Total Rewall, along with the marvelous chaps from arts, music and culture site The 405, went along to the opening night of The Thousands Art Exhibition on a windy East London street last night – The Village Underground in Shoreditch to be precise.

Freash-faced 18 year old RJ Rushmore of Vandalog put the whole shindig together – an in-depth interview you can read courtesy of The 405 here. A plethora of street artists work was on offer, including: Faile, WK Interact, Adam Neate, Swoon, Banksy,  Know Hope, Herakut,  Elbow-Toe, and many more talented fuckers on display.

The 405 really went to town on some cracking interviews with the street artists involved – check the following out: Nick Walker, Rowdy and Armsrock

The goal of The Thousands was to attempt to show the art world and the public that there are great works of art within the sphere of “street art,” and that street artists deserve a place in art history at least equal to that of The Young British Artists or the great pop artists; And hells yes, that was indeed achieved. An added bonus was the free, taste-bud-shattering Japanese Ale on offer. Sadly, we can’t remember the name – much was consumed.

You have until this Sunday (22nd November ) to check it out, make sure that you do.

Here are some exclusive photos, from Tim Boddy

Nick Walker

BLINK just opened this past Friday @ The Brick Lane Gallery in London, featuring Sweet Toof, Tek33, Cyclops, (Burning Candy), Cept, Rowdy, and also including works by Banksy, Blek Le Rat, Nick Walker, and others.

(via Brick Lane Gallery)

Nick Walker 'The Morning After - Moscow' Release Details

It looks like super artist Nick Walker is about to drop a NEW print in his ‘The Morning After’ Series, this one is Moscow. I think this is such a wonderful choice for the next city in his TMA series. The Russian architecture lends itself so well to Nick’s style. I have no specifics about the release details, but I will soon.

Check it out HERE

Top night down at Paintworks last night for the Get Dring Mobile auction, some great live painting outside, great music and a whole lot of bidding for a great guy. Well, bidding for art to raise money for a great guy, Mike himself of course not being for sale.

It was interesting to see how the bidding went. Some pieces were an absolute steal, other went for far more than you would ever have thought. As a wise man put it last night, ‘a picture’s only worth what someone is willing to pay for it’. Stencil work still seems to be very much in fashion with the buyerati, wonder how much longer that will last.

In total, the auction raised something like £24,500, before you count in the bar receipts, pieces that sold outside of the auction and all sorts. So well on the way to getting Mike’s car sorted then, awesome stuff.

There’s more to come still too, lots of pieces left to be sold on Ebay very soon, including a lovely Will Barras that lots of people were coveting last night, so keep an eye out.

Here’s some photos from it all then, the live painting as it went along, and the works inside the auction as well.

This has needed sharing for a while, so thanks to Full Cycle for the permission to blog it.

Back in 1998, after all the fun of the Mercury Music Prize and world tours, the good chaps from Reprazent did something a bit different, putting out an album under different names, collectively under the Dope Dragon label. It was launched round the start of June at Powerhouse (as was) down at the bottom of Stokes Croft, with the artwork from the album being projected onto the walls during the night, and a pretty large night it was too.

The artwork’s relevant to the blog though, because it was all done by Nick Walker, not just the cover, but also the CD insert and a special comic to go with it, with the DJs in it represented as cartoon characters. There was a 12″ version of it which must have looked great, but this work’s from the CD version.

So, possibly for the first time on the web, here’s what it was all about artwork wise.

The front cover…

…and back.

The CD came in an insert, with track listings and so on.

The inner comic folded out, and started with this as background for it all.

Here’s the comic stiched together, it’s big (3mb or so each one), so don’t download if you’re on your phone or whatever. As ever, click for bigger.

Side 2

Finally, it you fancy checking out what Full Cycle was offering in the way of merchandise back in 1998 too, there was this at the end of the comic.

So, a big load of tidy work from Nick Walker a fair old time ago. You can still find copies of the album for sale online, but it can cost a fair bit now. So if you want to have a listen, someone’s put all of it up on Youtube here. It’s all pretty bassy and experimental, but this blog would start with this one for something to wobble your legs to.

