It was a real treat to return to Berea, Kentucky, to paint this mural celebrating one of the Southeasts’ most enigmatic and endangered plants- the White Fringeless Orchid, Platanthera integrilabia….
PM Press is collecting pre-orders via Kickstarter to help print the new edition of the killer adbusting book Advertising Shits In Your Head (originally published in the UK by Dog…
Justseeds artist Jess X. Snow just finished a mural about inter generational healing commissioned by Stanford University’s Institute for Diversity in the Arts . Read more in this article from the SF…
Last year was the 50th anniversary of the global revolt of 1968, and the events of May and June 1968 in Paris, in particular. One of the most enduring legacies…
The painful reality of this political moment is personal for many of us. As Kavanaugh becomes our new Supreme Court justice, let the survivors of the world know that not…
The sixteenth of the Endangered Species Murals is finished! This big wall is located near the Convention Center in downtown El Paso, Texas, and features five endangered species from the…
This past week my daughter and I visited fellow Justseeds artist Chip Thomas on the Navajo Reservation. We traveled there for multiple reasons: to spend time with Chip, to see…
“Until there is equal accountability for murder, it is totally fair to KILL COPS.” Williamsburg Bridge, Manhattan, NY April 26, 2018 Police are rarely charged even less convicted of murder…
Problems with tenants. Kill Yer Landlord. Bedford Ave & Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn, NY March 30, 2018 I found the original advertisement offering eviction services much more offensive when I passed…
On Thursday, March 1st from 7-9pm, Jeramy Turner and Mary Ellen Croteau will be presenting the secret history of the 1990s feminist art collective the Sister Serpents at Interference Archive…
It’s been really exciting to work the past year with the Sidewall Mural Project in Pittsburgh to produce a series of six Celebrate People’s History posters as 8 ft tall…
A two-sided mural by justseeds artist, Jess X Snow for Living Walls, the City Speaks in Atlanta. A mother gives birth to a daughter and carries her across the Pacific….
The fourteenth Endangered Species mural is finished! This one is located in the Laurel District of Oakland, CA, and is a little different in theme and execution form the other…
Jess Chen and Roger Peet collaborated on an illustration early this year for a campaign entitled To Immigrants, With Love- an outreach and letter-writing effort designed to breach the feelings…
Hipsters are a plague. Beacon, NY. April 2017. (What’s a hipster?)
Healing
Elect the Dead Gowanus, Brooklyn. June 2017.
Broken Treaties
Healing
Oceans Rise/Empires Fall
Apathy Kills Gowanus, Brooklyn. June 2017.
Impeach . . . These Christian Fascists
Chase dreams Not Cash Manhattan Bridge, NYC. June 2017
Gratitude
Electoral College Or Bust Long Island City, Queens. April 2017. I Love Fake Democracy Long Island City, Queens. April 2017 More Police State Please Long Island City, Queens. April 2017
Healing
Democracy Is Over Long Island City, Queens. April 2017. This Election Is A Joke. Long Island City, Queens. April 2017 CIA Knows Best Long Island City, Queens. April 2017
Like Goliath They Will Be Conquered
Take Down The Regime. Manhattan Bridge, NYC. April 2017
Democracy . . . Dark Money
America is Fucked, Yeah! WAR 4-EVER PLEASE On a very active wall under the elevated train in, Long Island City, Queens. April 2017.
There’s a new project space that opened in Santa Fe recently called Biocultura. They had an inaugural event April 23rd where they were one of several organizations to partner with the…
Nestled in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina is one of the country’s oldest and most respected schools of craft. Opened in 1929 by Lucy Morgan who focused her initial…
by Diana Kirk (from The Progressive) April 11, 2017 Chip Thomas Dr. Chip Thomas, also known by his artist name Jetsonorama, lives in Tuba City, Arizona, on Navajo land. For thirty…
I just finished off the 12th in the Endangered Species Mural Project, at the corner of Lombard and Atlantic in North Portland, OR. Painted with Portland artist Sarah Farahat, the…
I was invited to participate in the 2017 Joshua Treenial. The theme this year was event horizon. I ventured to Joshua Tree in January to find a potential location for…
“Healing. . . Coming Home to Our Bodies.”
“Oceans Do Rise. . . Empires Do Fall.”
“Democracy Spring.”
“Take from the Greedy to Give to the Needy.”
“Use Your Words.”
Political art is a powerful tool, but not every work penetrates the public imagination, and most fall far short. Sometimes, however, a single timely image captures precisely the attention of…
“Mother Courage and Her Children.”
“These Systems Are Failing.”
John Jennings’ Celebrate People’s History poster of James Baldwin has been turned into a 4 ft. x 8 ft. mini-mural as part of Pittsburgh’s Sidewall project. Sidewall is a mural…
“I told him of the dead coyote by the road. He said, ‘good.’ I wished his whole world view was instead lying there in the ditch.”
“Exxon lied, now temps are on the rise!”
‘To Allah we belong and to Allah we return’ is a rough translation of the dua said at someone’s death. Blessed is this temporary cycle. We are part of a…
“The poets and artists and philosophers, resistance activists, secret scouts, and troublemakers, had becomes, as they must, soldiers.”
“We Just Lost the War on Christmas.”
“The Iron Heel—Jack London”
“How You Gonna Be a Racist and a Christian?”
“Trump wrapped in the flag (not the Constition)—Pence carrying a (blasphemous) bible.”
I had been planning a mural in Asheville, NC for months, had a ticket, ordered paint, and was all set to fly out and start painting on the 7th and…
Dog Section Press is currently crowd-funding for the printing costs of their next book: Advertising Shits In Your Head. You can back the project and help them get it to…
Just this morning, justseeds artist Jess X. Snow & public artist, Lunar New Year lead a free community public art and mural workshop at Urban Word’s annual Preemptive Education Conference at New…
The 9th of the Endangered Species Murals is recently completed in the town of Berea, Kentucky- featuring the first plant in the series, the beautiful and strange White Fringeless Orchid….
“There’s Hope, But not for us.” East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. April 2015. This kinda says it all, for me. I want society to immediately change to “renewable” energy sources, drastically reduce…
Between the months of April and May of this year we(Kill Joy, Stinkfish and Mazatl) had the pleasure of being in Honduras for four weeks to work on the first…
@notorious_t_0_m saw our work on the subway and advised "stop the spread of trump!" @realdonaldtrump #SubwayTrumpStickers #streetart #donaldtrump #nyc #makeamericagreatagain #gofuckyourself A photo posted by Major Bigtime (@majorbigtime) on May…
Dump Hillary War Criminal. Long island City, Queens. May 8, 2016. Plenty of graffiti and street art being produced this primary election cycle. This was painted in the shadow of…
Know Thy Enemy.
A Lesser of Two Evils…
Our colleagues in Art Forces are hosting their second annual Social Justice Bloc Party this coming weekend, April 22-23 in Olympia, Washington, and showing some work from our Migration Now…
GIVE YR PRADA TO THE POOR. NO MA$TER$ NYC. March 2012.
Here’s a link to an article about a cool political art project that took place on the London subway. The action was conducted last month by London Palestine Action: We…
A friend in Slovenia recently notified me that the artist BLU’s removing his murals from Bologna Italy for very anti-commercial reasons. Check out the article and further discussion, in Italian,…
I’ve spent the last month or so in collaboration with Asian-American filmmaker Tani Ikeda, Immediate Justice, and the Center for Biological Diversity leading a weekly stencil and mural workshop to…
San Ignacio, Belize. February 2016. Knowledge Kills HIV. These will not transmit HIV, Mosquito, Shower. These will transmit HIV, razor blade, needle. AIDS does not discriminate, Why do we? I…
Free Art. Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico. February, 2016. Two things I’ve always loved about art made in public is that it can be produced by anyone, willing to take the…
We Be Darker Then Blue, a mural by Chip Thomas (Jetsonorama) and Jess X. Chen This mural, installed at the BRIC art space in NYC, portrays a poetic sisterhood spanning…
I’m just back from Indonesia, and a slew of little art projects there. First up, a paste-up wall of Manta Ray screenprints and papercuts- I made these before I left…
Our friend Jamaa Al-Yad in Beirut just launched a new project: “Boycott, Divest, Sanction: On Campus” Originally designed for a campaign at the American University of Beirut, they’ve uploaded…
No war, Promote Peace and Love. Caye Caulker, Belize. Feb 2016. Belize is a small country, of 300,000 people, on the Carribean Sea bordered by Mexico and Guatemala. It has…
“What is JustSeeds and why are collectives important?
