Picture courtesy of  Street Art Festival

Little stop motion clip for the mural ROA made for the Street Art Festival in Hasselt, Belgium found its way to our mailbox today. Pity he couldn’t make last year’s fest, but glad he found the time to turn up a couple of months later and put that straight We had previously seen the images of the finished mural turn up, but always more impressive to see such a massive piece take shape bit by bit.

For those who missed last year’s festival, we have a small round-up of how we experienced the weekend first-hand overhere. Have a look/read in order to get ready for this year’s edition because as we speak, this year’s organisation & the city of Hasselt are puzzling together yet another great (inter)national line-up.

Interested in finding out the latest info first-hand, visit the festival’s facebook page http://www.facebook.com/streetartfestivalbelgium and get the latest as soon as everything’s confirmed.

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So, started work on our own little Gidsy project/listing. Polle had launched a call to unlock Gidsy for the city of Gent and after Istanbul it seems Hasselt & Gent will follow next week. Great to see Hasselt pop  up next to Gent, an underestimated town/travel destination if you ask me (but who am I). This reminds me we have to revisit Hasselt urgently, before this year’s STREET ART FESTIVAL (in other news, a 2nd edition has been confirmed!!).

Anyways, back to Gidsy & Gent… seems we are gonna try to offer (working on several others, maybe) a Street Art/Bike Tour of Gent. A quick round up:

Take a tour through Ghent and discover some great spots and work by a wide range of local & international artists. 

Over the past decades Ghent has drawn lots of attention for embracing youth culture. Besides an interesting (electronic) musical scene it also has its own urban art scene. Roa, Bue The Warrior, Resto & A Squid Called Sebastien are just a few of the local artists, besides that you will spot works by a wide range of other local/international artists.

Depending on your available time we will take the back street of Gent and visit several spots  through town by bike (or foot), also uncovering the little stores, coffee bars and/or galleries that might interest you. Our tour will bring you across several parts of town you might not usually visit, giving you another view on the city. 

Although we have never been real fans of “street art tours” (something you should discover on your own, at your own pace) we reckon it might be nice starting point to take people across town and that on bikes.

Never done this before, but reckon its a good way of going through town with visitors and curious to see how everything unfolds the next weeks/months, hope to meet some great people and reckon even we will (re)discover parts of Gent ourselves.

Hit us up if you’re interested in doing some test-runs for the tour as it is still a work in progress that is gonna need a lot of finetuning!!

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Invader has been one of our favorite artists for years now. Ever since one of those first Paris visits he drew our attention. Back then we had no idea yet who or what was responsible for the mosaic pieces, but we knew we liked them. Small interventions throughout the city making Paris beautiful one piece at a time.

Over the past winter, Invader made a short movie inviting us to spend one night in Paris with him. A great capture of how he gets round to doing what he does best. Have a look as its a great piece.

Also, for those who find themselves in BXL over the next week(s), Invader still has a show at Brussel’s Alice Gallery then (video repo can be found here) and he recently also visited BXL for one of his largest invasions. Open your eyes while walkig through the city and check the following map as it might help you to spot some tiles There’s a great overview on Invaderblog also which might be a help.

through our longtime favorite WoosterCollective

picture courtesy of zzkt. & ArrestedMotion

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A while back, the hotel Au vieux Panier asked Tilt to design a room, you’ve seen images of the work/installation pop up everywhere across the web and now there’s some moving imagery to accompany it all.

“I first told them that I wasn’t interested doing just decoration in the room but I wanted to create something that will look more like an installation. I thought about it also as a huge canvas where I needed to think about the composition and play with the empty white part of the room to accentuate more the idea of Chaos on the other part. Then I asked my friend Tober who gat a great old school style for tags, Grizz who is also the man behind the camera and Don Cho who is a Hip Hop singer from Marseille but who used to be a tagger from my home town Toulouse. It took one week to do the whole thing cause the idea was to exaggerate what you can usually see in some abandoned places. Too much tags, too much drips, too much sentences, too much throw ups … What I also wanted to show is that people can appreciate any type of graffiti, even the more basic, it’s just a matter of point of view …” – Tilt

Images  courtesy of BigAddict

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London is calling for the 22tracks gang, but they still had to get one thing scrapped off the Brussels bucketlist: their own t-shirt!

