Play with the city

STREET ART ‘A WORLD VIEW’

The Starr Auditorium on Friday evening at Tate Modern was jam packed with an audience keen to hear The Wooster Collective talk about Street art, ‘A World View’.

Discussing street art from around the globe, The Wooster Collective used Banksy, Space Invader, Roadsworth and Mark Jenkins as excellent examples. Favorites had the crowd laughing included a piece by Josua Allen Harris and rather a strange collection of an urban problem facing us all, The Spinkle Brigade.

The talk revolved around the basics of street art; having a point of view, dedication, personal and intimate and surprise and delight. The talk concluded with two main points; Street Art is only successful when it has a dialogue, even if only with one person and its need by all to unify ‘ugly’ spaces before the ‘gentification’ of urban areas.

A fascinating talk which is to be followed Friday 25th July at 6.30-7.30 by a talk from Street Artist Pure Evil and art critic JJ Charlesworth on ‘Collecting Street Art’. Not to be missed!

PUBLIC SPACE - WHO’S IT FOR?

An energetic audience greeted the artists Brad Downey and Mustafa Hulusi first of several Street Art talks sponsored by Nissan QASHQAI at Tate Modern.

Discussing the history of fly posting in London during the 1980’s, Mustafa gave a humorous and personal insight into a decade when regions of London where controlled by fly poster ‘gangs’. An artist in his own right, Mustafa recalled his early days as a student and his first fly poster evenings though to the fall of the fly poster activity due to a change in society and the gentrification of urban streets.

Brad Downey showcased several ‘inspiring’ street art films, including ‘Spontaneous Sculpture’, shot on 35mm by a friend over a four hour period, ‘On/Off’ showing how he managed to ‘urban-hack’ thirty Parisian shop fronts, and a work in progress which showed Brad setting fire to a CCTV camera.

The audience presented a series of challenging questions to the panel, including why one of the presenters was actually at the talk to why Brad Downey doesn’t make it his agenda to set fire to every CCTV in London, Brad responded with ‘Why don’t you? Why does it have to be me to do that?’

If the rest of the Street Art talks are anything like this then we are in for a massive treat. Make some time for these talks, roll on Friday 18th July when Tate Modern present ‘A World View’ at 18.30-19.30.

THE HISTORY OF STREET ART

Street art legend Blek Le Rat tells the story of street art and talks about how New York graffiti inspired him. One of the first artists to have an impact on the European scene, he pioneered the stencil style (think Banksy) which has influenced many other artists. Joined by the street artist Rough, he’ll be providing an insight into the underground world of graffiti in the UK. This is one talk that you don’t want to miss.

Sponsored by Nissan QASHQAI, ‘The History of Street Art’ takes place at Tate Modern on Friday 1st August 2008 at 18.30–19.30.

STREET ART NOW - A WORLD VIEW

The second event of the Street Art Now talks focuses on ‘A World View’ of Street Art, guest speakers will give an insight into the subject and how they see the future of the genre evolving.

Sponsored by Nissan QASHQAI, ‘A World View’ takes place at Tate Modern on Friday 18 July 2008 at 18.30–19.30.

PUBLIC SPACE - WHO’S IT FOR?

Tate Modern has released further details about its Street Art Now events. The talks and viewings include discussions on who owns the public space where artists create their work, and additional talks focus on collecting street art and the ongoing debate between street art being nothing more than glorified vandalism or a legitimate cultural movement.

The first talk entitled ‘Public Space - Who’s it for?’ discusses the ownership of public space and what happens when artists take it into their own hands to develop it? Brad Downey and Mustafa Hulusi are two artists who have subverted the use of these spaces and explain why.

Sponsored by Nissan QASHQAI ‘Who’s it for?’ takes place at Tate Modern on Friday 11th July 2008 at 18.30-19.30. Simply a must-attend event for anyone interested in street art.

STREET ART LECTURE AND FILM SERIES

> artist : 3TTMan

Tate is hosting a series of lectures and films while the exhibition is on - the dates are below. Tickets are not available yet, but we will let you know as soon as they are:

• 11 July; Street Art: Public Space, who’s it for?
• 18th July; Street Art Now - a World View
• 25th July; Collecting Street Art
• 1st August; The History of Graffiti and Street Art
• 8th August; Street Art Around The World
• 15th August; Graffiti, Utopia or a Bit Boring?
• 16th and 17th August; Two day film programme

STREET ART - A DEFINITION

Street art is a genre related to graffiti writing, but separate and with different rules and traditions. Where modern day graffiti revolves around “tagging” and text-based subject matter, Street art is far more open and is often related to graphic design.

There are no rules in Street art, so anything goes, though some common materials and techniques include fly-posting (also known as wheat-pasting), stencilling, stickers, freehand drawing and projecting videos. Street artists will often work in studios, hold gallery exhibitions or work in other creative areas; they are not anti-art, they simply enjoy the freedom of working in public without having to worry about what other people think. Many well-known artists started their careers working in a way that we would now consider to be Street art.
Tate has produced a book should you want any more information.

The Street Art Walking Tour – which will open on 23rd May

Tate Modern presents an urban tour of site-specific art from a group of five Madrid-based street artists. The works all aim to engage the local community and visitors to Tate Modern in aspects of the urban environment that are often overlooked or ignored.

You can take part in the urban trail to discover more street art near – pick up a copy when you visit or download it here.