Justseeds is a cooperative of 30 socially-engaged artists and activists scattered across north America whose work addresses themes of social justice, environmental justice, gender quality, prison reform, veteran advocacy and so on.
You Are Not What You Own. May 2011 You Are Not What You Own. August 2012. Gowanus, Brooklyn, NY. 2011, 2012
REVOLUTION its ready when its ready. Give or take 500+ years. In the Broadway stop of the G train. Brooklyn, NY. December 2014.
The fifth of the Endangered Species Murals is taking shape in Tucson, on the side of the Solar Culture complex in downtown. The mural is being painted by local artist…
1. Create Now Question Later 2. Fortune favors the Bold 3. Do it with Love Seen on a wall in Brooklyn, NY. August 2013.
I’m reviving my old photo series “read the writing on the wall.” To kick it off again here’s a flick I took while hiking Breakneck Ridge, New Years Day…
I’m just returned from Birmingham, Alabama, upon completion of the fourth Endangered Species Mural, this one featuring the Watercress Darter. The darter is a very small, brightly colored fish that…
“Support James Risen and Freedom of the Press.”
“Stomp Out the Trans-Pacific Partnership.”
“Frack ‘Quakes.”
“Cancel US–Peru Free Trade Agreement.”
A couple weeks back Chris Stain and I (Josh MacPhee) painted a new mural at Houston and 2nd Ave. in Manhattan for Lower East Side History Month. It was great…
“Je Suis Charlie.”
“Charlie Hebdo.”
“Gratitude Attitude.”
“Blowback Quagmire.”
“Weakened Union. Foreclosed. Lost Pension. Got Sick. Death of the American Dream.”
“Knowledge is King.”
Depleted Uranium.
Thx Edward Snowden.
Dignity: Power from the Bottom Up.
Global Corporate Fascists.
Peace, Unity, and Having Fun.
Poverty.
Thank You Snowden!
Wheat paste found in Pittsburgh, PA, picture taken last November.
Class War, it’s on.
Dumb 2 Frack, part 2.
Dumb 2 Frack, part I.
Drones 2 Fear.
Gratitude. Impeach as a new online shop with some of his artwork, you can check it out HERE.
Friends of Ibn Firnis (Baltimore-based political comics artists—we’ve sold their work on Justseeds before, and hopefully will again soon!) just took a trip to Portugal, and found some great street…
Shared sacrifice.
Whistle blowers, the real American heroes.
Less fines, more bankers with jail times. Impeach as a new online shop with some of his artwork, you can check it out HERE.
Rolling Jubilee—Occupy Everywhere.
A lesser of 2 evils is still evil.
Friends of the Orphan Signs from Michael Lopez on Vimeo. I recently came across this video made by Michael Lopez, a collaborator with Friends of the Orphan Signs in Albuquerque.
I recently got sent a nice cache of new photos from middle America’s graffiti troubadour, IMPEACH. I’ll be posting a new photo each Tuesday morning for awhile, enjoy! This one…
I worked on this mural last week in order for it to be ready for today, Mexican Independence Day. I teamed up with graffiti writer “Homie” who did a super…
In the weeks leading up to the recent Justseeds retreat in scenic McMinnville OR, Mazatl and I painted a mural on the front of the Alleyway Bar on Alberta St….
More photos of the 4′ x 6′ prints that Jesse Purcell has been printing in his Toronto studio and that I have been helping to co-organize with the People’s Climate…
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE San Francisco, California The California Department of Corrections (CDC) has unveiled a new billboard campaign to assist the U.S. Navy with transparency at the Guantanamo Bay detention…
The California Department of Corrections strikes again! New liberated bus shelter ads went up yesterday in San Francisco. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 12, 2014 – San Francisco, California The California…
It takes a lot to regenerate my interest in street art. Often it takes being introduced to someones work who is pushing the genre outside of its boundaries. This is…
I’m just back from three weeks in Mexico, most of which I spent traveling with Mazatl in Chiapas, the southernmost state and home to the Zapatista movement and its system…
Roger and Mazatl are in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, to participate in some of the events taking place around the 20th anniversary of the emergence of the…
I’m excited that (as far as I know…) my first book cover design has been converted into a book shield for a book bloc! A big cardboard copy of George…
Chris Stain grew up writing graffiti in his hometown of Baltimore, and kept at it in spite of a handful of arrests…
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – November 6, 2013 – San Francisco, California New Ad Campaign Explains Drones to Skeptical American Public The California Department of Corrections (CDC) has unveiled a…
My friend Eric Triantafillou just sent me this photo from his recent trip to Greece. In his words, “Athena is blind to the suffering of Athenians.”
Shared Sacrifice.
Seattle ’99
The rich banquet while the workers fight.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – August 9, 2013 – San Francisco, California Corrected Ads Confront America’s Abortion Wars The California Department of Corrections (CDC) has unveiled a new campaign of…
Tax the Rich.
Gold—Oil—Drugs. All Wars are Religious Wars.
“Middle Class—Rest in Peace.”
In Aida Refugee Camp there is a long mural dedicated to political prisoners, comprised of simple back and white paintings of a row of prisoners twelve prisoners. So very…
Most days Ramallah feels like the world’s biggest construction site. Buildings are going up everywhere you look, the street leading up to our hotel didn’t have a sidewalk when we…
“Trayvon Martin.”
The walls of Palestine are alive with messaging and communication, including layers of posters for cultural events, political martyrs, commercial advertisements, and election campaigns. While the martyr posters are mostly…
All of us in Justseeds have been making art for a long time, some of us for over 30 years. I thought it would be fun to dig up some…
While almost all the graffiti across Palestine is either directly political (exhortations from one political party or another) or utilitarian (so and so street, Mohammad’s shoe shop, etc.), in Ramallah…
There is a way that the occupation of Palestine seems to have frozen in time certain aspects of life in certain places, creating strange anachronisms. In the old city of…
“Off Death Row. . .Free Mumia”
‘nuf said.
There is a lot of amazing graffiti here in Palestine, but I think this might be the best thing I’ve seen so far. This hand is so pretzeled to make…
There is a lot of graffiti here in Palestine, but almost all of it is in either Arabic or English, with a very, very small smattering of French. It was…
This is the largest key in the world. It sits at the entrance to Aida Refugee Camp, which sits on the edge of Bethlehem, pushed right up against the Israeli…
While being here we’ve heard so many stories of oppression and repression of Palestinians by Israeli Jews (about 25% of Israelis in pre-67 borders are Palestinians, who are “citizens” of…
We will not pay for your crisis.
One of the most universally popular symbols I’ve seen here (possible second only to the Palestinian flag) is the cartoon image of Handala. He is a young Palestinian refugee, tattered…
Ramallah is the geographical seat of the Palestinian Authority, but it is becoming increasingly clear that there is far from a consensus among Palestinians regarding them. The PA has gone…
The walls have so much texture here. This image is from Ramallah, and a good example of walls that have been painted over, and over, and over again for years….
“It Can’t Happen Hear.’
Today we spent the day in Nablus, with half of the time in the Balata Refugee Camp. The camp was set up by the UN in 1948 after the Israeli’s…
Great interventionist action in Spain, http://www.enmedio.info/en/campeones-del-paro/
My long-time friend Chris (from London’s 56A Infoshop) travels a fair amount, and sometimes sends me pictures of political street art he finds along the way. I just got a…
“Bread and Roses.”
It has been some months since my good friend and collaborator AIRE and I got to go on a trip to Chiapas where we got to collaborate with several organizations…
Arm Thyself-Ideology War.
From Bay Area Queers Unleashing Power! “Israel Steals Gardens.” StreetCred artists modified bus ads in San Francisco over the past few weeks to highlight this truth. “Palestinian farmers face the…
“Cancel Citizens United.”
This past Spring semester I taught a studio class called “Printmaking in Urban Spaces” at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The course was described as such: “This course will focus on…
Crisis of Distribution.