Enjoy!

The weekend again hey? There’s loads going on (Carny Ville and Gentleman’s Dub Club would be our tips for this one), but here’s a book that frankly makes Bristol today sound like some lame uncreative backwater.

Called ‘Art and Sound of the Bristol Underground’, it all started a couple of years ago when one of the authors found a box full of flyers for old squat/warehouse/free parties in Bristol from the mid eighties to the early nineties. Rather than chuck them away, the finder, Chris Burton, got together with Gary Thompson and put together a book covering the scene, what went on, and, most important, the flyers and artwork that went alongside it all.

Not just any old flyers, these ones were for early parties by the Wild Bunch, the Fresh 4 and many others, the scene that spawned the Bristol sound now known around the world. Aside from the content, they were designed by people like Inkie, FLX, 3D and Nick Walker, so they’re pretty darn interesting from a graf history point of view too.

Tangent Books have been good enough to send over some samples of the flyers in the book, so take a look…

Flyer by FLX…

…and 3D…

…UD4…

…and Nick Walker.

There’s loads more in there, and will give the book a proper review once we’ve got hold of a copy. In the meantime, here’s an interesting interview about it in the Evening Post, and a couple of Youtubes for those who want to get a slight taste of what it was all about, courtesy of the Wild Bunch and the Fresh 4.

If you want to get a copy, then here’s the link you need.

Enjoy your weekend!

Aelhra 'Boston' Edition of 40 Size: 24 x 18 Inches $10 Each

Here are two great (amazingly priced) prints from artist Aelhra, the above print is called ‘Boston’ and here is the inspiration behind it “I’ll always be a Texan at heart, but October marks my ‘enjoying’ twenty loooong years here in Boston. Sorry, not a fan of the winters at all! Consider this my take on a dynamic and youthful city on a crisp fall day, at peace with itself and the environment.” The image below is called ‘Griot’ it is an homage to the man who started it all “Since the turn of the new millenium, so-called “street art” has been enjoying a real boom. Everybody knows who Banksy, FAILE, and Shep are. David Choe rocks it, while Nick Walker and Dolk work the stencils. But let’s not forget about the first wave of graffers in galleries and museums; the charge lead by a true original of mixed blood, Jean Michel-Basquiat. I wanted to honor the man.” Both these prints are 2 colour 18 x 24 inch screen prints with edition sizes of 40 and they both will only cost $10 each, Seriously $10. Check it out HERE

Aelhra 'Griot' Edition of 40 Size: 18 x 24 Inches $10 Each

You may have heard of this by now, but if not you should do. There’s a charity fundraising drive going on at the moment called ‘Get Dring Mobile’, which is aiming to raise enough money to sort the legendary Mike Dring of Art-el fame out with a a modified vehicle he can drive himself. For those as don’t know, here’s the backstory from the fundraising website;

Michael Dring was 23 years old when he broke his neck in a road traffic accident, resulting in paralysis from the upper chest down – medically he is classified as having a complete Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) resulting in Tetraplegia (level C6).   Between April 2009 and April 2010, friends and family of Michael are attempting to raise money to put towards the purchase of an adapted car which will enable him to drive independently.

Being the kind of bloke he is, this isn’t just about Mike either;

Any additional funds raised over and above the amount needed will be either donated to Salisbury Spinal Unit or go towards a lasting legacy of this project.  Michael has been so inspired by this initiative that currently he is exploring the possibility of setting up an official charity in order to help other people regain any loss of independence due to SCI.  If Michael succeeds in setting up this charity any additional funds will go towards this charity which will assist others to afford hand controls or vehicle adaptations.

So, lots of stuff going on as a fundraiser, but one element of it, natch, is raising funds through grafurbanstreet art. A call was put out for people to donate pieces to a fundraising auction which has had a huge response, so they’re now going to be holding the thing down at Paintworks, viewing of the pieces on the 14th and 15th of October 2009, with the auction starting at 7pm on the 15th. Get down there early on the 15th though, as there’s going to be music and live painting from 4pm, with Inkie and Mr Jago just some of the names confirmed so far.

