MJ Sneaker Frenzy

Here's what happened outside a bunch of different malls in New Orleans while people patiently waited in line to get their hands on the Air Jordan Concord re-release model that came out this month.

Tats Cru

In every aspect of life whether it be arts, athletics or science there is always one or more individuals that start off like everybody else around them but end up standing above due to exceptional talent, hard work or even a combination of the two. The Tats Cru is a very good example of this paradigm in the realm of street artists. It all started during the early 80’s when New York City witnessed the explosion of graffiti sweeping through the whole town like a twister. As more and more writers kept popping all over, on the northern side near the Bronx area the work of 3 kids blasting subway trains would end up leaving its mark on American street art for good.

Starting off as plain graffiti artists, the members of the TATS Cru would take the next step by eventually specializing, and developing their own personal style, in the creation of murals. For those of you who don’t know, murals are big wall pieces created in memory of people who have passed away, both public figures and everyday people, a sight which is quite frequent in city streets all around the US. As years went by the crew’s size and rep kept growing earning the respect of their peers for their work which was usually praised due to the level of detail and control they exerted over each piece they created. Their talent was their ticket to profit since their work caught the attention of big brands such as Coca Cola and Sony who came up with business proposals, but it was also the same reason why they ended up being recipients of heavy criticism on the street, as some people viewed this as a way of them abandoning the true nature of their craft in order to make money. The reason I learned about their work was their contribution to a marketing campaign created for NAS some years ago, which is also featured on a documentary called “Tats Cru: The Mural Kings” including interviews from crew members such as SEN2 and BG183, as well as rare photographs that unfold the story behind the crew’s work and lifestyle that spans almost over 3 decades.

The modern Gypsy!

No need to describe it. Inspirational. Worth watching..

Slam Dunk Santa!

Another genius advert from Nike

The Burn Units

Tuna of the Day!

Ramdane Touhami

Hogan shoes recently interviewed and spent a day with world renowned Ramdane Touhami, for their "A day in the life of". As Ramdane genuinely said "I'm trying hardly everyday, because you can't have two times the same day". He's a well established and creative dude. Worth taking a look.

Peel Magazine

A couple of years ago a couple from Indiana came up with an idea which aided to the evolution of stickers as a medium of artistic expression like nothing else before. Take your art and STICK IT. That pretty much sums up the notion behind Peel Magazine, an idea Dave and Holly Combs came up with in 2001 focusing on a specific aspect of street art. After the couple had traveled from their hometown of Indianapolis to New York to help clean up the mess that the September 11 attacks had left behind, Dave first noticed Shepard Fairey's Obey Giant sticker on a signpost. At first he found the meaning behind it quite ironic, but when he realized it was spread all around the city, it was then when it suddenly hit him.

This small revelation along with Holly's genuine need to react against a specific letter font that she was getting sick of after using it constantly in a school project a couple of years before, gave them the necessary boost and inspiration they needed to get involved with the sticker-art subculture. So they started to collect, and two years later near the end of 2003, they felt the need to share their sticker collection which had already grown in a size they couldn't even believe themselves. So they took all the stickers they had gathered up to then and put them altogether to create Peel Magazine. Of course things weren't all that easy when they first started. In the beginning when Peel was more like a zine, they started giving away around 200 black and white 8x5 copies together with some stickers, and had them distributed across the country. Gradually though and within a rather small time period, their popularity started to expand outside the US boarder as well, eventually reaching to a point where distribution would go up almost to 200,000 11x8 glossy periodical full color copies on a worldwide scale. Two important factors contributing to the magazine's success according to the Combses were their personal passion for art, as well as the good relations they maintained with the artists who's work they promote through their publications. From the very first issue which focuses solely on sticker art, Peel has reached up to 8 publications at the moment which have evolved in texture and size, and feature artwork from various individuals,some of them having stickers as one of their many different mediums of artistic expression such as Evoker, Above and Shepard Fairey. A typical characteristic of Peel is that within its different issues there seems to be a motif which tends to repeat itself. In other words there are certain categories or themes or whatever you want to call them that appear quite often. These include stickers that have some kind of political or social message into them, usually depicted by some sort of visual that expresses an opinion on society or any political situation, characters which pretty much like graffiti can be associated with a specific artist, various different versions of the magazine's logo, street art not associated with stickers directly such as stencil and spray drawings, sticker art contests that are run by the magazine in which the winner gets to see their work published in Peel's pages, the blackbook which is a series of pages that artists can show their work by paying a small fee in order to go against any kind of corporate sponsorship, and finally toy making which has been getting quite popular among sticker artists lately. Today Dave and Holly have even set up a space in their own home in order to exhibit any kind of work which the magazine can be associated with, and one day hope they can take this to the next level by not just focusing on stickers but in the entire street art culture instead. For a complete list of all the artists that Peel endorses you can check their website