With the new 22tracks t-shirt designed by Brussels artist Oli-B they finally got that item done. And it turned out to be a great new design by one of the freshest artists our capital has to offer!

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the whole 22tracks concept, have a quick read overhere and definitely have a look on 22tracks.net where since last June 22nd 22 great selectors present us the freshest sound for Brussels.

The shirt is available through T-junk amongst the other 22 tracks gear.

Ow, and also have a look at UglyMelly who happened to feature Oli’s work this week.

picture ©Numbi

Video by the talented Eckelwood (get in touch with him if you need anything video done) and sounds by MonkeyRobot.

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By the way, @SSTRID also took up this blogging thing.

Shaved billboard, giving it a whole new level.

Invader.

Fred le Chevalier.

Invader.

Fred le Chevalier.

Bonom.

Pole Ka.

Super Tat Pa.

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Curls in Paris.

As you might have read previously, we headed out to Paris over the weekend for the Duvel Collection finale, Showroom Belgium & the Paris Fashion Week experience. Had been 2 years already since my last visit, looked forward to it and was not disappointed at all

 PIGS ON WHEELS. No, helmets are only for smart people.

Friday started off with some cross-city walking/window-shopping. As the evening came we headed on out to the Duvel Collection finale. A quick presentation of the finalists was followed by an ‘and the winner is…’

Belgian designer Philippe Debongnie took home the grand prize and from June 2012 onwards, his glass will be available for all you Duvel lovers and collectors worldwide. Looking forward to seeing who will tag along aside him…

Saturday morning was an early wake-up call, breakfast and a quick walk around Oberkampf before heading to the Jean-Paul Lespagnard show. Tried to drop by Tigersushi amongst others, but seems stores in Paris open up later on Saturday mornings

No worries though, as we had little time to waste with the Lespagnard show starting at 12.

Was a great experience, a first for everything n’est-ce pas Got the whole 15-30min preshow-runway experience (ma’am even got to sit front-row for it) and bumped into some friends even! Rests to say that I even liked most of the stuff in the autumn/winter collection.

Paris Metro was plastered with John Carter posters btw. Happened to attend an early screening in Gent this morning and must say its a great movie! (check the trailer)

Also happend to see some great street art throughout the town. Its incredible how Paris has been covered with paint & pastes. More on that in a following post, promised!

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Finally went to the Stade de France where we saw France beat Italy in the opening game of this year’s 6 Nations. Great experience and definitely something we plan on doing more often!

February also was a cold month… glad to see that had changed.

Spotted this litte fella here & there in Gent.

February traditionally is a good month for roadkill.

Did coffee at Simon Says one Sunday.

Strange space-diver appeared one morning.

Did coffee at Bar Buro another day.

Found this old device again, was top notch in the early 9o’s to say the least. You can still wack someone with its #waterproof casing.

All great photo moments tout court.

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Mentioned the I Am Los Angeles portraits a couple of times before and just saw that some great portraits have been added over the passed weeks! One of them features Belgian artist & expat Chase who’s murals, paintings, and stencil art graces a huge amount of walls across LA and other cities. 

More portraits at iamlosangeles.com

Picture = work by Chase & Bue the Warrior, Ghent.

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Mentioned SupaKitch & Koralie a couple of times before and today another great ‘making of’clip for one of their wall paintings popped up. Their work is so nice, have a look yourself. In the meantime stay out of trouble!

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Kid Robot & Swatch have been a favorites of mine for a while so I could not have been more delighted to see yet another collab as this take place. I had been longing for one of my own for a while … et voila

Its Frank Kozik‘s (his name by creating full-color silk screened posters for various legendary rock bands of the 90s) contribution to the collection. ”I wanted to make the designs as clean as possible,” he explains “I like Swatch for its plastic future sense.”

As Flava Flav‘s iconically states “What time is it?!”

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The following is a short looking at ‘See No Evil’ and the rise of the global street art movement. A documentary on Europe’s largest street art installation which transformed Nelson Street in Central Bristol into a massive outdoor art gallery.