If you’ve got a piece you’d like to donate to the auction then there’s still plenty of time. The line up’s pretty special already.

Xenz
Mr Jago
SPQR
China Mike
Rourke Vandal
Will Barras
Levi C
James Baker
Angel 41
Dan Kitchener
Ripper 1331
Hero
Grafter
Dell
Ill Joseph
Carrie Reichardt aka The Baroness
Whatson
Nick Walker
Damon Ginandes
K Guy
Eelus
Ben Allen
Mudwig
Dora
Brian Jones
Tom Hine
Eco
Pinky
Guy Mckinley
Andy Council
Ria Hill
Richt
Misteraitch
Milk
Pam Glew
Guy Denning
Replete
Mau Mau
Inkie
Doc
Romanywg
Jody
Dicy
Simon Riley
Tesura
Agent Provocateur
Kay7four
Idiom
CZK
Neverwork
Meexed
Iamcxxx
L.E.T
FAKE
Oliver Winconek
Jef Aersol
Crazy Jake
Ian Francis
Leftery
Rene Gagnon
Dan Baldwin
Cheba
Soker
Acer One
Cartrain
MrTGrowth
Rowdy

There’s loads of other fundraising stuff going on too, and this bit should be a great event for an extremely worthy cause. The only thing to work out now is how to stop Mike bidding on the pieces himself.

I’ve been thinking for some time about the ways in which we experience an artwork, whether it’s located in the street or in a gallery. The most conventional way in which to think about this would emphasize vision – after all, we are used to the idea that an artwork is something that we look at.

But this leaves out other sensory dimensions, ones which are not so commonly talked about in relation to art. Is it possible to hear an artwork? Can we taste it?

In some works, image and sound are certainly inextricably combined, so that it’s not really possible to think in terms of simply looking at it or listening to it: Bill Viola’s work is a great example. Some artists entirely ignore the visual in favour of the auditory: in 2008, for example, an artwork called Speed of Sound Nau Interactive Bells was installed in Union Lane in Melbourne (this laneway was mentioned in a previous post, Street art and ‘authority’): the sound of bells, chiming at irregular intervals, played from speakers installed at different heights along the laneway walls, so that the sounds increased and receded according to one’s progress along the laneway.

And I’m also pleased to be able to report that I have had the experience of eating art. Felix Gonzalez-Torres, a Cuban-American artist, created installation pieces in which lollies (or candies, or sweets, depending on which continent you live on) were strewn across a gallery floor or piled in its corners. Spectators were able to dip their hands into the artwork and pull out a handful of sweets to take home or to eat. You can get a sense of what Gonzalez-Torres’s wonderful work looks like if you click here – the tiny golden objects piled against the walls constitute one of his works, Untitled (Placebo – Landscape for Roni). I can still vividly recall how transgressive it felt, to pick up a piece of an artwork and put it in my mouth and taste it (it was lemon-flavoured, in case anyone is interested).

The spectator’s relationship to that particular artwork involved touch as well as taste: touching art is definitely something that is actively prohibited by most museums and galleries as illicit behaviour in relation to art: think of all those signs on the wall, saying ‘Do Not Touch’.

One of the most memorable instances in which I was able to touch an artwork certainly had a sense of the illicit about it. I was visiting a gallery overseas to chat with its director, and was informed by him that he had just received a shipment of works by one artist who would be featured in their next show. The director was hugely enthusiastic about this artist and invited me not just to look at the works but in fact to touch one. As I ran my fingertips over a tiny section of the work’s surface, I felt acutely aware of how forbidden such an act usually is.

