We kick off part two of this post with the golden age train writer Cazbee 53 from DSS Crew Da Sure Shots, from Ladbroke Grove piecing the outer wall of the MuTate Britain mechanical zoo….Many of Cazbees pieces rolled past this spot on trains,or were under the Westway itself.
Now he’s back 20 years later, along with oldskool steel writers Fuel, Skore, Mear, Crok, Don myself and a few of London’s more new skool to take the vibe back to the raw, enabling a potent and complementary mix of the hardcore underground vibes and tribes….
and back inside for another shot of me and Vibes….
……and onto the wild, diverse art within, here’s Jimmy South of War Boutique
Lyle Doghead, LRRY and friend
Elate, Obey
Anarchist Crockery by Carrie Reichart
In Dog We Trust by Jolly Good, made with real dollar bills…
Vera Bong
Dotmaster
The toilets…
New Arrivals…
What I have posted is a fraction of what is there, you really have to get down to this 12,000 foot space and experience the most revolutionary art happening London, probably even the world has ever seen.
New Elate graffiti at Stik’s street art event in Mile End, East London that finishes This Sunday see blog post with full details here
Sorry for the lack of pictures and updates on this event, my camera broke, so many thanks to Art Of The State for stepping in with this, check his excellent website and blog for more pictures of this show plus lots of amazing underground and not-quite-so-underground art plus awesome photos of punk bands in furious action.
I have a new camera now so expect to resume normal service.
My good mate, the inimitable Stik, launches his very first art event this week in the East End in the very posh sounding Mile End Arts Pavilion a stunning gallery space with a glass frontage overlooking a small lake.
It runs to the end of the month in which time it will be transformed…..Stik will be painting live onto panels that line the building, so will myself, aswell as Fuel (Cold Crush Dukes), Spat (1Time), Ted Baden (Mutoid Waste) Milo and many others.
Come down for a cuppa and shoot the breeze ‘til you’re bewildered with a load of solvent damaged compulsives; you could even take a panel home to build a funky BMX ramp for the wife’s Christmas present or maybe even that kennel for the Vicar’s pitbull….(or you could just stick ‘em on the wall, yawn…)
Here’s Stik’s Press Release
Silhouettes with spray-cans glinting in the darkness have long journeyed through the East End to the austere walls of the rail arches in Mile End, an underground showcase of underground art.
Now, in broad daylight, the elegant new Mile End Arts Pavilion opens its doors to some of the most notorious graffiti artists in East London.
This unique venue offers the opportunity for you, the viewer to observe from behind glass or get down and dirty with the artists painting LIVE! (Protective masks are available on the door)
Each week will feature a new wave of artists, sourced locally with a smattering of special guest painters.
Show is open each Wednesday to Sunday from 12-6 pm
Wednesday 4th November – Sunday 29th November.
Press Day Saturday 8th November
Stik
Stik curates the show and appears in it. Featuring in the Mutoid Waste Company’s current headlining event in Ladbroke Grove under the Westway, Stik is also the alternative artist featuring in this week’s Big Issue Magazine.
Whilst producing murals for authorities such as Waltham Forest and British Waterways, Stik’s black and white figures have illicitly been lurking in the cityscape for almost a decade.
Stik is proud to present a hand-picked cross-section that showcases some of the most talented and innovative artists on both the local and global stage.
Elate
A graffiti writer from London’s 1980s heyday Elate’s vision transformed and he has painted classically in oils for the last 20 years under his real name, Jon Hammer.
Now Elate is back painting the streets of East London fresher than ever. Inspired by his surreal and apocalyptic discoveries in the studio he is truly pushing the limits of the art form.
Fuel
Universally regarded as one of the true Kings of London’s ‘Golden Era’ of train graffiti, Fuel’s multi-coloured emissions are once more adorning the public domain.
Milo
A Brazilian artist prolific on the streets of East London, Milo takes an abstract figurative approach relating to nature, human behaviour, the mind, its’ movements and ways of manifesting. This results in dense, mind-boggling colour-scapes.
For the last 12 years Spat has enjoyed exploring and painting the streets and derelict wasteland and tracksides of east London. Initially a pure-street ‘graffiti-bomber’ in recent years he has progressed to full colour pieces, commissions and screen prints.
Teddy Baden
Teddy Baden is part of the Mutoid Waste collective, his compulsions and love of dogs led to experimenting stencilling techniques, using varying sizes and characters of over four hundred breeds; viewing them almost as ‘alien creatures’ Teddy shows an interest in the ‘hairy ones’ almost like someone would tree types or cloud formations.
Run
In a style of his own Italian artist Run uses brush and roller to create giant, polychrome heads and faces on the streets for which he has become known and widely published.
Also appearing ;
Snoe, Smaki, Grems, Stenzilla, Suns, Roots plus many more to be confirmed.
For those that haven’t heard, the exhibition One Foot in the Grove by Mutate Britain is currently on under the Westway, Ladbroke Grove, West London; each weekend until November the 1st 2009, 12-10pm.
The Westway is where the UK graffiti scene started in earnest when the Clash bought Futura 2000 there to paint in 1982.
The Mutoid Waste Company are a travelling band of punk-squatter mechanic artists led by Joe Rush that infected the acid house party movement with their dark and surreal bio-mechanoid humour, building scrap metal wastelands and delirious mindscapes in a shock juxtaposition of realities guaranteed to give any trip a hair raising edge.
Think Heironymous Bosch versus Tron and you’re getting somewhere…
Inspired by the desolation of the 80s to escape into a parallel post apocalyptic universe they inspired a generation to create, myself included.