Midwest political graffiti powerhouse and freight train aficionado Impeach has been sending in stacks of photos of recent work. I’ve finally sorted, cleaned, and am starting to post them. I…
This just in (or inbox): FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – April 23, 2013 – San Francisco, California Corrected Billboard Supports U.S. Military at Guantanamo Bay The California Department of Corrections…
I always enjoy my visits to Booklyn. I had to deliver copies of Occuprint and the Justseeds Migration Now Portfolio and knew I’d get to stay for more. Marshall Weber,…
In mid December of 2012 I was lucky to travel to Chiapas to collaborate with a number of Autonomous organizations and projects with an amazing group of committed graphic workers…
As Israeli missiles rained down on Gaza in November, Bay Area Art Queers Unleashing Power (BAAQUP) took over advertising space at two Bay Area Rapid Transit stations to counter Israel’s…
StreetArtNYC give a nice mention of Justseeds exhibition “Sowing the Seeds of Love” with some images on their blog. Thanks! Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative is “Sowing the Seeds of Love” at…
I got a great surprise in my email a couple days back, a nice missive and set of photos from the elusive graffiti writer Impeach. Check out some of his…
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 28, 2012 – San Francisco, California Liberated Ads Highlight Israeli War Aims in Gaza The California Department of Corrections (CDC) has unveiled a new campaign…
Last week, The Foundation for a Better Life (probably unintentionally) placed one of their new “Innovation” inspirational advertisements, featuring Henry Ford, in a bus shelter at an intersection in Pittsburgh…
Sublevarte Colectivo is currently installing a retrospective exhibition at Interference Archive, that opens tomorrow, Friday, November 16th. Here’s a peek of them at work. All photos taken by Irina Arellano-Weiss
Interference Archive and Sublevarte Colectivo are pleased to announce the following events as part of our upcoming exhibition La Persistencia de los Sueños/The Persistence of Dreams (November 16-December 31, 2012),…
Graffitimundo is an organization in Buenos Aires. They are producing a documentary about art and activism called White Walls Say Nothing.
The following essay was written for the anthology Revolutionary Love Letters (Minor Compositions, forthcoming in 2013), edited by Jamie Heckert, who kindly and lovingly gave me permission to share it…
A month back I spent five days in Charlotte, NC with Chris Stain, helping him out with his install at the McColl Center for Visual Art. This included making…
Portland-based Justseeds colleague Nina Montenegro coordinated a great project last month in the St. Johns neighborhood of northeast Portland. Working with Depave Portland, Nina painted a giant mural on the…
The Red Square is the symbol of Maple Spring and the student movement currently happening in Quebec. Justseeds comrade Cindy Milstein has an obsession with documenting the red squares of…
Our comrade Cindy Milstein has been participating and writing about the Maple Spring from Montreal for quite some time now. The following piece is from her blog, Outside the Circle….
Turns out that when Kevin and Santiago were here in Berlin in the Fall last year, they pasted up a big entryway in Kreuzberg with leftover prints from the Slovenia…
While here in Berlin we’ve been absorbing the visual atmosphere, which includes a significant amount of interesting political markings and messages. Here’s ten from my camera.
Here’s some random snapshots of graffiti, signs, and lettering that have warmed my heart as I move through Portland and Pittsburgh.
This Wednesday (tomorrow) is the long awaited book release for Chris Stain’s Long Story Short, which has been in the works for over two years. Join us in celebrating from…
Here is a short text that I wrote about the work of Rafael Trelles in the book Art and Social Justice Education: Culture as Commons edited by Therese Quinn, John…
I just got this email from artist Oliver Ressler: “Elections are a Con” – Censorship by the provincial government of Tyrol On November 21, 2011, I received a funding commitment…
Our friends at the California Department of Corrections have been hard at work, and this week released a new series of modified bus shelter advertisements supporting Occupy Wall Street West….
Since moving to New Mexico I’ve been working with a project called Friends of the Orphan Signs. This collaborative project was started by Ellen Babcock, who saw potential in the…
Over the weekend here in Pittsburgh, someone tacked up quite a few of these “bandit signs” in some of the “transitional” art-themed neighborhoods. It’s hard, at first, to tell how…
Pepper spraying cop on the Bowery, November 2011, NYC, NY Look at Pepper Spraying Cop for more.
A new documentary is coming out about about popular resistance to the corporate domination of our visual landscape. I don’t know much about it, but it looks interesting, and debuts…
Al Jazeera just ran a great illustrated story on graffiti in Libya, check it out HERE.
I recently came across Tahrir Documents, an amazing website and resource that is archiving, scanning, translating, and representing a huge collection of documents, fliers, posters, and newspapers produced as part…
2008-present Brooklyn, NY
August 2011 Brooklyn, NY Following the last Read the Writing
I’ve long admired the work of designer Ray Noland, otherwise known as Creative Rescue Organization, or CRO. Although I’m not a huge fan of his turn towards largely working around…
In an article published yesterday in the Guardian UK (read HERE), it’s come out that Shepard Fairey didn’t receive the welcome he would have hoped for on his recent trip…
I recently authored an account of the November 2010 Justseeds-IVAW street art action in Chicago for the Spring 2011 issue of The Veteran, a publication by Vietnam Veterans Against the…
This just in from the California Department of Corrections: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – July 1, 2011 – San Francisco, California Liberated Ads Salute America Following the Death of Osama bin…
Covering contemporary art movements across Mexico, Armed with Art examines the integral nature art plays in creating cultural spaces of resistance and change. A great short film about various collectives,…
This weekend, with crucial assistance from Shaun Slifer and Kevin Clancy, I put up some prints on the Murphy building in Sheraden. A post office, corner store and laundromat in…
My old friend Chris from the 56A Infoshop in London recently sent me these great photos of a sticker intervention in Lisbon, Portugal. Like most of the rest of the…
Image by LA-based artist Eddie Colla Colla has provided one of the best reviews of MOCA’s blockbuster show “Art in the Streets.” So far critical writing and reviews on the…
Strangely enough, there have been savage attacks on the picturesque streets of beautiful San Cristobal de las Casas. Chiapas. The perpetrators wheat pasted posters and images of old forgotten stories…
Photo: Graffiti artists collaboratively paint a wall in Santiago during the multi-day Planetta Graff festival Our buddy Andalusia just had this great article on the Planeta Rock hip hop fest…
Thanks to Jason Urban for giving what’s going on in Wisconsin more exposure over at Printeresting! Most of us are watching events unfold in Wisconsin from a great distance but…
Romantic love is dead, long live romantic love. DUMBO, Brooklyn. February 2010 I decided to visit this mural Chris & I painted last year, for No Longer Empty. I found…
The massive labor demonstrations in Madison, Wisconsin have reached day six and some patterns have emerged that are as recognizable as they are unexpected. First and foremost, this is a…
Happy Valentines Day! Brooklyn, NY 2011 Why the media (and particularly Wiki leaks) is important Publishing improves transparency, and this transparency creates a better society for all people. Better scrutiny…
The folks at Occupied London have set up a site for some comrades in Cairo to post on-the-ground updates about what’s going on in Egypt. There are also a bunch…
I’m still following the Egyptian demonstrations with an incredible amount of excitement. Almost 2 million people demonstrating in Tahrir Square in Cairo, with hundreds of thousands of people in many…
Brooklyn, December 2010.
I recently completed and installed a mural of Carlos Cortez.
We received an envelope at the shipping office this past month with a couple of these stamped US$1 bills and this brief statement: The line between security & tyranny is…
Regular viewers of the Justseeds blog will remember Nicolas’ essay on the censorship of street artist Blu‘s mural, a short while back. Recently a group calling itself LA RAW have…
By Lush, from rebel:art. The above is a humorous piece about the commodification of street art. A handful of the work is clever, while other pieces can be easily critiqued,…
In February 2009, the Pentagon decided to lift the two-decade long ban on photographs of flag-draped coffins. Somewhere down the line the military brass reasoned (or was forced to admit)…
4th Avenue, NYC. Winter 2010. This is a terrible cellphone picture. I took it cos I like the interrogation and think it is incomplete and should end with “…the way…
I was visiting some of my old haunts in Nashville last week, and walked upon this old, weathered People’s History poster of Emma Goldman that I must have put up…
A friend just forwarded me this link to a design called Looptagger. Some folks figured out a really clever and quick way to spray stencils. Check their How-To on their…
Here’s part 2 of the Signs of Change sneek peek! Check out the book HERE.
