Never was
Never was so much owed by so few to so many/never was so much owed by so many to so few.
Found this near Old Street.
OCCUPY STREET WALLS!
The Best of Cologne
Street artist XXXhibition puts these amazing tiles down on the sidewalk, and you can find them throughout Cologne
This is a bit much, but still nicely done.
The bomb has legs.
Oy! Don’t talk junk!
Ewoks! YUB NUB! YUB NUB!
Okay, more Star Wars imagery? At least this one is funny.
This stencil says Capitalism, but the dude did the stencil backwards. Still, you get the message.
I think this one is my favourite. It is the most provocative and potent.
Work. Consume. Die. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
The Street Art of Rue Dénoyez
Found in the 20th arrondissement, in the area of Belleville, Paris’s Rue Dénoyez is a graffiti lovers paradise. I’m so glad I heard about this place through the graff-vine and made the trek out there to photograph the snot out of it. I was there for hours just scouring through the walls, in between every stroke and crevice, just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. One little road, hidden between cafés and garbage bins …. So much beauty and broken spray can lids.
Start!
pretty sure this is the fine work of Denial 
Shaw and Argyle
Harper: turning Canada into a deathstar since 2005.
If you don’t let us dream, we won’t let you sleep
Found on St-Laurent.
How to find the words….
this translates to, “how to find the words necessary to move a single dollar?” but the word “move” is used in the emotional sense (aka “that is a moving experience”) rather than the physical sense.
i don’t know who richard is, but this is a really potent anti-capitalistic message, and i love how it has been placed on solitary garage doors, playing on black and white, making the stencil’d words pop. it gives it a very sombre atmosphere. i really find this moving.
i found it in an alleyway near mont-royal and st.denis.
The Listen Bird owns Montreal
Ah Listen Bird. I refuse to live in a Canada that doesn’t have youuuuuu. I mean, technically, Listen Bird owns Toronto too. I have so many Listen Bird photos from around Toronto that I haven’t even had the chance to blog yet. SO MANY! But here’s some of the goodies I found in Montreal. DUDE GETS AROUND! This above piece was on Van Horne near St. Urbain.
This saying doesn’t translate very well into English (mostly because the Quebecois swear word “calisse” translates directly to chalice, which is a curse meant to insult the Catholic church) but it basically means “we’re screwed by the special law,” or perhaps ”We couldn’t give a fuck about the special law,” or even “The special law fucks us over.” See?! So many translations! The special law in question is the infamous Bill 78 which Quebec premier Jean Charest passed in order to stop the Montreal student protests. However the Quebec Human Rights Commission found the law violated student’s right to protest and to assembly. After it was passed, over 100,000 people marched the streets of Montreal, banging on pots, in what was Quebec’s largest act of civil disobedience ever.
YAY!
Here is another Listen Bird with the same saying (he finally spells “speciale” properly in french, hee hee. He forget the extra E in the first bird above). I found this on Notre Dame Ouest and Rue de l’inspecteur.
“Ecoutez nous” means “listen to us.” SO SAYS THE LISTEN BIRD!
I only found this LB because I had rented out another Bixi bike (you can get a 24 hour rental for $7, and this was literally the final hour of my rental plus I had to get from Notre Dame and Atwater all the way into Vieux Montreal). Fuck the metro, Bixi Bike to the rescue! The great thing about exploring cities by bikes is you see things you wouldn’t normally see. Sometimes walking is too slow, and taxis are too fast.
This guy was at Van Horne and Avenue du Parc on an entire parking lot that was abandoned and in ruin. This abandoned house was next to the parking lot.
Does this say “Listen Knife Barf?”
This amazing find was on Rue Saint-Jacques and Avenue Laporte. It takes up the space of the entire first floor of the building! He must’ve used a ladder or something to do this one.
Everybody wants some where.
POUTINE MACHINE! hahah! I found this guy in an alleyway near Mont-Royal and Christophe-Colombe.
This was on an abandoned garage near Saint-Viateur and de Gaspé.
In the alley ways near St. Laurent and Mont-Royal.
LIIIIIIIIIIIISTEN!
Fuck Charest, la résistance est un devoir!
As promised yesterday, here’s a nice post on the Montreal student protests. Graffitists and street artists have done some amazing work around the plateau and Mile End, expressing their anger but also their solidarity.
For more in the Montreal student protests, read the Wiki of it. All I want to do right now is relish in the photos!
The above red stencil was found outside the Mont-Royal metro. It translates to “Resistance is your homework” and has an image of an A+ grade on a red square. It’s a call for Montreal students to protest because it is more important than their exams.
This was found in the back alleys of Mont-Royal near Christophe-Colombe. For those of you who don’t know, Jean Charest is the premier of Quebec.