The documentary features interviews with some of the 72 artists involved, amongst which Inkie, Tats Cru, El Mac, Nick Walker, Shoe, Xenz, China Mike and Paris. Over the course of a week the artists used over 13,400 cans of spray paint to create huge murals, up to 10 storey’s high.

The film also explores how street art has a natural home in Bristol and explains the cities long and colorful graffiti history. Organised by Inkie, Team Love and Weapon of Choice with the support of Bristol City Council and Nelson Street’s building owners. Bristol celebrated the project with an NYC style block party and three ‘Hear No Evil’ events in the disused Westgate building on Nelson Street.

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Still owed you this post:

Couple of weeks ago I spent a weekend in Hasselt for the Street Art Festival surrounded by a great line-up. Coincidence has it that I happened to help out Mymo with here massive piece. Operating the bucket, painting where possible. Besides that some other great pieces got shape. Full set overhere but thought I should share a couple of them here …

A first for me and a great festival overall.

Mymo

Resto

Oli-B x Billy x Resto x Bue the Warrior

Polak x Locatelli

DinDin

Aryz

Also, as I have been getting questions/requests over the past 2 weeks I thought I should enlighten everyone that I did leave the StreetArtBelgium.com thing. Our paths were clearly going other ways. Several people had warned me for certain elements while starting our efforts, and in the end it seems they were right on this from the start.

Stuff has been done, stuff has been said, a story which has several sides to it, so I wish not to get strangled in between. Besides that I could not find myself within the way things turned out, kicking someone off a mutual project without discussing this amongst everyone does not float here.For that reason I decided to quit all efforts within the project and for what its worth, I regret it had to turn out this way as we had something nice going as a team. Personal side of the story available offline for the those interested.

For those of you who wish to support the festival and see it return once again, please join the facebook page which will keep you up to date on what happens in the future.

Also, on a final note, Oemebamo shot a great overview/recap of the festival. Hope this will return next year or the near future.

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Met A Squid Called Sebastien for the first time while organising Youthwatching several years back. He would join in with several others at the end of the day, expo some of his work, … 

Couple of weeks back we met again over some coffee at Ghent’s Vooruit. He had just returned from the 9000miles tour he did with several other artists. Told me I should check the following book I just remembered (*note to self*) and also come check out his expo at ArtSpace Leguit (which previously also hosted one of our #youngscum get togethers).

If you’re in Antwerp this Friday, definitely go check his guest expo + live painting by 9000miles featuring:

Steve Locatelli
Stanislas Lahaut
Jan Opdekamp
Nadia ‘Cymo’ Oussehmine
Digsville Music
Third Digit

The expo itself, which brings a collection of new works on wooden sufaces made in the course of 2011, will run untill the end of the month. Check the preview below & the facebook event for further details and go see them fatties!

Artspace Leguit

Leguit 23

http://www.artspaceleguit.com/

Images courtesy of 9000Miles

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Young & Free is the most significant exhibition by Australian street artists ever seen in the United States. The show features fresh work by thirteen of Australia’s finest urban art guerrillas – from the already internationally acclaimed to the burgeoning up-and-comers.This tribe of artists comes from a variety of backgrounds: brilliant new work by notorious 80’s train painters through to the sublime subtlety of a modern day Rembrandt armed with a spray can. Young & Free is a reflection of Australia’s thriving street culture with a strong grounding in the past and a firm focus on the future. These are modern day bushrangers, patrolling the lanes from Melbourne to Manhattan. This show features a mix of direct sprays, stencils and paste-ups, representing the rich and varied groundings from which these artists have grown. No matter their age, medium or style, the Young & Free artists all share one thing in common: they want to give the urban landscape a fresh coat of paint.

(HT @JonasJanssens, cheers.)

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The Ghostvillage Project was created over 3 days on the west coast of Scotland. 6 artists (Timid, Remi/Rough, System, Stormie Mills, Juice 126, Derm) were given free reign to paint in an abandoned 1970s village.

Working together on huge collaborative walls and individually in hidden nooks and crannies all over the site the artists realised long held dreams and were inspired by the bleakness and remoteness of the site. Drawing on the history of the village the artists’ stated intent on completion of the project was to populate the ghostvillage with the art and characters that it deserved.