Check out the back story to this piece HERE, it’s very cool! A meta-wheatpaste about the budget cuts in the UK.
My new book Signs of Change is launching here on Justseeds this morning, and I wanted to give you all a peek inside!! Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s…
The folks at the Rozbrat squat in Poznan, Poland have put up another great guerrilla billboard. (For some background, go HERE or HERE.) This one reads: “Olympics Instead of Bread—New…
The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh just unveiled a huge exhibit of Marilyn Monroe photographs and related art, and a billboard campaign to advertise it. I caught this local opinion…
Chicago, IL – “Operation Exposure: War is Trauma” hit the streets of Chicago on Monday November 15th. This collaboration between the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative and veterans and supporters from Iraq…
Just got this from a friend in Poland. Folks connected to Rozbrat, the longest running squat in the country (in Poznan), took some billboard real estate for their own use….
I just got a note about a cool site focusing on Latin American street art. It’s called SMNR, and you can check it out HERE. The image to the right…
I’m not sure what one might call this, its created before it could be considered a reappropriation. The Yes Men, Rainforest Action Network, and Amazon Watch install bunk Chevron advertisements….
This just in: California billboard correctors have been hard at work again, this time with a round of billboard alterations aimed at defeating Proposition L, an anti-homeless initiative which would…
Here is a video of the mural Chris and I rocked out, in four hours, just before the DUMBO Arts Festival. Chris Stain No Longer Empty is a not for…
“ben with his favorite cup” installation for contemporary printmaking show, east carolina university september 2010 Chip Thomas has worked as a physician on the Navajo nation since 1987; over the…
Chris Stain recently caught this from the windows of Amtrak in upstate NY. Evidence of one of our adventures years earlier. Silver paint don’t fade…
Looks like Wichita, Kansas just passed a broad and sweeping bill outlawing all kinds of “graffiti tools.” Below is the text of an article from the Wichita Eagle found HERE,…
After we finished the First Stage of a Climate Change Graphic Campaign titled “Ante la Destruccion Ambiental, Organizacion!” where we screenprinted 11 different posters at the ECPM68 in Mexico City….
Williamsburg Bridge, Brooklyn, NY. July 2010.
Awhile back I got an email from Joe Lurato (aka :01), who started stenciling a couple years back, and has really been honing his craft and trying to figure out…
My friend Mathew Curran just got back from a productive visit to Madrid, he’s got a short video of the process of cutting a huge stencil, painting it, and pasting…
The much anticipated sticker exhibit PEEL HERE just opened this weekend, July 17th, in Los Angeles and will be up for two weeks. The show is organized by Sticky Rick,…
Swooph Paris, 2007
While in London for the Anarchist Bookfair last year I got to meet a smart new street artist named Xylo. In a city where street art had gone just as…
I had a long phone conversation with writer Daniel Fuller this winter – he had driven to town from Philadelphia specifically to find the Howling Mob Society historical markers after…
An Interview about the project: The Museum of Political History of Which No One Speaks (In Memory of Stas and Nastya) conducted by Freya Powell A while back we posted…
My friends in BS.AS.Stencil and Run Don’t Walk have teamed up with fellow stencil artist Malatesta to install “Sindicato” at the BSAS gallery Hollywood in Cambodia. This is one of…
Street artist Pivo has posted about an interesting new piece she has done in southern France about refugees from Spain in the 1940s. A nice, subtle wheatpaste addressing the troubles…
We got a nice email from street artist Back East a couple days back, he sent some flicks of recent work he put up in Arizona criticizing the recent immigration…
Dan S. Wang and I recently collaborated on a print to voice our opposition to the Arizona Immigration Bill SB-1070. Copies of the print are available here and most of…
But it doesn’t have to be. Read up.
New Mural on top of the RDAC BX rooftop, painted by DASIC. You can catch a good glimpse of it by taking the Bruckner Expressway through the South Bronx, look…
MQ-1 Predator drones kill civilians. This great wall of screen printed street posters is up around the corner from my house.
Last week the NY Times ran a decent short piece of political graffiti in Venezuela, well worth the read, HERE. They also posted a slide show of images HERE. Photo:…
John Fekner just passed this video along to us, a remix of a piece from 1981. To read more info, go HERE.
One of my favorite old school stencil artists, Anton van Dalen, has a (relatively) new website up, which collects a lot of his work, including an incredible selection of his…
Must be Milwaukee to have an art show at the site of an old beer factory. Last Friday night (4/16/10), numerous Milwaukee-based artists did projects and exhibited work at the…
My friend Charlie just sent along this link to images of a new ad intervention against H&M on behalf of the Campaign to Boycott and Divest from Israel. Check out…
Exit Through the Gift Shop A Banksy Film I never pegged Banksy as a fan of gothic novels, but he and his crew pull off a pretty good Shelley…
“Opposition supporters burn a billboard displaying Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev during a rally in the northwestern town of Talas on April 6, 2010. (REUTERS/azattyk.org)” More photos from Kyrgyzstan’s recent protests…
Eric “DEAL CIA” Felisbret Graffiti New York Abrams, 2009 Contrary to the title, this book isn’t just one of the seeming endless herd of books called “Graffiti ______” (insert just…
I was fortunate enough to have Favianna Rodriguez and Jesus Barraza drop by my house late last Thursday. With very little arm twisting, at 1AM, they convinced me to go…
IVAW taking mud stencils to the recruiters in Madison, Wisconsin from Dan S Wang on Vimeo. Dan S. Wang has shared some incredible video footage of an IVAW mud stenciling…
and the street art is made with red clay. A number of Justseed’s members are in Philadelphia this week installing three different shows at three separate venues across the city…
link to an article on how a mural wall on Beatty Street in Vancouver was wiped out by the Olympic/gentrification machine. The comments posted with article express the frustrations the…
Last November Dara and I were in Berlin, and I took a lot of photos on the street. Berlin is one of the few cities of been to that still…
Our friend Klutch has recently expressed his dissatisfaction with the first year of Obama with this “Hopeless” print. To be hopeless assumes you once had hope, which might be a…
Last week, on Jan. 19th, two groups from St. Petersburg, Russsia, Autonomous Action and Anarchist Artists, carried out a large scale street art action on the outside of the State…
New drag queen stencils from San Francisco street artist Jeremy Novy. “This project is intended to bring gay imagery into a homophobic subculture, covering hateful and distasteful graffiti in our…
These guys jusst put up a cool mural in Williamsburg, check out more info at BrooklynStreetArt.