As I mentioned yesterday, the red square is the symbol of the student’s resistance. I found it spraypainted all over Van Horne near St. Laurent. Here’s one.
Here’s another.
And another.
This was stencil’d on the sidewalk right next to the red squares.
a beautifully-realized stencil of a police officer, with a red square on his breast, which says “avec vous dans l’ombre.” that translates to “with you in the shadows.”
so glad i spotted that from afar!
I found this stop sign on Saint-Viateur near St. Urbain. Reminds me of this, n’est-ce pas?
found in an alley near Mont-Royal and brebeuf. it looks like this originally said “l’argent et la mort” which means “money and death.” but then it was changed to “l’argent est la mort” which means “money IS death.”
PLQ is a political party in Quebec, and this roughly translates to “The PLQ is in the shitter”
fuck mcgill!
no justice
no peace
fuck the police
a stencil of a riot cop
and another one
this says “Leave Iraq, leave afghanistan.” This confuses me a little, because while Canadian soldiers are in Afghanistan, we never went to Iraq. Canada didn’t participate in the Iraq war. Maybe this isn’t just about Canada, but meant for others outside our borders. Or maybe it’s meant for stupid monkey Prime Minister Harper, who wanted our troops in Iraq.
Graffiti is over! (if you want it)
sorry for the grainy picture, i snapped this with my blackberry.
i found it inside the ladies loo of the Think Cafe on the corner of bleeker and bowery that sits across from the former location of CBGB’s.
yoko ono and john lennon, i betcha, fucking loved graffiti.
Police Line, do not cuss, er, cross
FUCK THE POLICE! (found on siegel street, bushwick, brooklyn)
fuck the police, i squeeze first, make ‘em eat dirt, take ‘em feet first through the morgue, then launch ‘em in the t-bird.
a call for volition and assembly
galvanize! occupy street walls!
found at South 3rd and Bedford in Williamsburg
Word on the street
Kent Ave in Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Don’t buy me!
this beautiful stencil was on India Street in Greenpoint
And this wheatpaste was on North 5th in williamsburg.
it’s funny how technically they’re saying opposite things, but the true meaning behind both of them is exactly the same. one is a plea, the other is a sarcastic undercut.
american patriotism
i took this photograph in bushwick without realizing at first what that heart was made up of.
grenades, tanks, rifles, missiles, bombs, guns ….
you know, the USA has the number one military in the world …. and they’re 15th educationally.
smart bombs, really stupid children, that’s what they’ve got.
at some point, their bombs will become too valuable, so they’ll start dropping illiterate school children on the country they’re fighting.
“and now they’ve dropped jimmy dixon from bronx elementary on bagdad, he’s 9. he’s going to spray-paint the roof and write Eat Me, they hate that… here he goes … E-E-T…“
#facepalm
5pointz: the institute of higher burnin’
i haven’t been to 5Pointz since March 2011 so i was well overdue for a return.
but there was also a very specific reason for me to head over to 5pointz …
… a familiar face was having a little art show ….
that’s right! Spudbombs and Rob Fuckin’ Ford’s face galore! Spud reprazentin’ TdotOh.
this was pretty exciting. i got all giddy and did my lil’ graffiti-jig right there in queens.
there was also lots of new work to be found on the walls. whilst i was there, several graff artists were hard at work. 5pointz doesn’t mind if regular folk take photos, just as long as they don’t snap the artists themselves at work. anonymity is essential to a graff artist.
i think this Los Bancos wheatpaste by Crisp is one of my favourites. the Banker has a storm trooper head!
these aren’t the bailouts we were looking for.
another Crisp/star wars theme to support Occupy Wall Street
“the 99% we are!”
this piece is fucking brilliant. it’s done with little points of paint (dots) just like Seurat, Monet, and Renoir did in their impressionist paintings! look closer!
this is by international graff artist James Cochran
i think this is a tribute to amy winehouse, who covered Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow once.
this song is really sad… because she’s asking the question, but she already knows the answer…. so she’s asking him to lie to her so that she can live with herself for sleeping with him….
been there.
by the way, the powers that be are trying to bulldoze 5Pointz. Stop them and save the Mecca. Click here to join the FB group.
Occupy Street Walls
my Twitter handle has been painted onto a wall near King Street East and Church. I know who put it there, and why ….
i never do graffiti myself, but i like the idea that other people are doing it for me.
Occupy Lt. John Pike
remember when i found that stencil of the cop who was pepper-spraying peaceful Occupy protesters on the sidewalk outside loblaws? that was a very popular post for me because it was RT’d by BlogTO. Anyhoo, i found another instance of the stencil!
