Well the Cans Festival is over now and the installs are supposed to be in the process of being removed as I type. The graffiti on the walls in the tunnel may yet last another six months or six hours. Who knows, certainly not me. 

Well done to the organisers for putting on such a first class show. It must have cost a small fortune to get the tunnel cleaned up, the exhibits moved in, hire all the staff and do all the paperwork and insurance and whatever else there is to do with organising such a large event. Luckily for us we just turn up and walk around for free. Which is nice.

So much good work to see, apart from the obvious contenders I especially liked the Vhils face sculptures and the madness that was the free for all wall area.

If you didn't get down there heres some flicks of what you missed. I'll be adding a full review of the cans festival to artofthestate shortly.

Banksy CCTreeV

Pobel Watering Can

Vhils Face Sculpture

Banksy Tagger Leopard

Snub stencil

So the location is now known and it's in Leake Street very close to Waterloo station in London. It's the site of a couple of previous Banksy pieces (one of which is still partially visible). I don't know what the tunnel is like now but when the chimp detonator piece below was there (before it was removed by Network Rail) it was the type of place you couldn't walk through fast enough. The next few days promise to be very different!

Start shaking your cans, check your face masks, sharpen your best scalpel knife because the Cans Festival is on this weekend. Promising a huge array of artists working only with stencils there's also going to be an opportunity for anyone to turn up with their own stencils and decorate the walls in the designated area. Outside of this area normal British legal system rules apply.

Full details are on thecansfestival.com. Event location will be announced at 10.30am on Friday 2nd May on the cansfestival website. Event runs in London this weekend 3rd, 4th and 5th May 2008.

Artists listed so far are:

Bsas Stencil / Run Don't Walk / James Dodd (dlux) / Tom Civil (civilian) / Vexta / Prism / Daniel Melim / Altocontraste / Bandit / Roadsworth /3D Del Naja / Artiste-Ouvrier / Blek / Sten / Sadhu / C215 / Lucamaleonte / Lex / Orticanoodles / Kaagman / Dolk / Pobel / M-City / Vhils / Btoy / Coolture / Schhh / Borbo / Sam3 / Faile / John Grider / Logan Hicks / Pure Evil / Dot Masters / Dan / Eelus / Banksy

and maybe you?

Eine makes the 'Mother' club in Old Street exciting for a change and creates hell in Hackney Wick.

Original work on three sides of a building, stitched here to make it easy to see the whole thing.

New work by Cept found on the Roman Road, Bethnal Green.

Seen on a main route into the City of London on a prime spot for getting noticed by investment bankers as they head to work:

There's not nearly enough Dave The Chimp on artofthestate so here's the first part of correcting this. Mighty Mo provides the aerial monkey street onlooker.

Dave The Chimp street triptrych!

After 800 odd posts I've been taking a break from the blog thing for a while. You'd think in that time I would have come up with a whole load of new ideas but no, it's still going to be London, graffiti, punk and just plain weird photos.

So what;s happened since I last posted? A quick recap will appear over the next few days but I guess that this new Banksy in Newman Street, off Off Oxford Street, London was the main event:

Nick Walker has a new show opening this Thursday (i.e. today)  at the Black Rat Press gallery entitled V for Vandalism. Earlier in the week he was in London projecting images onto Big Ben and the Bank Of England. Pictures soon.

The Krah exhibition

Thursday 22nd May to the 4th June at the Pure Evil Gallery.

108 Leonard Street (Shoreditch), London Ec2A 4RH

Nearest tube station - Old Street

David Choe has a solo exhibition, 'Murderous Heart', on at both branches of Lazarides at the same time. Based on what's going on outside both the London and Newcastle locations the shows inside should be very good indeed. With thanks to Wallkandy for the pictures.

David Choe at work in the passageway off Greek Street, London:

Newcastle Lazarides shop window by David Choe:

At last years Brit Awards (and the winner is...some Brit School old boy/girl) Dr.D completerly redid the billboard directly opposite the Earls Court venue with a comment on Cold Play and Clear Channel advertising. Finally there is now a video of how this work got pasted up right under the noses of two watching coppers which is great viewing. To see it in full on Youtube click on the link below.

Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtzsHUDGSgo

Two new Banksy pieces in London.

Just a bit of fun - where in London is this?

Close up shots of recent additions to two Banksy pieces.

