TIME OUT LONDON has just released a "collectors item" issue featuring a cover story BANKSY interview with matching poster to boot (order HERE). Have a read: Read More
Leave it to BANKSY to roll out the premiere of his "EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP" documentary in an unused London subway tunnel beneath the Waterloo train station—AND manage to keep the whole thing secret till now. Billed as "London's newest, darkest, and dirtiest purpose-built cinema," the venue is adorned with new Banksy art installations and rows of couches and theater seats, and even features a "popcorn stall, lounge bar, and stunning temporary toilet facilities." Daily screenings will take place at 6PM & 9:30PM daily until March 4th. Book your tickets HERE now...
Menace 2 Society: NYC Police led this 12-year-old girl out of her classroom in handcuffs for doodling on her desktop...
Increasingly, harsh zero tolerance policies towards graffiti and other offenses in US schools are seeing grade school-aged children being treated with harsh adult-style police discipline inside the actual classroom. This problem was exemplified when, incredibly, a 12-year-old NYC girl with a spotless record was physically arrested in her classroom for doodling on her desktop this month:
GIRL'S ARREST FOR DOODLING RAISES CONCERNS ABOUT ZERO TOLERANCE
By Stephanie Chen, CNN February 18, 2010
(CNN) — There was no profanity, no hate. Just the words, "I love my friends Abby and Faith. Lex was here 2/1/10 
" scrawled on the classroom desk with a green marker.
Alexa Gonzalez, an outgoing 12-year-old who likes to dance and draw, expected a lecture or maybe detention for her doodles earlier this month. Instead, the principal of the Junior High School in Forest Hills, New York, called police, and the seventh-grader was taken across the street to the police precinct.
Alexa's hands were cuffed behind her back, and tears gushed as she was escorted from school in front of teachers and -- the worst audience of all for a preadolescent girl -- her classmates.
"They put the handcuffs on me, and I couldn't believe it," Alexa recalled. "I didn't want them to see me being handcuffed, thinking I'm a bad person." Click HERE to continue reading at CNN...
"Better Together" for Match.com from FriendsWithYou on Vimeo.
The newest bit of animation from our buddies FriendsWithYou...
What has to be the final nail in the “Street Art” coffin was driven in last weekend by none other than MR. BRAINWASH (aka: “The Christian Audigier of Street Art”) when he opened his massive, self-produced “Icons” show in a rented space (which, ironically, was once a real art gallery, pre-recession) in the heart of Chelsea. As the subject of Brit Street Art king Banksy’s recent docu-parody film, “Exit Through The Gift Shop,” MBW has been the focus of much hype and speculation as his presence finally seeps into the fairly muddy stream of mainstream consciousness. Last week’s Wall Street Journal article articulated this particularly well:
Unsurprisingly, our man BANKSY didn't show up:
"An apparent press conference by “Exit Through the Gift Shop” director, and mysterious street artist, Banksy was canceled in Berlin today. A subject of the film, which debuted last month at the Sundance Film Festival, Banksy remains an incognito artist. He issued a video statement that was shown prior to the press screening of his movie on Sunday at the Berlinale, in lieu of a press conference.
He started by saying, in a recorded message, “Unfortunately I can’t be with you today, so I am speaking from my home in England via satellite link.”
“I guess my ambition was to make a film that would do for graffiti art what ‘Karate Kid’ did for martial arts, a film that would get every school kid in the world picking up a spray can and having a go,” said a silhouetted figure, identified as Banksy, in a digitally altered voice on the short video message. He added, “As it turns out, I think we might have made a film that does for street art what ‘Jaws’ did for water sking.” Click HERE to continue reading at INDIE WIRE...
Supertouch's own RON ENGLISH is currently running loose in south TEXAS where the sight of a pasture full of nice, innocent cows just grazing away, rekindled his relentless urge to paint everything in sight. The result? A field full of ironically sloganed, camouflauged cows, and a death sentence from Peta, whose bounty hunters are reportedly stalking the Jersey-based painter as we write...
Ron is known to paint cows of all types...
In town for the opening of his eponymous solo show at MARIANNE BOESKY GALLERY, Japan’s YOSHITOMO NARA just couldn’t help himself in the Subway at Union Station when the graffiti urge overtook him. Unfortunately, New York’s “Finest” don’t exactly see drawings as “art” when they’re on walls instead of paper and the delicate art star spent two days in the slammer. Ouch:
POP ARTIST YOSHITOMO NARA ARRESTED FOR GRAFFITI IN NEW YORK
March 10, Japan Today
Yoshitomo Nara, a contemporary Japanese pop artist known for sculptures and paintings of doe-eyed figures, was arrested in late February for tagging graffiti in the Union Square subway station, a New York Police Department official said Monday.
Nara was arrested at 3:10 a.m. on Feb 27 and charged with criminal mischief, possession of graffiti instruments, making graffiti and resisting arrest, detective Martin Speechley told Kyodo News in a phone interview. An official at a New York art gallery where Nara’s exhibits are currently on display said the artist has already been released.
Nara, 49, who lives and works in Tochigi Prefecture, was in New York for a solo exhibition of his work at the Marianne Boesky Gallery that runs Feb 28 through March 28. The online edition of Art in America magazine said Nara was caught tagging a graffiti portrait of two Japanese friends in the subway station and he was optimistic about his two days in lockup.
It was ‘‘a nice experience in my life,’’ the artist was quoted as saying. He said the environment in which he found himself was like something in the movies. Nara emerged on the art scene during Japan’s pop art movement in the 1990s and has held solo exhibitions worldwide. His works are on display at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Click HERE to read more…
Supertouch's own SHEPARD FAIREY was arrested for alleged vandalism claims while attempting to enter the grand public opening of his first museum solo show at the INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART/BOSTON last nite. Currently he's out on bail and awaiting a court appearance in Boston on Monday:
"A street artist famous for his red, white and blue "Hope" posters of President Obama was arrested in Boston, where he was wanted on warrants for tagging property with graffiti.
Shepard Fairey, 38, was arrested Friday night on his way to the Institute of Contemporary Art. Fairey was scheduled to deejay a kickoff event at the museum for his first-ever solo exhibition, called "Supply and Demand."
Two warrants were issued for Fairey on Jan. 24 after police determined he’d tagged property in two locations with graffiti based on the Andre the Giant street art campaign from his early career, Boston Police Officer James Kenneally said Saturday.
Fairey, of Los Angeles, is scheduled to be arraigned on the misdemeanor charges Monday in Brighton District Court, said Jake Wark, a spokesman for the Suffolk District Attorney. Wark said Fairey would also be arraigned on a default warrant related to a separate graffiti case in the Roxbury section of Boston.
Fairey has spent the last two weeks in the Boston area installing the ICA exhibit, giving public talks and creating outdoor art, including a 20-by-50 foot banner on the side of City Hall, according to a statement issued Saturday by the ICA.
The museum described the reason for Fairey’s arrest as "his efforts posting his art in various areas around the city."
"We believe Shepard Fairey has made an important contribution in the history of art and to popular thinking about art and its role in society," the statement said. "We are enthusiastic to be working with him and are pleased to be showing the first museum retrospective of his work."
The museum said Fairey was released a few hours after his arrest, but that could not immediately be confirmed by authorities. A California lawyer who has represented Fairey in the copyright case didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the arrest." Click HERE to continue reading...
