Has Banksy been to Hastings? Found on Rollerzorro's flickr stream (which is full of interesting Banksy items). This piece also appears on the frequently on the money the banksy forum.

source: Rollerzorro

Also appearing yesterday were images of the soon to be released (Sept 6th 2010)  Banksy film 'Exit Through The Gift Shop', featuring 2D glasses amongst some other little goodies in a special pack. It's still a little unclear (to me at least) which version you will get if you have already placed an order on places like Amazon but they are showing this picture on the order page and it has a RRP of £19.99 reduced to £10.93 so I guess this is the one to go for.

International Meeting of Styles 2010 - 21st August 2010, Highbury Studios, Hornsey Street, Islington, London (nearest Tube Holloway Road)

This years international event sees 60 artists from all over Europe work on 12 huge walls at the Highbury Studios in whats being billed as a free block party. Follow the build up on meetingofstyles.co.uk where you can see the walls to be painted along with work by many of the artists involved. Its shaping up nicely to once more becoming a truly amazing event. 

Featuring artists: Daze, Crome, Ders, Demo, Blam, Are, Ante, Ekto, Eska, Ebee, Epok, Yesb, Trans, Pryme, Korpz, Jasik, Izer, Inkfet, Essex Rockers, Brave, Item, Vodker, Jive, Vomit, Dead, Mac1, Shok, Estum, Sune, Smug, Replete, Dep, Sorn, Elph, Soker, Sepr, Cheo, Noir, Phorm, Tizer, Bonzai, Zadok, 3dom, Ponk, Cept, Pref, Revert, Probs, Lovepusher, Astek, Zeus, Snug, She1, 3steps, Ozone, Roket, Sebasura, Dulk, Ghetto Farceur, Vaporz, Da Mental and more

When I first saw this piece on Romanywg's Flickr stream I felt a little uneasy about it's location. In fact while he'd got a great photo and I thought the street art by Specter looked stunning I really didn't like the fact that it had obviously been placed directly over a piece of local history. Old painted signs like this one for Boyd Pianos are an increasingly rare sight in London. I love them as they provide a ready made link back to the past, often reappearing when more crass modern signs have been taken down. Pure Evil (the gallery that is putting on Specter's show at the moment) commented on Flickr that the art was just wheatpasted onto the wall and would disintegrate over time. I don't know about that - only time will tell. It's just as likely the wall will be hit up by less successfully applied art or colonised by London's street poster teams - or, perhaps worse, blasted off by an over zealous graffiti removal crew. If that's the case we'll have lost a part of this 'ghost sign'. There's no point in hand wringing about this instance - we'll have to see what the wall looks like in a few months time to get some perspective (continues below).

I went to take a look at Specter's work today and get a picture. On the way back I saw that the excellent Verynearlyalmost blog had already covered the story and come down on the side of street art instead of history. They've got a point  - street art of course works best when it interracts with the urban environment and this piece certainly does that exceptionally well. It's just the fact that it potentially may result in something that has stood there so long and that has its own fans being damaged. It's my own personal opinion that street art/graffiti generally shouldn't go over obviously historical pieces. For me there's a difference in say the ethics behind spray painting a modern Tube train than an old rail coach thats been lovingly restored by volunteers over several years as happened with the carriages used for the Hogwarts Express and other heritage trains back in 2003. Banksy even issued a rare denial once when a copy of his placard bearing apes turned up on a war memorial. Of course others have different agendas and quite frankly some don't give a toss about history and see it as an irrelevance. I doubt from conversations with Pure Evil in the past that he's one of those.

I'm interested in others views on this subject.

Most shows consist of unpacking some canvases and choosing where to put them and how to light them. Schoony's upcoming group show 'Boy Soldiers' is totally different to this tried and trusted approach - he's been busy mass producing well over 30 of the life size figures which are his most recognisable style of work. Each one is being passed on to an artist to customise as they see fit. I caught up with him recently at his studio to see the work in progress and to have a general nose around.  

Like some kind of reverse mortician Schoony works on bringing another figure to life

'Boy Soldier' - an unusual blank canvas

Every artist gets one of these delivered - a plain 'Boy Soldier' ready to be modified. A working list of artists includes Goldie, Dan Baldwin, Mau Mau, Snugone, Don, Carleen De Sozer, Pa Pa Schoon, Joe Rush, Dotmasters, Carrie Reichardt, Insa, John Nolan, Fin DAC, PEN1, Grafter, Liliwenn, D*Face, Matt Small, Inkie, David Bray, BEST EVER, Nick Reynolds, Hiruka Irie, Part2ism, Slice, K-Guy and Leeks  

'Boy Soldier' has a strong and direct message held in his right hand. The artists involved have the choice to go with that incorporating it into their reinterpretation or I guess change it into something completely different. Looking at the list of artists involved you can see already that they are more than capable of reworking these unusual canvases into something really striking. It's hard to visualise exactly what we'll get to see when the show opens at Blackall Studios on the 2nd September (to the 4th September - then the action moves to GraffikLondon ) but I guess that's the beauty of it.

A previous incarnation of 'Boy Soldier'

The figures around the studio are not your run of the mill art works...in front of this boy was a couple of boxes containing the lifecasts of an artist connected to the show along with a special surprise vehicle getting prepped for the opening night.