In addition to the simple transgressive pleasure that came from touching a painting, I also felt a strong sense of how much my relation to the image was altered by the act of touching it: instead of standing facing it, as it would hang on a wall with me looking directly at it, it was brought towards me and held close to me, lying at an angle, slightly tilted from the horizontal, the light slanting off its surface, my gaze directed downwards, and my hand drawn towards it. Much later, I realized that part of the extraordinary charge that arose for me in this moment derived from the experience of relating, momentarily, to the artwork as if I was in the position of the artist. I don’t mean that I experienced a sense of acquiring any of the artist’s skills or abilities, but rather simply some of the privileges that come with the position of the work’s creator: the ability to touch it, the ability to stand close to it (rather than behind a white line in a museum), the ability to look at it from different angles.

(Of course, anyone who buys an artwork acquires the rights and power to do all these things too, but it’s interesting that it is the artist that was evoked by my altered position in relation to this work, not someone with sufficient financial resources to purchase it.)

What about smell? Does art have an aroma, an odour? Artists themselves are usually well acquainted with the olfactory dimensions of their work (from spray paint, oils, acetone, lacquer, glue, and many other substances) but it’s something that isn’t often discussed when we think about spectatorship. And yet those smells can have a powerful affective impact on the viewing of an artwork. When I went to see an exhibition by the wonderful Jose Parla at Elms Lesters Painting Rooms in London last October, many of the works on display were recently painted: as a result, the gallery rooms were filled with a perfume of oil and varnish, which made me, as a spectator, feel extremely conscious of the works as things which had been brought into being through the artist’s exertions with canvas, and paper, and paint.

It was on the same visit to London that I had the good fortune to meet the charming Nick Walker (you can see more about Nick here). As we finished our conversation about his work, in a small room at Black Rat Press, Nick indicated a neat pile of prints sitting on a trestle table, awaiting his signature before sale. He removed the protective cardboard from the pile, so that I could see the image below. But when the cardboard was lifted, an amazing smell drifted from the pile of prints: it was an intense, concentrated smell of paper, and it was strangely beautiful. I’ll never forget standing next to that table, under a low-hanging spotlight, gazing at these prints and inhaling their smell – a potent reminder that artworks are utterly material, not ethereal images floating free of the world of things.

Much of what I’ve been describing relates to the phenomenon of gallery or museum display, in which the smell or feel of an artwork is rarely encountered. When an artwork exists in urban space, the commonplace prohibitions of gallery spectatorship usually don’t apply – if you can reach it, you are perfectly free to run your hands over a paste-up, or, if you wanted to, there’s even nothing to stop you having a good sniff of a stencil.

That freedom is definitely an important part of how we look at street art and the sense of democratic spectatorship that often attaches to it. But this freedom of access comes with a downside, of course, as the artists belonging to the AMF crew from Sydney discovered, when they were arrested painting trains in London last year. The six guys have been given prison sentences ranging from 8 to 16 months (click here for more details about the case). How did they get caught? Police officers said they were alerted to the artists’ presence by hearing the rattle of spray cans and smelling aerosol paint. When it comes to art, our senses may lead us to an encounter with the sublime, but they can also be the means through which the force of law comes to be exercised.

Here are 3 awesome Nick Walker’s pieces presently available (unsure how???) from Black Rat Press, 2 of them are unique ‘Vandal Airway’ (the tale of the plane only) + ‘White Panties’ and the other is an older release for ‘Vandal Airways’ (plane sitting on the tarmac.) A 13 colour 93 x 64 cm screen print with varnish on Somerset Satin white paper for £975.