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What happens when you set up a four day paint jam somewhere in the English countryside? Supremebeing set it up and captured it all in the clip below which features live painting by artists David Walker, She One, Mr Jago, Will Barras and Bue The Warrior.

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This has been in the make for a while. Already great work by everyone involved.

For all additional info visit http://streetartbelgium.com/ or feel free to contact us.

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Over the weekend I payed Utrecht a quick visit. A wedding with friends, a 30-45min walk through the city before. Snapped some stuff on the way to the ceremony though …

Roadkill.

Urban knitting.

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Work in progress, launch is imminent.

In the meantime check our facebook or twitter.

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Went to Rotterdam with the missus. A quick break, nothing fancy. Must admit the rain and foul weather changed/ruined our plans a bit, but enjoyed visiting a new city none the less.

What did I take note of:

• Dutch NS railway services really suck
• Rotterdam is a way smaller city then expected, making public transport pretty useless when just visiting and you’ve got several days. Everything is walkable, reckon renting a bike is way more interesting.
• The Eden Savoy Hotel was hell on earth when it came to their beds. I will not recommend staying there.
• Woei is a nifty little store, worth paying a visit.
• I still can go through life as a student, as along the way I got discounts without having to show a student card here and there #win
• Rotterdam has a lot to offer. Besides its shopping potential and good food, its Museumkwartier is worth a visit. The NAI, Witte de With and off course the Boijmans.
• Spent several hours walking around the Boijmans. Dali, Magritte, …  they all got their spot. Pure art pr0n throughout the times
• Dudok can serve me food anytime, ended up eating there twice (not counting coffee and cake for tea that is )
• So much more …

[more imagery overhere]

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There’s a new ipad app in town. For the natives, you can read all about it on Freaky.

“HeyHey Colors brings the colorful world of street artist Bue the Warrior in an amazing iPad coloring book to your child’s fingertips. Bue the Warrior’s iconic figures have been bringing joy and color to cities around the world. Now everyone has the chance to dive into his amazing universe.”

Nothing but love for this kids’ colouring app and the people behind it. I tested a beta-version of the app a while back and was blown away by its simplicity & great design. If you have kids, or to be honest even without kids, I would suggest you buy it and start colouring right away.

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Kidult might not need an introduction for many, allthough I reckon for some he might be new. He has become an infamous (yet rec­og­nized) artist mainly because of his actions targetting several high end luxury brands’ stores (most recently Supreme in New York), which he considers ‘hypocritical in a society that predominantly lives under the poverty level’.

A while back the French graffiti artist released ‘ILLEGALIZE GRAFFITI‘, a video which documents his controversial activities in the streets of Paris & abroad. “Angered and frus­trated by the sud­den ram­pant com­mer­cial­iza­tion of graf­fiti into the main­stream, French street artist Kidult has taken to the streets of Paris to remind peo­ple of the impor­tance of street art as a counter-culture move­ment.”

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Each and every day I walk by this mural. Its en route to our offices. Peeps better have a good look as it might just be your last chance to see it as demolition work has started …

Update: seems this wall will remain intact till at least September.

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Brazilian street art took over the walls of the prestigious MuBE Museum in São Paulo (Brasil) for the biggest graffiti showcase of the year. 65 Graffiti artists from 13 countries descended upon São Paulo for the 1st Biennial International “Graffiti Fine Art” Exhibition at the MuBE Museum. In an art world where semantics matter, graffiti artists from around the world wonder what exactly is ‘Graffiti Fine Art‘. After all, once graffiti leaves the street… is it even graffiti at all?

A Documentary by Jared Levy.

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What happens when you place musical instruments in random spots all over town …

courtesy of  NARCELIO GRUD

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Seems a few spare hours in Ghent and hooking up with Bue results in the following. Read all about it at Insaland.

Unfamiliar with Insa’s work? Have a look overhere.

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[through MashKulture]

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Faith47 is someone worth introducing time and time again … we previously mentioned her work a while back but the following three segments are also worht sharing. It features Faith47 during the making of her Freedom Charter series.

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