Rob had photographed this one a while before i found the one on the sidewalk, but i never knew where he had found it. turns out, it was in the graffiti alley near queen and dufferin….
…. which i am in ALL THE LIVELONG DAY! how did i miss this stencil all the freakin’ times i’ve been down that alley?
in my defence, there has been some major construction happening in that alley lately, so it may have been obscured by parked trucks and stuff previously.
anyway, still no word on who is behind the stencil yet. but high five to my mysterious artist!
ps, if you look closely at the first photo, there is something scrawled on the fence on the left side. it says, “the galaxy’s a lot smaller than i thought.“
Occupy Communist China
i have found this Occupy Economics stencil (with the “O” specifically turned into a red dot) a couple times before (see here and here), and it seems to be concentrated in the Kensington Market area.
still no information on who is behind it.
i like how the open glass door almost makes this look like a frame.
i wonder what the red dot is supposed to signify …. It’s like the stencil came from communist China.
Social Media Street Art: Facebook “likes” the city
i found this on the sidewalk on college street near bellevue. i almost didn’t recognize it because my Facebook account is set to french, so i’m never clicking “like,” i’m clicking “j’aime.” i think if it hadn’t been for the distinct blue used in this stencil, i might have missed it. the thumbs-up symbol is a bit distorted as well, it looks like a weathered mitt.
that being said, i fucking J’AIME this to death. i have no idea who the artist is behind it, but i love the idea of social media mingling with street art, because that is essentially what this blog does!
social media has a huge political component to it, as it has the power to encourage revolutions, to whistle-blow on corrupt regimes, to bring hidden scandals to light, and to spread the daily news of the world to people who might not otherwise see it.
street art is very much the same, as it has a huge political component to it, the power to encourage revolutions, and to satirize/comment on/lampoon political leaders, corrupt regimes, along with the ability to question what the news corporations are telling us to believe.
so to summarize: more of this mingling, please. the two mediums are so heavily linked, they deserve to occupy the same conversations in greater frequencies.
Invest in sharing
in the past, i’ve found two sidewalk stencils using Monopoly imagery that spoke about the current economic recession and Occupy Wall Street movements in a provocative way. On bay street and in the annex, i found stencils that says “good news, they dropped the charges.”
now in kensington market, i found this sidewalk stencil, clearly faded and old, with the same imagery (so obviously done by the same guy) but now it says “invest in sharing.”
i’ve said it before, and i’ll say it again: this kind of street art really is the best kind. the stuff that talks about current politics, makes you think, describes ideas or forms of provocative philosophies, is clever and employs a high degree of wit ….most of all, is artistic ….this is the kind of street art that makes our city better. it’s a new form of dialogue.
love love love!
YYZILLA: the garbage can is your polling station
much like the “elections canada vote here” stencils i found spray-painted on garbage cans on queen street a couple weeks ago, street artist YYZILLA (who may have been behind the former…. who knows) takes the idea a step further on garbage cans in kensington market.
if you’re not from toronto, the artist’s name is a bit of a double entendre. the airport code for toronto’s largest airport (pearson airport) is YYZ. so i’m assuming he thinks he’s toronto’s godzilla of street art. that remains to be seen, but if the rest of his work is amazeballs like this, i would be highly inclined to agree.
a further note about my watermarks: as i blogged about last week, i have decided to watermark all my photos from now on to prevent people from ripping me off. yes, it may ruin the aesthetic and composition of my photos, but it’s necessary in order to protect my intellectual and creative property on the internet.
just remember everyone that i’m doing this blog for free.
how i go graff-hunting FOR HOURS EVERY DAY, i write, i take hundreds and hundreds of photographs every month, i design, update, curate, and operate this blog every day FOR FREE.
AND EVEN IF I WAS GETTING PAID TO DO THIS (which i’m not), that still wouldn’t give anyone the right or the tacit authority to steal from me.
you know, i’m really not interested in being a martyr for street art. i love the shit to death, so i photograph it and share it for free with people who love it.
but honestly, there are very few people in the toronto graff and street art scene who are genuine people. most that i’ve encountered are self-serving brown-nosing users. they think that because you’re courteous to them, you will also be their monkey.
seriously, sending me message after message, asking me to plug their projects in my posts, mining me for artist contacts, for insider info, for access into the graff community, and even (incredulously) asking me to spy on opposing crews, while offering in exchange only some kinda bullshit promise of being included in their next “big project” at some point isn’t going to make me shit my pants with excitement, nor with gratitude.
i’m bored about blogging about this already.
hey, let’s bring the focus back to YYZILLA! dude, i feel like i’ve photographed your stuff before, but if you didn’t put your tag next to your work, i might not have known it was you. got a website? a flickr? a tumblr? lemme know so i can photograph more of your exciting work.