Received this today from BRP: Black Rat Press would like to announce that our next exhibition is a book launch and solo show of works by Nick Walker. Drago Publishing invited Nick to work with them on a book to be published as part of their 36 Chambers Series. The 36 Chambers is an ongoing Drago project where artists are invited to produce a book with 96 pages in black, white and a colour of the artist’s choice – beyond this broad guideline artists have total freedom over the content of the book. For Nick’s book – A Sequence Of Events – he produced a series of works on paper and we are delighted to celebrate the launch of the book by holding a exhibition of these works along with a book signing. The exhibition will provide a unique opportunity to gain an overview of Nick’s work to date. Currently planning a New York show featuring a new direction and body of work this show is a celebration of Nick’s career so far and marks the beginning of the next chapter. Nick Walker is one of the worlds best known street artists and his instantly recognisable style and humour have gained him a worldwide following. In 2008 Nick had sell out shows in L.A and at Black Rat Press in London. His work is in numerous public and private collections worldwide and can currently be seen exhibited alongside Warhol, Murakami and Marden in the ‘With You I Want To Live’ show at the Museum of Fort Lauderdale. A Sequence Of Events opens on May 28th at 6pm. 2 screenprints will be available at the opening, a small number of each edition will be held back for overseas collectors. Any collector from overseas interested in the opportunity to purchase a screenprint should email info@ blackratpress.com with the email title Nick Walker Lottery. Names will be picked at random and offered either one or the other print. We hope to see you at the opening. For those who cannot make it to the preview evening the exhibition will continue until June 18th.

after centurions on la brea in los angeles, nyc and san francisco, nomadé returns to los angeles and hits the carmichael gallery with the best yet.

some fun things about these pictures: the crazy gold car belongs to kat von d (la ink), and you can also see some of dotmasters’ work (bagsy & mona lisa), and a nick walker apish angel

yet another reason to visit the carmichael gallery, in addition to the thais beltrame show, the ‘get rich quick’ show, and the alexone show

artist: nomadé

location: carmichael gallery, los angeles

pictures sent by s nice – thanks

Nick Walker 'Vandal Airways' Edition of 150 Size: 93 x 64 cm £1,050 Each

I found this Nick Walker print called ‘Vandal Airways’ available from Black Rat Press today. unsure why it is available and it seems a bit pricey but it is the best piece he has done since the ‘Moona Lisa’. There are a few other really nice pieces by Lucas Price aka Cyclops, Faile, Blek and Swoon… Check It Out!

News has come in that Nick Walker’s got a book coming out towards the end of next month, a retrospective kind of thing covering images of his work for the last 10 years or so. Apparently Mr Walker’s been recreating images from the past to go into it, and the whole thing’s going to be launched at Black Rat Press in London on the 28th of May 2009.

There’s going to be a book signing on that night by the man himself, and the images recreated for the book are going to be up for sale on the night too.

Even more impressively, the whole thing’s being promoted with one of the cheesiest, nausiating and most money oriented press releases this blog’s ever seen. Here’s as much as we could bare to blog…

Many events happen within the world of urban art, but every year a tremor flows through the market when Nick Walker makes work available…Nick’s solo show in May will generate interest on a global scale and the popularity of his artistic talent was reflected at his last solo show which saw enthusiasts queue for over 36 hours and sales of $1.5m.  At a recent print release at the London Art Fair organisers had to recruit additional staff to handle the influx of prospective buyers.

Nick Walker: More than a commercial asset, honest.

A heads up for those who have the money and may be in the area in a couple of weeks, Inkie’s putting together an auction night in London to raise money for Great Ormond Street Cochlear Implant Unit and CICS.

It’s got the kind of line up that only someone like Inkie can put together, with names like 3D, Inkie, Banksy, Nick Walker and Goldie donating pieces, along with a whole load of other well known names from the graf and ‘urban’ worlds.

The auction itself is a ticket only affair with a three course dinner and the like, but there’s an after party for it too with people like the Scratch Perverts, Justin Robertson and ‘very very special guests’ playing. All the money from the night and the auction will be going to charity, so if you’re feeling flush, get down there for what should be a pretty special event.

nick walker, hat trick

nick walker, hat trick

nick walker, melrose, los angeles

nick walker, derby hat

artist: nick walker

location: melrose & la brea, los angeles

the characters all around the hat in the bottom image are by jungle

The show’s preview night is tonight then, and it opens properly tomorrow (Saturday) so the photos can go up. Got to say, unless you absolutely can’t make it down to this, don’t rely on the photos for it, they’re never going to capture the whole thing properly.

Anyway, photos of the finished works in there, again in no particular order, courtesy of WordPress.