Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Alamo Square's Ladybug Art

http://hoodline.com/2014/11/here-today-gone-tomorrow-alamo-square-s-lad…

You might have taken a stroll through Alamo Square Park within the last month and noticed something a little out of the ordinary: a line of small, bubbly beetles that seemed to be marching across the pavement in single file.

Here one day and gone soon after, the ladybugs were a cheerful, albeit brief, addition to Alamo Square's winding paths and overgrown gardens.

Here's another look at the ladybugs as tweeted out by the artist, known simply as fnnch:

The art installment has since been painted over by maintenance crews, but the artist behind the work is still going. We got in touch to have a chat about the ladybugs, the street art lifestyle, and the artist's creative influences.

Hoodline: What inspires you?

fnnch: “I find nature inspiring, particularly birds, bugs, and vegetables. But aesthetically I prefer solid swaths of color and solid lines. My artwork, at some level, is just the fusion of these two.

“I’m also inspired by a lot of artists, some well-known, some not. On the more famous side are Frank Stella, Keith Haring, Andy Warhol and Ellsworth Kelly. I’m also a fan of prominent street artists Banksy and Roadsworth.”

The folks distributing the doc ART WAR are giving away streaming versions of the video until tomorrow (Sunday). Free access may only be for certain countries. As always, stencils are in the mix and always an effective tool for "street newspaper" tactics.

http://dafilms.com/film/9138-art-war/

Art is a weapon! This motto still holds true in Cairo. After 30 years of autocracy, President Mubarak was swept away by his people. Now the street belongs to them, the young rebels and artists. Graffiti sprayers and painters make the walls speak. They recount the days of fighting in blood-smeared portraits, the time of anarchy in wild collages, the attempts of liberation from a suppressed sexuality in obscene pictures. 

Thanks for submissions: David, Josiah, Mom, Emily, Hugh, Ron, and Finder

Tunes provided by WREK and WRAS (Atlanta)

An activist had a few of the above stencils at the Ai Weiwei "@ Large" opening on Alcatraz Island, SF, CA. Check out more about Syrian activist Bassel Shehadeh.

>NEW< L.E.T. (DE)

http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/Europe/European_Artists/Les-Enfants-Terribles

>NEW< NeSpoon (PL)

http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/Europe/European_Artists/NeSpoon

Indonesia (40,000 year old stencil!)

http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/Asia/Indonesia

>NEW< Scoob (Marin, CA)

http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/USA/Artists_USA/Scoob

Happy Birthday CAMP

http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/San_Francisco/ClarionAlley

The Mission

http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/San_Francisco/The_Mission

Western Addition

http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/San_Francisco/Western_Addition

Cave Paintings in Indonesia Redraw Picture of Earliest Art
The dating discovery recasts ancient cave art as a continent-spanning human practice.

Dan Vergano
National Geographic
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 8, 2014

A hand painted in an Indonesian cave dates to at least 39,900 years ago, making it among the oldest such images in the world, archaeologists reported Wednesday in a study that rewrites the history of art.

The discovery on the island of Sulawesi vastly expands the geography of the first cave artists, who were long thought to have appeared in prehistoric Europe around that time. Reported in the journal Nature, the cave art includes stencils of hands and a painting of a babirusa, or "pig-deer," which may be the world's oldest figurative art.

#CODEFC  BOOK LAUNCH - RETROSPECTIVE SHOW

Graffik Gallery presents  #CODEFC book launch celebrating 25 years of graffiti including lettering, sketches, super 8, stencils and stickers and retrospective show including old and recent studio artworks

Thursday 23 October 2014   6:30 pm
284 Portobello  road W10 5TE London

A few photos of stencils being used for protest during the historic People's Climate March in New York City are starting to get posted. From time to time today, Stencil Archive will update New York City's Archive with any stencils that make the social media streams.

Stencils appeared at the #floodwallstreet march on Monday 9/22 today, with images by 1980s stencil master Seth Tobocman. So social media streams were scoured today for photos of the march on Wall Street and they also appear in the NYC archive.

The rise of the anti-facial recognition movement
By Joseph Cox on September 14th, 2014 for kernelmag.com

With Facebook automatically tagging your photos, Google Glass apps being able to pinpoint faces, and police using high-end technology to match digital and physical identities, big brother’s watchful eye is all around us.

While the technology behind facial recognition continues to develop as its presence increases, some artists are trying to give citizens their privacy back the best way they know how—by designing contraptions that help ordinary citizens avoid detection.

You might not know Leo Selvaggio, but there’s a chance you’ve seen him—or someone strikingly identical to him. He’s white, male, and young. To be frank, there is nothing remarkable about his appearance, but that’s precisely the point.

Solo Show at

Retrofit Home
Champagne Reception
Thursday, Sept 11th, 5-10pm
1103 e. pike st, Seattle
206-568-4663

Solo Show at
Zinnia Bistro

Show hangs thru the end of October
1759 1st ave. S, Seattle
206-682-7955

November Events:

Metamorphosis

Hastings Online Times Original interview here

St. Leonards based street artist Drew Copus’ first solo show, Metamorphosis is showing now at The Dragon Bar, 71 George Street TN34 3EE Hastings.  HOT’s Rebecca Snotflower and Andy Tompkins ask him 12 very important questions.

You may well recognise the butterfly motif stencil drawings on display within the exhibition from the walls along your daily routes around the town. The pieces look like they have been stolen from the landscape of Hastings, as they sit on their reclaimed wooden surfaces, collectively displayed in the bar by some kind of crazy graff-loving entomologist. Some pieces include a symmetry of lines and shapes, which make me think of the mathematical arrangements behind seemingly chaotic natural structures… obviously I don’t think about it too hard, it makes my brain ache. The exhibition as a whole has an unmistakable DIY glamour – and a heap of punk attitude.