This popped up in the inbox today, you may recognize some Justseedsers. Creative Violation documents the exploding underground art form of the street stencil and explores its roots in political…
Photo by Philipp M. Rassmann/NYC Street Memorial Project Pablo Pasarán Saturday, August 8, 2009 Age: 26 Location: 35th Avenue and 21st Street Astoria Queens , NY United States Pablo Pasarán,…
Tim Groves, the Toronto-based founder of the Missing Plaque Project, just sent me a link to a great video interview he did for RBNonline in December. In the interview, he…
Al Jazeera online just posted an interesting short piece on graffiti in the Gaza Strip. It’s well worth taking a minute to click over and read it HERE. All the…
While generally bored by recent street art output (or the lack thereof), I’ve always been a fan of Poland’s M-City, and his interlocking and evolving urban stencil grids of buildings,…
A strong message sent to a middle class neighborhood in the north of Mexico City. This painting is pasted on to temporary walls surrounding a building site for a new…
28 degrees and snowing is ideal conditions for……… mud stenciling! Here are photos of a Chris Stain stencil image from Reproduce and Revolt put up in Milwaukee by his co-conspirators…
I’ve always been a fan of the street artist El Tono, and his ability to adjusts and morph his simple geometric line patterns to the different social contexts he works…
Creative NYC bike advocates repainted a bike lane removed from Bedford Ave. a couple days back, and the video of the action’s been posted: I guess a couple of them…
A cool short video of Iraq Veterans Against the War putting up mud stencils in Ft. Hood in October:
Williamsburg Bridge, NYC. 2009 Today on NPR they reported that 10% unemployment is raising hopes. While so many people are living in precarity, no real solutions to the economic crisis…
The good folks at BrooklynStreetArt.com sent along this cool video of stencil artist Logan Hicks putting up a large scale mural in Brooklyn. Check out the video below, and an…
Justseeds members Chris Stain and Swoon recently traveled to Stavanger, Norway to participate in the Nuart Street Art Festival. The folks that organized the festival are creating a documentary and…
Paper Politics: Socially Engaged Printmaking Today has just been released by PM Press! A brand new book which collects 200 political prints from 200 different international artists. Loosely based on…
Here’s some wood blocks Chris is working on for the install of the project (above), and my latest hand painted sign is below:
Here’s Chris and a couple students up on ladders sketching out the cityscape backdrop we’ve built in the gym. Man, these ladders are scary! And here is the cityscape getting…
For the past week Chris Stain and I have been living, working, and teaching on a small island in Norway called Halsnøy! We’re at the Sunnhordland Folkehøgskule (a small arts…
It is pretty common knowledge at Justseeds that I’m a complete ice cream addict. I’d eat it 3 meals a day if I could. So my eyes lit up when…
Chris is following his usual themes of the importance of the individual’s experience and the struggle of daily life. Here’s some new work that will be on view at Art…
Paris, France. 2007 “Anarchy” is from the Greek, prefix an (or a), meaning “not,” “the want of,” “the absence of,” or “the lack of”, plus archos, meaning “a ruler,” “director”,…
Park Slope, Brooklyn. 2008 But sometimes someone else decides to censor it- the buff. About other kinds of censorship: National Coalition Against Censorship they like free speech and kids ability…
This just in! New York City has changed it’s long-standing policy regarding graffiti removal. It used to be that building owners had to call the city to have graffiti removed,…
Here’s a video a friend produced of the Boomcrash Collective’s contribution to the Public Ad Campaign’s billboard whitewash last Sunday. boomcrash from dgoats on Vimeo.
Iraq Veterans Against the War have adopted mud stencils in their tactics! It has been inspiring to see how the technique that Jesse Graves popularized through his website has been…
Valparaiso, Chile 2007 This is from a set of street slogans I shot during a visit to Chile a few years ago. There’s a set of them on the Justseeds…
Guest blogger Ali Gitlow sent us this great new interview with NYC street artist Dan Witz, check it out!: Brooklyn-based artist Dan Witz has been contributing his unique brand of…
BoomCrash Collective Sunday, October 25th was the Public Ad Campaign‘s second whitewashing and takeover of unsanctioned billboards in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Public Ad Campaign acts on the assumption that public…
This stencil has been up for years in Milwaukee and makes me smile every time I see it.
No More Corporate Bullshit-Fuk Wall St Gowanus, Brooklyn. 2008 This was an artists response to last years economic crisis and collapse. Below is a more recent photo of the response…
*Fuck Gentrification Somewhere, in the world. If it only were pleasurable and easy to fuck something like gentrification, maybe we’d be able to move beyond the boom and bust capitalist…
Jesse Graves did a mud stencil workshop last Friday and one of the stencils put up in Milwaukee was my “Pitbulls Are Nice” image from the Cut and Paint zine….
This just went up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, recrafting one of my old pieces into commentary on the development crash, and the condo skeletons littering the landscape. See more econo-collapse street…
Showered with Lies LES, NYC. Walking down the street after my acupuncture appointment, I looked up and was reminded of the barrage of messages on TV, in magazines, and on…
Just a quick shot of a poster in Mexico City using the art of Rini Templeton. Her work is still getting around! If you don’t know about Rini, check out…
Photos of some recent stencil work from San Francisco street artist Jeremy Novy. Jeremy was a long-time Milwaukee artist and consistently put up great work in the Cream City. Now…
Bushwick, NY I have been taking a bunch of flicks of the Read fire extinguisher tags, here’s one of em. You may see Boans, Reader, Read More, or other stuff….
Shawn Gilheeney just sent along these great photos of his exhibition Decaydence at Unsmoke Systems in Braddock, PA:
If you haven’t checked it out already, David Ellis and BLU have created a collaborative timelapse video while partaking in the Fame Festival in Italy. COMBO a collaborative animation by…
This just in from Not My Government: Paul Barron’s community memorial mural of Gary King Jr. was buffed by BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport) September 24th, 2009. The mural was…
Its been a year since the Federal Government started bailing out countless financial institutions. The banks and investment have preserved their wealth and avoided their own crisis, and postponed the…
Like Colin’s weekly drawings, I decided, to post a weekly photo up here on the Justseeds Blog. I got glasses when I was in first grade, but I’ve always been…
YZ just sent these images of faces they put up in Paris. Interestingly, one is of William Casby, who was one of the last living African-Americans that had been born…
Chris Stain, Shaun Slifer and I are all featured in Creative Violation, a cool short film about street stenciling made by Andrew Stevenson that’s quietly been making the rounds at…
Annice Jacoby for Precita Eyes Muralists, ed. Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo Abrams, 2009 I gotta say, at the first crack of the spine of this book I was…
Bill Daniel Mostly True Microcosm Publishing, 2008 Hummm, book? zine? scrapbook? film companion? Mostly True straddles all these things, introducing us to the cluttered archives (and head?) of Bill…
A stencil grafitti direct action aimed at counteracting concerted effort by US Military to recruit in minority and poor neighborhoods. “We are a group of anonymous culture jammers. This action…
John Fekner just sent me a link to a great photo collection he recently put up of his stenciled car husks. John started painting slogans such as “Decay” on the…
Paper Politics, a show I curated of political prints from around the world, is opening on Friday in Richmond, VA. Please come by and check it out if you’re in…
Chris Stain and Armsrock are pluggin away, with a a handful of breaks, over at the Ad-Hoc Art Gallery. They are making a collaborative installation in the gallery and hanging…
Friend, Paper Politics contributor and Reproduce & Revolt artist David Loewenstein has just installed a cool series of window installations at the Power and Light Building in Kansas City. David…
Oh my goodness! I was completely taken off guard at work last night, I had to project a 16mm print of Agnes Varda’s film “Mur Murs”. The film is about…
Its summer in NYC, and despite June having the 2nd most rainfall on record dumping on NYC 23 out of 30 days, Chris Stain was able to paint with some…
Rising Tide activists dropped a 25 ft high banner off the Environmental Protection Agency in Boston. Image below, and the rest of the story here.
The Aberdeen Poster Collective is another UK poster group I’ve stumbled across online. This crew is from Aberdeen, Scotland, and appears to have had their heyday in the early 2000s….