Shafton Road Artist

Pollard Row Yellow Lines

Work by elbowtoe in Boot Street Shoreditch, just catching the last of the sun.

Dface Che found in Curtain Road - it's a paste up so it's probably not survived the weekend....

Been around a while but still looking fresh - Toasters piece from New North Road in East London

Arofish has a solo show entitled 'scrapped' coming up soon at the New Cross Gallery:

All of which gives me an excuse to post this piece of recent Arofish work, 'Plague Doctor' found off Old Street.

With thanks to Nancy for the picture of the mysterious Maida Vale Sand Creature:
"There have been road works outside our office on Clifton Road, Maida Vale, for the last month or so.  They have been coming to the end or their work and re laying the bricks.  Last night they had left a pill of industrial sand, this morning it has been transformed into a giant lizard/dinosaur type creature!"

Posted over on the PC Advisor blog by Simon Jary is an interesting and saddening article about the demise of two long running Banksy pieces - the Clerkenwell Cash Machine and the Gallery Attendant near Arsenal's Emirates stadium. Both have been in part roller painted over and then a rough stencil put over the top with the words 'all the best". I actually prefer this treatment to the cut out and keep Ebay brigades looting London at the moment. Street art should die in situ if it's going to go....

In recent weeks several other pieces have acquired metallic painted extras - trainers on the Pollard Row painter and  a dollar signed ball and chain on the Bethnal Green artist.

Pics below:

Clerkenwell Cash Machine (picture Simon Jary - PC Advisor)

Gallery attendant near Emirates stadium (picture Simon Jary - PC Advisor)

Pollard Row painter, new shoes (picture by Matthew).

Pure Evil paste up, Invader 100 tile and C6/Dotmasters 'bagsy' stencil. There's a great video about Dotmasters here and a wealth of interesting stuff on their own website c6.org

Found in Shoreditch - possibly by Miss Buggs

New stencil work by the Dotmasters - I wonder who they are referring to....

Mighty Mo has a new monkey, a very large monkey indeed. Found near Old Street

Work by the Invisible Art Club - looks like Kid Acne, Cyclops, Sweet Toof, Discreet and more.

So good to see some recent Toasters hits around town. It's been too long....

Bartyhq needs your sticker designs for an upcoming zine he's planning. Send your creations to BartyHQ via post or via Flickr - more details here. 

'Girls On Top' is an all female graffiti art exhibition starting on February 3rd at the Frisson Gallery in Canterbury, Kent. Artists on show are Evea, Luna, Clear, Lyns, Mira, Akit, Anala, Chock, Peach and Sabe.

So I took these on my journey home from work today. They are of the plane crash at Heathrow (in which, I'm pleased to say, nobody was seriously injured).

Regular readers may remember this The Krah's piece from late last year. Here's a video of the Krah at work on several of his pieces in london. Always nice to see how its done!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf7UqKl1z8Y

This fantastic piece by the duo that is Herkut can be found in the courtyard of Cargo, Rivington Street.

Started in 2006, Visual Tourettes is unique for it's open exhibition
platform and DIY attitude, letting everyone expose themselves and even sell
their work with a 0% commission.

The nights are all free entry and have sets from different DJ's every month,
as well as live painting from different artists at each event.

The next one is on the 7th January in Basingstoke with
20 artists confirmed to exhibit including The 5683, Dirty Thirty, Kev
Munday, Two Pence, SU1, Lenzie, Unkle Al, D-Tron, Danny Abuse, Goose Thorpe
and DBO

You can
find out more at http://www.myspace.com/visualtourettes

Fancy some two fingers in the face punk rock? Try these nights from 'Don't Do Dance' at the Fighting Cocks, London road Kingston.

Inner Terrestrials, Refuse/All and Social Parasites on Friday 18th January.

The Restarts, Refuse/All and Meinhof on Friday 15th February

Is it just me or is somebody having a laugh with the Prince Charles Cinema signs this week?

Currently out of the UK - if you know where this odd sculpture is you'll know where I am!

'The Ramones department at M&S' - canvas by Twinkle Troughton on display as part of the Stella Dore group show alternativity (opened 6th December for four days).

After David Beckham rocked a Crass T shirt, and Busted wore an Anti Pasti one in their "Crashed The Wedding" video it was only a matter of time before high street retailers started selling retro punk t shirts. You can get your Ramones shirts in Woolies right now.

There's alot of good work in the show, some more examples below.