Some of the best acid parties I attended in the late Eighties and early Nineties had input from the Mutoid Waste Crew or their many splinter groups Circus Irritant, Circus Warp, Splattered Fantasy etc, these plunged my young, impressionable and highly expanded consciousness into a Bermuda Triangle of anamorphic archetypes, cyborg spectres and grotesque apparitions in parody of human and machine form, fractured and echoed by laser and strobe, syncopated and shaken with deafening electronic bass.
The vibe was always intensely surreal, the most outrageously attired and hideously painted forms appeared from the flickering fog in theatrical convulsions, the music was the most twisted repetitive acid, deep and tribal, which stripped the senses gradually to total derangement, beat after pounding beat, until finally at one with the music the chaotic environment and your inner world became one.
Now twenty years later the Mutoids are under the Westway, and it’s not a squat, the police are not outside, the pounding house and techno has been replaced by an eclectic mix including ragga, reggae, punk, soca and rockabilly and the sweating, swaying trance-dancers have grown into bespectacled media professionals pushing buggys.
They still roll out the 303 acid sound when the fire-breathing machines get loose though…
Their amazing signature art, friendly warm family atmosphere and tongue-in-cheek vibe is however present in abundance, accessible and inspirational to the whole family, exhibited together with an array of street and graffiti art, so when I was asked to come and paint a wall I was honoured to oblige, being able to give something back to the community that gave so much inspiration to me in the mad days of the late eighties and early nineties!
It was very short notice so I improvised with some graffiti letters with a twist ….
There is no doubt in my mind from the captivated expressions on the faces of their visitors that their inspiration will grow into new and exciting ideas in years to come.
Below you will find details of how to get there and when it’s open. It’s one of London’s biggest underground art events ever. So don’t just hear about it, watch the video, read the info, explore the blog and get down to the show! We promise to look after you with our fully licensed bar, delicious food and inclusive festival atmosphere. There honestly, really and truly is no better way to enjoy art.
Having been a homeless person myself once I know how difficult it can be to try to satisfy your creative needs when you are busy all day trying to fulfil the most basic human requirements of shelter, food, personal hygiene and warmth.
Such vital needs for expression don’t however just go away.
In the face of your predicament; the absence of basic essentials of survival often accompanied by family and relationship breakdown, loss of work, self esteem and sometimes even addiction issues, self expression becomes more vital than ever.
The solace and the comfort gleaned from some small expression of ones soul, however small, may be the fuel that keeps the inner fire of selfhood burning.
Even a token flourish of pencil or paint, or arrangement of words into prose, is enough to scream ‘I am somebody’ if only to yourself, and that can sometimes mean the difference between two very different paths.
So when Damion Mulrain from the homeless charity Centrepoint from London’s Soho contacted me to ask if I could give a little of my time to pop into their Summer University graffiti project to chat about formulation of ideas, can control and give a few pointers on graffiti, I was delighted to oblige.
Damion has a strong background in graphics and the arts, and is passionate about his work with Centrepoint, so he was able to run and organise the course very effectively himself with the help of his colleague Louisa, my role was merely to enhance his skills with a touch of oldskool authenticity and be there to guide the young people and answer questions when they came up. I also lent the project my collection of graffiti books a few days beforehand and Damion got them all practising on paper long before the cans came out…..
We needed to start simply of course….
…and after watching my demonstration of basic techniques extremely intently….
…everyone seemed to approve …
…so we all decided it was high time to get cracking with some free expression…..
…all of their own….
…and really started to pull some fine ideas out of the bag…
…with the idea of learning some basic can-control skills.
…which they followed up on day two with some more substantial concepts of their own.
Everyone was given the full range of equipment to do all kinds of graffiti, including scalpels and cardboard to make stencils, and despite being warned how much more difficult it was to get a pleasing effect, everyone chose to work freehand.
Damion and Louisa from Centrepoint….
…along with other staff members who dropped in…
…seemed to be having just as much fun…..
as the residents themselves!
Not bad for beginners, huh?
Drip control strategy in full operation…
The rabbit character between the letters ‘SB’ begins to take form….
Despite how it may look this really is HYDE’s first ever piece, outline and work totally his own, just a few pointers from me….
The others too, seemed to take to the task very well indeed, and were rightly pleased with their results.
Lots of fun was had by all. Thanks so much to Damion and Louise for inviting me take part and thanks to all the young people from the project for for allowing me to help them with their expression and to witness them pinning down their visions and ideas so beautifully. Good luck to all for the future!
They are working their way around from Sclater Street to Bacon Street buffing everything. Anyone painting on the remaining space is told to stop immediately and move on or be arrested.
I will be posting a memorial superpost featuring the best and the worst moments of this fantastic free space in the coming days.
It will be sorely missed by all and no doubt replaced with a mess of tags and throw-ups.
Many thanks to Hip Hop and Graffiti documenter and archiver Skire for allowing me to use shots from his amazing archive.
It’s thanks to people like him we can look back on a golden era.
This shot features vintage London handstyles including an old Elate tag at the legendary and much missed Groove Records in Greek Street, Soho, the Mecca for Hip Hop’s early days, and pretty much the main dispenser of all the Hip Hop Electro imports from the US in the mid eighties, and where I spent most of my money back then, starting in around 86.
The Groove Electro charts were our ever changing bible, and mainstay of the Mike Allen show on Capital Radio, the pioneering spirit behind UK Hip Hop.
This place was pretty well hit in those mad old days, as anyone who knows London’s graffiti history will see from the tags…
It’s nice to see my handstyle in its’ transformative phases, (starting with a small e and ending with a capital E at this point!) It’s on the top of the door frame below Rogue and above Noize for those having trouble….
Also I can make out Drax WD, Jinx WD, Rogue, Crime, Up2, Dare2, Noize 207, Fuel, Daube, Cane 1, State of Art and Rome ACR amongst others I’m not 100% on. The piece was by the legendary Fade 2
Vera Bong
Dotmaster
