With fashion trade shows taking up most of our time over the last few weeks, unfortunately we’ve been pulled away from the street, graffiti, and other artistic cultural news going in global youth culture. Much has been going on around the world that deserves serious attention and in our attempt to deliver all the news that fits in this news clip anyway, here’s a quick snapshot of key findings from a Label Networks street and graffiti art round-up:
Banksy on the Move in the American South
Thanks to our friends at Wooster Collective (which all of us read daily and quite obsessively), the legendary UK street artist has been making his way through New Orleans (pre-Gustav), just in time to put up some more politically intriguing and ironic messages. His work was then spotted a few days later in Birmingham, Alabama, featuring various anti-KKK themes. What’s this mean? Banksy is still at it, creating one-of-kind street art pieces that continue to make us face our shit, or at least laugh at the absurdity of today’s truth.
Sao Paolo Graffiti Art Preservation Moves
Just as London’s Tate Gallery
commissioned Sao Paulo street artists Octavio and Gustavo Pandolfo to
paint their legendary artwork outside the walls of the museum as part
of a recent exhibition, at home one of their classic murals was getting
the city-gray paint-over. Which goes to show you the different
definitions of “art” in different cultures and sounds like a familiar
scene that occurred when Los Angeles city officials ordered the
paint-over of a sanctioned LA River mural-fest last year. Octavio and
Gustavo have become well known not only among artists in Brazil, but
also for their invited artwork gracing Kelburn Castle in Scotland, Blu
of Blogna, and Sixart in Barcelona. It seems that Sao Paolo didn’t get
it, and half of their latest mural was painted before someone stop the
cover-up. Now, local artists in Sao Paolo have banned together to
create a “registry” of street art towards preservation of such works
despite Mayor Gilberto Kassab’s determination to eliminate “visual
pollution.” Public debate is going off in Sao Paulo about the issue. 
Paris’ colette Gets Triple Hyped
If you’ve been sleeping this past
month or simply on vacation, then maybe you haven’t heard that Parisian
concept store colette has re-opened with a very fashionable new look,
website ecommerce site (so now you can get all of the cool art, toys,
limited edition apparel, footwear, and music direct and skip actually
going to Paris). They are also debuting excellent collaborations with
artist such as Andre from Paris in their 1-month pop-up shop located
inside The Gap in SoHo (New York) which started last weekend.
Miss Rockaway Armada is Back with “Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea”
Legendary NYC street artist Swoon is
back with another floating artistic exhibition called Swimming Cities
of Switchback Sea headed down the Hudson River as part of a live
installation that kicks off her solo show in NYC’s Deitch Studios
September 7th. Last time Swoon did something of this nature in ’06-07,
she was able to get loads of street artists, musicians, and performers
to work, build, and participate in a floating raft of recycled
materials and art that made it down parts of the Mississippi called
Miss Rockaway Armada. Unfortunately, that raft didn’t make it all that
far but this time she’s got experience, more help, and more permits.
The band Dark Dark Dark is on the journey and even wrote a live
work-sea shanty. The whole thing this time is being documented in case
you don’t get a chance to see this live. Either way, definitely check
out her show at Deitch.