My friend and old Chicago studio-mate Brooks Golden just had some studio shots posted by the Chicago Urban Art Society. It’s great to see my old studio getting so much…
Check out the latest video about the Tamms Year Ten mud stencil action in Chicago that took place on June 6th. More info: www.yearten.org/ mudstencils.com/
Mud stencil video by Gretchen Hasse. links: http://www.yearten.org/ http://mudstencils.com/
Lori Waxman wrote an insightful article about the recent June 6th mud stencil event in Chicago for the online and print publication New City Chicago. Below is her text and…
On Saturday, June 6, 2009 in Chicago, local artists partnered with the Tamms Year Ten coalition to protest state-sanctioned torture at the supermax prison in Southern Illinois. And they did…
My friends in San Diego have finished 2 more amazing walls on their La Entrada Project. Check out the videos below, and the project here. La Entrada Project – Wall2…
Chris Stain just sent me this photo of a mural he painted with his long-time pal Billy Mode. They took advantage of the nice weather in Brooklyn to put up…
Marc Fischer from Temporary Services just sent along this amazing flyer he found in Chicago!:
These are pictures Katie B. took while on tour with my band last summer in Europe, some highlights of street art, graf. and alternative spaces. Stencil on left from Hamburg,…
Dozens of these poorly designed McDonalds billboards have been popping up all over Pittsburgh this spring. I was surprised to come upon this decidedly ridiculous alteration at a busy intersection…
I came a cross some really beautiful images while looking for some visual references for a comment I wanted to post on Josh’s review of Protest Graffiti Mexico: Oaxaca. Photographer,…
Bernard Herman receently sent these photos over of a nice set of stencils that showed up one morning on the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill campus. Not sure who…
Louis E.V. Nevaer & Elaine Sendyk Protest Graffiti Mexico: Oaxaca Mark Batty Publishers, 2009 As far as I know, this is the first book out that exclusively focuses on the…
There are a few flicks of a piece that Billy Mode and Chris Stain painted last week over on SlamXHype.com
Last Saturday I was lucky to be able to take part (at least marginally) in a great project organized by the Public Ad Campaign. Dozens and dozens of artists and…
The recent Justseeds install in Milwaukee included a public art component. Here are examples…
Art & Politics: Russell Howze/Stencil Nation Wed. April 15, 7:30pm, Free CounterPulse 1310 Mission St. (near 9th) San Francisco, CA 94103 With dynamically illustrated perspectives across the art form, hundreds…
My friend Rutger from Amsterdam just sent me these great flics of some street art from Barcelona. I’m not sure who the artist is, but these are really, seemingly nice…
Chris Stain and Billy Mode spent a mild Sunday evening painting a wall in Bed-Stuy. Folks in the neighborhood were intrigued and expressed support to the artists as they worked…
More Midwest political freight graffiti! One of my favorite things about doing thi blog is when cool art like this flys into the mailbox, makes me feel like people are…
I recently was asked a series of questions by about why there is so little right-wing street art by Paul Schmelzer (editor for the Minnesota Independent) for his Eyeteeth Blog….
After the Justseeds install, I took off for Mérida, Yucatan. I just got in yesterday, but I haven’t seen any exciting (street) art, yet. Send me a shout out if…
We are not in the least afraid of making a mess…..
Here’s some photos of day three of the Justseeds install “Which Side Are You On” that opens at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Thursday, March 5th. Slowly but surely it…
…stay tuned..three more days of work until the show opens on Thursday, March 5th…
The Justseeds install in Milwaukee is off to a roaring start. 15 plus members from the collective and a host of Milwaukee friends are busy working on the six day…
My friends WERC and Geraldine (who I went to Mexico with back in October), have been working with a great team of artists on an exciting new project in San…
So, here is the English version of the article I had published in Zapruder magazine. This is a much longer version, very much still in process. I’d love to hear…
PEEL: The Art of the Sticker Dave and Holly Combs Mark Batty Publisher, 2008 Stickers, easy to make, easy to use, a quick and cheap way to get…
Ever since Chris & I finished the installation and hung his show I’ve been taking in LA. I wanted to post a bunch of photos and links right after the…
These just anonymously flew into the inbox!
Dara passed along this LA Times story about organized attacks on advertising in Paris. It’s reminiscent of the actions of StopPub from the early 2000’s, where they would organize times…
I saw posts for this action on a few blogs and thought I should re-post it here. This blog has the whole series: http://nofearofthefuture.blogspot.com/2009/01/keep-austin-zombie-free.html
My friends over at Not My Government have been consistently churning out political posters and anti-police brutality propaganda for years. Head over to their site and check out what they’ve…
This story was published in The Olympian on January 14, 2009: Mixed-martial-arts champion charged in olympia wa. graffiti case By Jeremy Pawloski OLYMPIA — Prosecutors have charged Olympia mixed-martial-arts champion…
I have recently been asked about why it is that I dislike Shepard Fairey. Its actually not that I dislike Shepard as a person, its more that I have a…
Our friend Marco delli Santi from Rome’s House of Love and Dissent just sent over this design he created, he’s planning on printing them out of mirror sticker paper and…
The Illicit Exhibitions blog has just posted an interview with our very own Chris Stain. You can check it out here.
I’ve been a fan from afar of Above for awhile now. I liked the arrows hanging from power lines, loved the aesthetic of the arrow covered roll-downs and trucks, but…
Attached are some pics a friend sent me, taken at the former site of Martin Sostre’s radical “Afro-Asian” bookstore in the heart of Buffalo.
This piece appeared yesterday in the South Bronx. The wall faces the Bruckner Expressway, a highly used elevated highway passing through the Bronx. My pal Anomalous compiles a lot of…
Lots of new prints makin it onto the electical boxes these days, here are a few recent examples…
I’m excited to share that I recently had an article I wrote translated into Italian, and published in a great journal called Zapruder: Storie In Movimento. Zapruder is a non-academic…
My friend Sam Sebren sent along a cool new stencil he’s been working on that he wants to share with the world. Just click on the image below, drag the…
A passage from Return to the Same City by my favorite detective novelist and radical historian Paco Ignacio Taibo II: “I’m involved in ideological warfare.” “Against whom?” “Against a gang…
A friend in Argentina sent me these photos:
Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley’s “Street With A View” Project just got a nice write up on the AP wire, picked up in all kinds of publications and web-based news…
This is an interview Chris Stain and Josh MacPhee did with artist John Fekner: Chris Stain: About a year ago I got lucky for a few months and had a…
I show up in Mexico City on Friday, October 3rd. This is one day after the 40 year anniversary of the Tlatelolco Massacre, a national day of mourning and anger….
Here’s some flicks of an evolving roller piece on a building on 3rd Ave. in Brooklyn, down the street from my office/studio. First: Second:
Chris Stain has a bunch of new work up on Dirty Pilot! Some great stuff, including new large-scale cut wood pieces! Check it all out here.
Swoon‘s second solo exhibit with the Deitch Projects will open this Sunday, September 7, 6-10pm. At 4-40 44th Drive, Long Island City In the early evening on Sunday, September 7th,…
Public Ad Campaign is now in a blog format. It highlights contemporary public advertising issues and ramblings about public space. publicadcampaign.com
After three-year hiatus, a new Cut and Paint stencil template zine is now available! This time around we (Josh MacPhee, Colin Matthes, Nicolas Lampert) traded in the headaches of attempting…
Fans of the Celebrate People’s History posters and REPOhistory will likely enjoy this project based out of Toronto. Artist Tim Groves spearheads the Missing Plaque Project, which involves wheatpasting text-based…
Our friend Marc Moscato sent along this link to an interesting story/conversation unfolding around a attempt to combat perceived racism through street art in Portland, OR. The story centers around…
These posters were wheatpasted over 3 years ago in Providence Rhode Island and they are still weathering well. The key is a combo of 3 parts wheatpaste with 1 part…
I caught this humorous alteration to a sidewalk advertisement while walking in downtown Pittsburgh this past weekend. I don’t know what it used to say under the word “war”, but…
Liam O’Donoghue an article online that continues the discussion/critique of Shepard Fairey thats been ongoing online over the past 6-9 months. He’s posted his piece “Shepard Fairey’s Image Problem” on…
Here’s a time lapse of the ups and downs of our inflatable church!
Readers Digest takes a look at the Ghost Bike Project in their June 2008 issue, and the “your america” section online. The memorials continue to garner attention in the media…
So the Spectres of Liberty project went great! We inflated our 35 foot tall church and had over 200 people come hang out, watch the animation on the outside and…
Here’s another great batch of images from my trainspotter friend in the middle of the country. There’s no confusing what these trains are saying.
Madrid based street artist El Tono just sent out an announcement about his recent travels in Latin America, including posters he made in Brasil using this traditional Brasilian printing system…
Long time friend Russell Howze, who has been running StencilArchive.org for years, is about to release a new stencil book that looks really promising! It’s called Stencil Nation: Graffiti, Community…
I just got these great photos of new freights from Max in Minneapolis:
We got an email awhile back from SpY in Madrid, who sent a link to their new website, which is a really nice and clean look at some of their…
Like I said in the earlier post, we’ve been busy building over at Ad-Hoc Art the last few days. Things are coming together and all the scavenged materials are beginning…
For the Seeing Green show, Susan Simensky Bietila (who co-organized Drawing Resistance and frequently contributes to World War III Illustrated) created the mural “28 Years of People Power” dedicated to…
My friend Heather Rogers went on a trip to Brasil a little while back doing research for her new book, and just sent over these great photos of graffiti down…
Back in 2002 when I was working on Stencil Pirates I went to visit John Fekner, one of the originators of street stenciling and street art in the US (he…
These little guys have been showing up in the streets of NYC over the past couple years, and we just got an email from their maker. Here’s what he has…
We just got an email in from folks who have posted a site where you can find all the legal graffiti walls to paint all over the world. Pretty cool…
Justseeds readers likely need no reminder of the importance of politically engaged street art, yet it is always good to hear when work put up in the streets not only…
‘nuf said.
