMU.
<<< Banksy always suggests reading the fine print while in Bethlehem!

Banksy (just one)

Btoy (just one, thanks BSA)

Rice (thanks BSA)

Stefan Winterle (only one)

>NEW< Stinkfish (CO, thanks Colab)

In Barcelona (thanks BSA)

Portugal (just one, thanks Colab)

UK (just one)

Brazil (thanks Amanda)

In Media (A Spike Lee Joint)

East Bay, in Oakland

Sticky Shaw in Baker, CA (just one)

<<< A beaver on Beaver St., SF (by Sol Mission)

New photos for the Stencil Archive, uploaded between hacking/stripping sugar cane stalks and chewing out the sweet goodness!

>NEW< Papel Picado de Beatriz Vasquez (SF)

>NEW< Papel Picado de Adriana Garcia (SF)

>NEW< Praxis (NYC)

Peat Eyez in SF

eclair

fnnch

Jeremy Novy (just one)

Sol Mission

<<< From the altar "Para Mama Benita con Amor" by Beatriz Vasquez at the SOMArts 2017 Day of the Dead exhibition

November 14, 2017 5:16 pm
for Mission Local (LINK, with photos)

It was on a trip to Mexico after her father’s death that Beatriz Vasquez discovered the centuries-old Mexican craft that has become the vehicle for her art.

Papel picado, which involves cutting designs into layers of thin tissue paper, goes back to pre-Hispanic Mexico and is still used for events like weddings, baptisms and other festivals or ceremonies.

“It’s very disposable, and nobody really sees it as a fine art,” said the 49-year-Vasquez, who has a year-long fellowship with Root Division, where she teaches. And she has a residency at The Growlery, where artists live and work, rent-free, in a restored Victorian-era home.

During her trip to Mexico, Vasquez researched the craft and began to see papel picado as a metaphor for the indigenous women she was interviewing.

“I saw the paper as very fragile, but extremely beautiful and extremely sustainable and extremely versatile,” she said. “Kind of like what we are.”

It was then, Vasquez said, that she thought, “‘I’m gonna take this craft, disposable art form and turn it into fine art.’”

Her pieces are generally large — sometimes seven feet tall — and depict her experiences with politics, self-expression and her Mexican culture. In her work, there are intricate cuts of skeletons, butterflies and pineapples.

The very nature of the art and how a successful piece operates reflects society, she said. “Everything has to connect for it to work,” she said. “If we don’t connect with each other, it doesn’t work.”

One piece, La Sirena Feminista, tackles the topic of machismo in the Latino community. The work, created in 2015, is based on a traditional Mexican card game known as the Lotería. The face of la Sirena is that of Beatriz.

Opening «CUT OUT» Stencil Group Show
Facebook Link

Adey (FR) • Alias (DE) • Balu (ES) • Czarnobyl (PL) • eins92 (DE) • Eliot (DE) • Erre (ES) • European Bob (UK) • Jana & Js (FR) • Jaune (BE) • L.E.T. (DE) • M-one (UK) • Mittenimwald (DE) • Monkey Bird (FR) • Pahnl (UK) • Snub23 (UK) • Tona (DE) • XooooX (DE)

VERNISSAGE – Samstag, 18. November, 19 bis 00:00 Uhr
FINISSAGE – Freitag, 8. Dezember, 19 Uhr bis 23:00 Uhr

Ausstellung: 18. November – 8. Dezember 2017

URBANSHIT GALLERY
Breite Straße 56
22767 Hamburg

Öffnungszeiten
Mittwoch und Donnerstag 15-18 Uhr
Sowie nach Terminvereinbarung

Das Schneiden von Stencils (Schablonen) ist eine der bekanntesten künstlerischen Techniken der Street Art. Ursprünglich als technisches Hilfsmittel zur schnellen und seriellen Verbreitung politischer Botschaften im öffentlichen Raum entwickelt, haben sich Schablonen Graffiti zu einem völlig eigenständigen Kunstgenre entwickelt, welches die Street Art prägt wie kein anderes.

Mit CUT OUT versammeln die beiden Kuratoren Felix Rau (eins92) und Rudolf David Klöckner (urbanshit) 18 der derzeit interessantesten europäischen Stencilkünstler in einer Ausstellung. Mit jeweils genau einem Werk pro Künstler spiegelt die international besetzte Gruppenausstellung nicht nur den Status Quo der Stencilkunst wider, sondern bringt auch die Kunst der Schablonen-Graffiti in konzentrierter Form zurück nach Hamburg.

Cutting out stencils is one of the most known techniques of street art. The original purpose of stencils was to quickly reproduce and spread political messages in public space. By now, they have developed to an individual art genre with heavy influence on street art.

Through the CUT OUT-show, the two curators Felix Rau (eins92) and Rudolf David Klöckner (urbanshit), gather eighteen of the most interesting stencil artists of Europe under one roof. By exhibiting one work per artist, the show not only reflects the status quo of stencil art but also brings back stencil art to Hamburg in a highly concentrated form.

After ‘Hope,’ and Lawsuit, Shepard Fairey Tries Damage Control
By JORI FINKELNOV. 3, 2017 (LINK)

LOS ANGELES — By just about any measure, it’s been a long time since the street artist Shepard Fairey managed to capture the optimism of Barack Obama’s candidacy in his “Hope” poster, the stylized portrait in red, white and blue tones that easily ranks as the most famous, also ubiquitous, artwork of 2008.

Mr. Fairey’s oldest daughter, then 2 years old, is now almost a teenager. The “Hope” image became the subject of a copyright infringement lawsuit by The Associated Press that was both expensive and embarrassing for the artist. Mr. Fairey, who is 47, has since gone on to create art for activist movements like Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter and the Women’s March.

And now “Damaged” — his biggest gallery show yet, with about 200 new paintings, prints and illustrations made since 2015 — is set to open on Nov. 11 in a Chinatown warehouse, the same day a documentary on the artist has its premiere on Hulu. The mood of the exhibition: what happens when hope gets trampled but not killed.