Key pieces of the day!

http://www.lerayonfrais.fr/

Shadowsphere

Fortunate enough I had the opportunity to be present at the Dj Shadow's last show for 2011 in Oxford.

Last night me and a friend John went there having absolutely no high expectations about the show. 

Although it turned out to be absolutely amazing as Shadow's playing inside his Shadow-sphere. 

Needless to say that half of the credits go to the guy who does the visuals. 

Say no more.. here are some photos I took with my phone and videos I found in order to share those moments in detail.

Dadaaan!

One of my favourites.. 

John Geko throws a massive ollie over the Propylea gap(and not only) in the City centre of Athens, while Vilma poses for a UK fashion website. So I thought, why not combine the two concepts into one and see what happens.

Photo by Alexander Bakayannis

Copyright (AB Photography)

Featuring Artist: James Gallagher

James Gallagher is quite the busy type. I must admit I don't really like his name cause it reminds me of those cocky brothers from Manchester that don't even say hi to each anymore, if you know what I mean, but his work is a whole different thing. Apart from being a Brooklyn based artist he is also the creative Director for a marketing firm as well as an instructor at Parsons the New School for Design in New York City. Gallagher's main medium of expression is the use of collage. So what he likes to do is to mess around with different pictures that he collects by cutting them off from books and magazines, and then he puts together his own self-created images to depict a situation or any other scene it is that he wants to illustrate. It might sound easy work at first but being an Illustration and Graphic Design graduate from the School of Visual Arts in New York, from which he also earned a BFA, Gallagher falls into that category of artists who's work holds a versatility strong enough to land it not only inside various galleries across the country in the form of exhibition, like the one he curated entitled Cutters which was also brought to Europe, as well as various books and entries for magazines like Juxtapoz and Arkitip, but also give it enough street cred to end up on clothes and accessories of street fashion brands such as UNDFTD and Stussy. Besides numerous solo exhibitions he has also participated in quite a few group exhibitions both in Europe and the US and various different projects collaborating with the people from the Wooster Collective and American Illustration among many others

Mo' Mondays

Enjoy the "new generation" taking skateboarding to a whole new level.

Who the hell is 123Klan

123Klan comes from Montreal Canada. According to them, if you are not aware of their existence you are some sort of extra terrestrial that landed on this earth from another galaxy or you are Tom Cruise. Sounds legit to me. As an artist collective that doesnt believe in anything that has to do with modern marketing, their client portfolio is quite impressive covering a vast range of brands from Johny Cupcakes and Kid Robot all the way to Adidas, Coca Cola, and Sony Playstation. Have a look

Tuna of the Day!

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Tommorow @ Bios

D-Styles with DJ Excess & Toadstyle

Tarantino VS Cohen Bros

New York City's Bold Hype Gallery located at 547 West 27th Street hosted an exhibition that cinema enthusiasts will find quite appealing. Familiar faces from various works of the Cohen brothers and Quentin Tarantino are all here in "Quentin vs. Coen: An Art Show Tribute to Tarantino and the Brothers." as numerous artists gathered to depict their favorite scenes and characters as a tribute to these aspiring directors

The future of t-shirt graphics

I think i dont even have to comment on this, the title is pretty much self explanatory.