'Where The War Things Are' was one of the stand out pieces at the Mutate Britain Show last year.

Fully updated list of artists for the show and further details are on the flyer below, note its a buyers preview only on Thursday 2nd September - email address below:

Elate's (aka Jon Hammer) blog has recently been updated with a few great articles but pick of the bunch for me was this writers meet up which looked like a lot of fun. I seem to remember that the last time this happened torrential rain and more conspired to cut down on the painting activities on the day so its good to see the event, which saw a mass of old school writers descend on one location, run smoothly this time. For his piece Jon had the rather nifty idea of painting a Central line train that was in use up to 1995 and then asked other writers to tag it up (Envy, Time, Keen 53, Sharn.E, Wish, Part Two, Fuem ACR, Carl 131, Merc, Coad 5, Fuel, Kis 42, Fued, Colt 45, Prime WRH,  Cazbee DSS, Hit and Urge obliged). Finally he overlaid a cut through 'Elate' on the top to make a great looking piece. There's a mass of photos from the day on his blog and a more detailed write up so head on over there to check out more scenes from the day.

Elate's collaborative piece (photo courtesy of Elate)

Writers doing their thing (photo courtesy of Elate)

Been too long since a bit of punk rock was featured on this blog but the Signal Gallery have given me the perfect excuse. 'Beyond Punk' features art from a batch of first and second wave punk band members along with  a few who wear their punk influences on their sleeve. I don't know much about the styles that will be on show but I sure am interested in seeing the results as some of these people have been consistent influences musically since I first discovered them 'back in the day'.

Charlie Harper of the UK Subs is a proper legend fronting up a band where he has been the only constant in a never ending changing line up. He is, for me, pretty much punk personified. Steve Ignorant was the young upstart in Crass who became influential in ways that at the time I think even he struggled with. Knox from the Vibrators - well they were the first punk band I ever saw and I just loved Killing Joke so it will be interesting to see what Youth puts on show.

Can you tell I'm excited by this one? I hope it lives up to expectations....    

Steve Ignorant at the Feeding Of The 5000 gig

The legend that is Charlie Harper in Hounslow, 2005 (taken on a disposable camera - it was a fun evening)!

Feet firmly on the ground Ben Eine teamed up with RYCA yesterday to paint these new hoardings in Hackney, East London. With a font comprised entirely of dots with smiley faces it turned into a marathon session with Ben choosing the wording 'The Strangest Week' as a fitting comment on 7 days which saw one of his paintings gifted to President Obama and hung in the White House. Around the corner RYCA opted for the more simple but effective 'Power Up.'. It was rewarding to see how favourably their work was viewed by passers by. Even the Police stopped and had a look - initially with a view to making an arrest but after a quick look at the Times article they were happily on their way again. What a difference a week makes.

Ben Eine

Ben Eine - The Strangest Week

RYCA - Power Up.

A couple of upcoming events well worth taking a look at:

 'Rise of the Non Conformists', Whitecross Street. As well as a two day street party two dozen artists will be turning the street into a giant canvas, including Burning Candy Crew, Carrie Reichardt, Dotmasters, David Bray, Dr.d, Filthy Luker, Gavin Turk, Giles Walker, Best Ever, Dead Leg, Mysterious Al, Matt Small, Mr. E. Dawe, Paul Insect, Peter Dunne, Shepherd Fairy (OBEY), Peter Dunne, Terry Baden, Will Baras, Wreckage, Xenz and Eeelus.
More details on wxstreetparty.com

'Boy Soldiers' - a group show by Schoony. 30 different artists have customised one of Schoony's boy soldier figures. Includes Goldie, Dan Baldwin, Mau Mau, Joe Rush, Dotmasters, Carrie Reichardt, Insa, John Nolan, Fin DAC, PEN1, Grafter, Liliwenn, D*Face, Matt Small, Inkie, David Bray, BEST EVER, Nick Reynolds, Hiruka Irie, Part2ism, Slice, K-Guy. Show will run separtely at the Blackall Studios in the East and the Graffik Gallery in the West.

Boy Soldier at Mutate Britain 2009

Yes you read that headline right. In a strange turn of events that probably has left Ben Eine thinking he may have entered a parallel universe a painting of his has apparently ended up in the mits of US President Barack Obama via David Cameron and his wife Samantha. 'Twentyfirstcenturycity' by Ben was given as part of a gift exchange between the two men after Ben was asked and he "had a bit of think about it and thought: yeah, I suppose so". According to the Times he added "I would definitely not have done it for Bush".

It's not such a stretch as it first seems - Samantha Cameron works in the luxury goods sector and Ben recently allowed his font to be used by a top end handbag designer. 

I was trying to work out what I thought about the whole thing this morning - should he do it, what does it do for his credibility and then I remembered that I'm just writing a blog and it really doesn't matter a jot what I think. If its good for Ben then I guess I'm happy. But I would have been more than happy with the two fingered approach too.

Ludo has made a welcome return to London in recent weeks with works from his Natures Revenge series appearing all over the East End of London. I managed to track down a few last Friday but if you want to see them in person be quick - just like real flowers these paste ups tend not to look their best for very long.

While I love Shok-1's recent monochrome fixation the colour in this latest piece really makes the image 'pop' off the wall. Shok claims that he's only working his way back to full colour at present so expect more hues to creep in on the next few pieces.