I think this little video clip from Brasil has been making the rounds, but it’s well worth taking a peek at, so I’m reposting here. It’s amazing what a little…
Our friend Imminent Disaster is back with her second installment of her travels in South America. Thanks to her and continue to have great experiences. Mujeres Creando is a feminist…
This is a series of photos we received related to Street Theatre events in San Francisco and Berkeley. They are connected to an ongoing “Make Art, Not War” action Tuesdays,…
My friend Sam just sent me this link from Queerty.com to an interesting interview with Avram Finkelstein, one of the members of Gran Fury. Gran Fury was a creative/graphic collective…
I’ve long thought that the Billboard Liberation Front, beyond being one of the longest running billboard alteration groups, is also one of the smartest. Rather than simply playing off corporate…
JSVR is happy to introduce to you a “guest” writer, Imminent Disaster. She is a NY-based artist traveling in South America and agreed that our blog would be a great…
Critical thinking and dissent in street art is becoming as rare as politicians who reject corporate America, free trade, prisons, and the two-party system. Recently, a Chicago art show, Go…
Justseeds member Chris Stain has been leavin his wares around. You can see more of what he’s up to over on his site at ChrisStain.com.
I had some serious questions about Banksy’s Santa’s Ghetto project in Bethlehem (like the point of Faile’s boxer piece, which flattens out the Palestine/Israel conflict to a simple equation of…
A beautiful new poster from my favorite Portland wheatpaster, this one is up near Portland State University.
I found these engraved brass cobblestones on sidewalks throughout Cologne, Germany, when I lived there a few years ago. The stones are memorials to residents of buildings that were displaced…
We discovered a free and easy way to make temporary graffitt. (It’s like henna tattoos). We had pieces of snowy ice that we drew on the street with. Fun!
Just got a note from Mad One in Pheonix, AZ. He’s curating a street art sticker art show in Phoenix and is looking for stickers to be sent in from…
This just came through the inbox from the Wouter Osterholt en Elke Uitentuis in the Netherlands, seems like a cool project: Speaking Through Walls We’re looking for people that can…
Seeing Nicholas’ post of that Chicago project reminded me of this- one of my favorite street art projects in Detroit- or ever, really…. This is, I believe, the old United…
I am blessed by a gigantic network of people that span the whole world, practically all continents included. There’s even the Anti-Santa from Antarctica that once subletted my ro- (I…
Photo by Fred Askew The 3rd Annual Memorial Bike Ride went as planned on Sunday, January 5th. There were around 250-300 cyclists that attended the rides that eventually converged on…
Milwaukee-based artist Jesse Graves created a number of mud stencils that he recently put up on sidewalks and the sides of buildings. Below is his “how-to-guide” and a link to…
This just landed in our inbox: The Southern California Library, in South L.A. will be hosting Making Our Own Art Histories, a series of art exhibitions as an effort to…
It’s taken me a long time to get this together, but I wanted to throw my ideas into the discussion around the artwork/plagiarism of Shepard Fairey that has been spinning…
Good filckr and homepage with a wide variety of work stencils, stickers, throw ups, murals, canvas work, street art… Particularly awesome to see wildstyle in Farsi (?) I think… Check…
Washington, DC troublemaker BORF is back, with a great 5 color silkscreen print to help support Daniel McGowan, one of the activists imprisoned in the recent US government round-up of…
Justseeds is having its first annual meeting and retreat in Pittsburgh this weekend! And while we’re here we ran into some amazing political street art. The Howling Mob Society has…
Excited to see this in my inbox, the crew over at Not My Government are trying to put together a Bay Area project similar to the Street Art Workers: In…
I recently traveled to Argentina and Chile. My intention was to travel more in Chile and not Argentina, so I only spent 4 days in Buenos Aires before taking a…
We live in a very, very strange world. The Street Art Workers have had a little blurb about them published in the Oct/Nov issue of the Indian edition of Elle…
Australian activist artists and designers extraordinaire Breakdown Press (Tom Civil & Lou Smith) have just released their 3rd political poster series, this one around nuclear power and waste. I was…
My friend Bettina recently sent me this list of links to stories and images of graffiti in Baghdad. Most of them are old, back from the beginning of the war…
Halloween is descended from Samhain, an ancient Gaelic harvest festival. It was brought to the United States by Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine and English imperialism. Poor children would…
Josh and I spent a short 4 days in Berlin. We went to this beautiful city primarily to look at the poster collection at the Papier Tiger Archiv. Papier Tiger…
While in Århus we were lucky enough to meet Abdul and Mia, both photographers from Capetown, South Africa. They were excited about the Justseeds project, and told us about what…
We took a day trip to Århus (the 2nd largest city in Denmark, but still fairly small) thanks to Barbara and the great folks of Rum46, an artist group and…
Icky and I are traveling around Europe and have been meeting with some great people and learning about some amazing art and activist projects. Here’s our first missive about a…
This landed in the inbox today: The 1st New Britain International MURAL SLAM Calling all vagabonds, graffiti artists, muralists, scenic painters, air brush artists, and activists! The 1st International Mural…
It’s been 18 days since Eric Ng was killed. It doesn’t seem possible. Time moves strangely; every day I get the news again. I’m finding it hard to write about…
I saw an interesting story posted by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel the other day. It concerns a building in Downtown Milwaukee known as the Sydney Hih Building. The Sydney Hih…
No Need For Sleep is an exhibition of original art and zines by artists from around the country. This exhibition celebrates the artists, their independent productions, and the do-it-yourself culture…
Im currently in Daytona Beach, FL and there isn’t a whole lot to do late night, so I was sitting with my computer in front of the TV. Now I…
Recently in the Lower East Side some signs were affixed to street posts as part of the 10 Days of Solidarity with Palestine and Lebanon. 10 Days of Solidarity with…
Following up on his trip to Beirut two weeks ago, Arofish traveled through Aita al-Shaab, South Lebanon this week and set up an interactive mural for residents of the city….
For decades, teachers in Oaxaca, Mexico, have conducted strikes to demand educational reform from the federal and state government. Some of the teacher’s demands include living wages, sanitary schools, text…
On Saturday, July 29, members of the Borf Brigade threw a roving street party in Washington, DC. Agents Q and fi5e from the Graffiti Research Lab built a bike-mounted sound…
There’s some great pics of Milwaukee street art in the VR photoblog, courtesy of Brandon Bauer and Nicolas Lampert. See here: — Milwaukee street art — More Milwaukee street art…
Milwaukee like many cities around the country has been seeing a condo boom in the past few years. Gentrification is redefining the character of long established neighborhoods, driving up housing…
Yesterday, members of Visual Resistance and Time’s Up installed two ghost bikes for 23-year old filmmaker Derek Lake, killed June 26 on Houston St, and Dr. Carl Nacht, killed June…
New Yorkers throughout this City’s diverse communities this morning awoke to messages calling for justice and equality for immigrants throughout the United States. The messages, including “No Deportations”, “Legalization for…
The Gothamist recently posted a story about a festive day of street chalking, which was ruined by a pair of self-righteous snitches and some bored police officers. An eyewitness and…
Last weekend, a few of us ventured up to the Chelsea headquarters of the infamous Graffiti Research Lab and helped build 600 or so LED throwies. GRL agents Q and…
From Q-Branch comes word of another geek graffiti project from the Graffiti Research Labs — Electro-Graf: An electro-graf is a graffiti piece or throw-up that uses conductive and magnetic paint…
Michael De Feo aka the flower guy is teaching a class called “the tools of street art” for kids age 7-10 at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield,…
Artist, graffiti analyst and bad ass mother fucker fi5e sends word of a new geek graffiti project developed deep in an underground laboratory on 21st St: LED Throwies are an…
In Argentina, ghost bike installations have a purpose other than honoring the memories of fallen bikers. The 380 stencils of bicycles painted throughout the city of Rosario represent the 380…
Josh MacPhee’s excellent stencil template zine Cut & Paint has finally gone digital, thanks to John Emerson of Social Design Notes. Click over to CutAndPaint.org and you’ll find over 40…
In the past few weeks, ghost bikes have appeared in at least three new cities across the world. Chicago, Illinois The Chicago Ghost Bike project created a memorial at the…
Don’t know how we missed this one, but NY1 had a funny story about some parody subway ads that take a shot at Peter Vallone: They look like the real…
Ed Hay may spend most of his time cleaning up graffiti from the railway cars for the CN. But, for the past six years during his “break time” he has…
A while back, I asked my friend Salvador to take some pictures of political graffiti during his trip to Chile. Salvador is back and he has brought 26 pictures of…
Submitted without comment: If Tony Blair wants to know what drives young vandals to cover walls with graffiti, he won’t have far to look. His own grandmother would have been…
Speaking of things I wish New York City councilmembers would do: Mike Ferner, a former Toledo councilman and one-time mayoral candidate, was arrested yesterday with his brother for spray-painting anti-war…
The New York City Council has passed three new anti-graffiti bills which Bloomberg is no doubt itching to sign into law. Intro. No. 663-A amends existing law to mandate community…
In what was an extensive and coordinated effort yesterday morning, at least 30 Dallas police officers attempted to round up 10 persons with arrest warrants. In the operation, six graffiti…
Brooklyn artist Ellis Gallagher got a nice writeup this weekend in the New York Times for his chalk shadow tracings: Mr. Gallagher heads out on foot or on his bike…
Political collage artist Judith Supine sent word of an impressive postering job at the Times Square recruitment office. You can check out a short video here. We asked about the…
Seems every other month another ad agency hires another street artist to push another useless product on behalf another billionaire corporation. And each time, this causes an online controversy about…
In the past several weeks members of VisualResistance have installed two more Ghost Bikes. Thus far this year has witnessed 21 deaths in the NYC bicycling community. Each loss profoundly…
Just found an article from the LA Times that gives an example of how cities are criminalizing graffiti — not as vandalism, but as a style. Even commissioned murals will…
Legacy Queens councilman and Giuliani-wannabe Peter Vallone Jr. is once again dragging his favorite scapegoat around the city’s newsrooms: The scourge who has been defacing buildings, vehicles and trees across…
A few weeks back we wrote about a new sticker campaign called Corporate Vandals Not Welcome. The stickers target advertisers who use techniques cribbed from street art in order to…
September 23rd marked the 137th anniversary of the insurgency of Lares in Puerto Rico, the attempt to gain independence from Spain in 1868. While the pro-independence movement celebrated, FBI assassins…
On Sunday, September 18, members of Visual Resistance created and installed a ghost bike memorial for Jen Shao, a 65-year old grandmother killed by a hit-and-run driver in the financial…
Following up on previous entries about corporate incursions into the street art world, there’s a new sticker campaign we’ve been noticing around downtown NYC. The stickers, reading “corporate vandals not…
The Israeli pullout from Gaza has mostly been shown in the American media through dramatic images of Israelis being evacuated from the settlements. As usual there is much less media…
Reader Todd emails a fascinating story: I’m a social worker for Children’s Protective Serives here in Pittsburgh PA. I’m also a fan of street art, going through the city, often…
Will at SixSquare.com writes about the recent wholesale thefts of Space Invaders pieces in Los Angeles. He writes movingly of becoming obsessed with and attached to a particular artist’s creation…
Today’s quote comes from Swedish street artist Hop Louie‘s version of a standard vandalism-is-a-crime legal disclaimer: It´s illegal to voluntarily paint something nice on a grey wall just because you…
Man, just when Banksy had you feeling free, the New York Times has a report on the city’s new Citywide Vandals Task Force, the merger of the NYPD and transt…
Banksy recently made a trip to the West Bank, where he painted massive images of escape and freedom on the 25-foot high “seperation wall” the Israeli government built to divide…
Your Mind Better Be Blowing and Soon. has two updates on the decentralization of Borf. Somewhat in the spirit of Subcommandante Marcos’ famous self-description, Borf’s first communique begins: Borf is…
Below is one of the more intriguing e-mails we’ve ever gotten — looks like some folks in D.C. are taking on the idea raised by one of our commenters to…
There’s been some rumors and confusion about this, hopefully this will clear things up: Last week, we got word that Andrew Morgan’s Ghost Bike had been removed. After asking around,…
Your Mind Better Be Blowing and Soon has wonderful photos of Isaiah Zagar‘s mosaic murals in Philadelphia. I happened across Zagar’s South St. murals in Philly a few years ago…
An article by Elizabeth Hays about the Ghost Bike project appears on the Daily News website: Memorial outlines bike death BY ELIZABETH HAYS DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER A 10-speed bicycle,…
Founders and long standing members of TATS CRU got their start painting trains in the Bronx over twenty years ago. Today, TATS CRU has established itself as a legally legitimate…
In memory of Liz Padilla, a 28-year old bicyclist killed last week, VR members created a small and somber memorial in Park Slope. The night before a memorial ride led…
We’re kickin’ off a new project with the Street Art Workers (SAW), a national collective of printmakers, stencil artists, graffiti writers and designers who use the streets for art and…
On Arbor Day, April 29th, a group of artists in Brooklyn placed some “bling” vanity necklaces around 50 or more trees, on Bedford Ave,from N4th-N10th St. The project is called…
Janna from Style in Progress sent us a link to a fascinating article in Toronto’s NOW Magazine about the Vancouver city government’s plan to send out “clean teams” to buff…
Os Gemeos (“the Twins”) have been making a mural out in Coney Island the last few days, and a Visual Resistance member has been fortunate enough to get out there…
If you click on only one link today, let it be this one.
This is a few weeks old by now, but fi5e’s comments on the city’s anti-graffiti campaign are probably the best I’ve read anywhere: I was just reading the website for…
The New York Times has a short article in the Metro section today about Darius Jones’ street installations, focusing on his kissing street signs in Carroll Gardens. Good quotes from…
4 new People’s History Posters have been created by artists Aprille, Brandon Bauer, Beith Pucinella, and Swoon. Don’t just hang them on your walls at home. If you’re feeling motivated,…
Ever since I became aware of the All City Council campaign, and our “6 Questions for Fi5e”, I’ve been a frequent visitor of Fi5e‘s blog. Fi5e has been busy making…
Two of the deservedly famous REVS sculptures recently featured on Untitled Name and Wooster Collective are gone. Rode through DUMBO on my bike this afternoon and the two best pieces…
If you read nothing else today, don’t miss Wooster’s post on Banky’s escapades in New York. The New York Times article is full of the condescending elitism you’d expect, but…
Josh MacPhee’s radical distro site,
From Newsday: N.J. trio accused of leaving graffiti on `The Gates’ Police had no trouble locating three men suspected of scrawling graffiti Saturday on four of “The Gates”: the trio…
New York isn’t the only place where The Buff is pushing into overdrive. Five teenagers were arrested last week in Grand Rapids, Michigan for tagging on a commercial building, and…
Today the Wooster Collective featured an amazing project called M-City: M-city in a first place is a play with the form and space of the city, played on the walls,…
Street art love in the photolog. Other themed posts include: Dust Graf and Bike Graf….
Some tragic news from the Globe & Mail: When Bardia Bryan Zargham got serious about graffiti, he chose Alpha as his tag and set about painting all over Toronto. That…
On my daily Google News crawl, I was amazed and delighted to find that stencil artist BORF is making quite a splash in Raleigh, North Carolina. From the local Eyewitness…
From the New York Post: Miguel Camacho, 29, of Forest Hills — who uses the graffiti tag “VAMP” — was given 60 reasons why scribbling on public property is still…
Lots of press on Bloomberg’s scare-mongering, scapegoating new campaign tactic: From CBS News: “On the theory that people can and will judge a book by its cover, Mayor Bloomberg is…
Mayor Bloomberg’s annual “State of the City” address on Tuesday passed without much comment, but a disturbing highlight for us was his promise to create a new anti-graffiti task force,…