reverse grafitti - cleaning up the urban landscape

Is it art? or is it a crime? does it improve the neighborhood? or does it deteriorate the neighborhood? Cleaning graffiti raises many questions, it provokes us to think about who is responsible to keep our neighborhood clean; ourselves, us that live there, do we have a civic responsibility that goes beyond the front-door? Or should the government be held responsible? after all we pay our taxes? In the end the ethical question is; should somebody that cleans the street, even if it's partial, and they leave a statement behind, should they be sentenced or not? after all, they where cleaning. Apparently we still miss legislation in this area.

Meanwhile marketeers have picked up this new area of advertising. There are already verious advertisement agencies that specialize in tagging our pavements using stencils and high pressure cleaners. Is that ok? even if they apparently ask the government for permission, I think it's questionable,  after all, these tags are way bigger than the traditional stickers and they are more permanent and intrusive than flyers. even though you have to admit that it does wear out after time...

Reverse Graffiti, Range Rover Nieuwegein

Something much more witty is this advertisement by the cleaners at Cartesiusweg, (apologies for poor picture quality) they have depicted different cleaners in Russian Avangardistic style, the cleaners are demanding respect and recognition for housekeeping work. It's ironic that it is right on the walls right next to the dumpster station.

schoonmakers graffiti Cartesiusweg

Reverse graffiti can also be used by yourself to brighten up your own pavement, to add a touch of homeliness to the urban landscape. This is a picture of a carpet that can be applied to your front pavement. Makes the neighborhood cozier I would say, invites you to create a homely living room outside and to sit down and have a chat with the neighborhood.

reverse graffiti - pavement carpet

Inducing warmth and conviviality to your local community by a little maybe illegal intervention, I really don't hope this kind of action will be punished any-time soon in the future

needle-point grafitti

"we live not according to reason, but according to fashion" a quote by Seneca (4 BC till 65 AC) has been used and abused by the fashion in-crowd for long. But i think that who-ever embroidered this in reclaimed street-art graffiti way on the Zeedijk in Utrecht was thinking of something quite different than excusing fashion excesses. It seems more like a statement of protest. 

The statement is embroidered with what seems to be scraps of old fabric that have been torn into strips like a super-sized thread.  A fence that has probably been put up to prevent the public entering a vacant building-lot has been used as canvas. there is a fictive grid on the canvas on which the embroidery has been placed with great care. It's not the simplest, plainest letter-type that has been used, it's a cerif letter-type which is even more demanding to execute perfectly onto a fictive grid on a fence. For each stitch a knot or twirl has to be made to attach the thread. Whoever did this calculated the statement and the grid and with great perseverance and precision carried out the work. It all has an air of reclaimed art, reclaiming the street, this fence, using reclaimed fabric to make a statement.

This is clearly not fashion, nor is it fashionable (less urban art is fashionable of course). This is an area of Utrecht that is housing some creative scene, some old factory buildings that have been housing some of this creative scene are being demolished to give space to what? Modern urban living apartments for the hip hipster. The creative scene becomes homeless to house hipsters, that must be the essence of the statement; most people live according to fashion and not what they believe in. 

we live not according to reason, but according to fashion

we live not according to reason, but according to fashion

Ok, I admit it, it's tweaking the traditional essence of the statement, but I think in this case it might be what was truly meant. If you have been following my blog for longer you will know that I love reclaimed street-art, especially if it appears in the crafted form, love trying to solve the riddle. see also "in a world full of crooks".

Pop-up Lab

Pop-up seems to have taken a new turn. Or have come back to its guerilla roots perhaps? At least my short-term memory tells me about all the (big) brands that have taken advantage of pop-up to create some buzz for their brands. See the Nivea pop-up now already running for 5 years in Milan etcetc. Also some elitist brands like Prada (foundation) hijacked pop-up and turned into artist elitist  shops in the middle of nowhere or starchitect designed circulating pavilions. But here's the new Pop-up, a testing lab for young entrepreneurs or maybe just even people that want to test if their hobby and passion holds up for real business. What also characterizes these young entrepreneurs; they generate interest and promote their business using Facebook . It's for free, and much less difficult than creating a real website. In their shops you find a special mix of niche-brands of all sorts, music, fashion, art, interior alike. It's almost as if this is a personal fingerprint of their own taste. They create these ideas and places because they feel that something is missing, what they like is not there, they respond by making it available.

Wood-Wood pop-up store in Voorstraat, Utrecht

The two girls; Klijs and Boon have kick-started their Nordic fashion-shop with a summer trial-sales of the brand WoodWood. The theme of this temporary summer shop is Cardboard, and it's all over. Firstly it makes it look like the shop is there just for a moment, and that's also what it says on the posters and flyers. It gives the shop that temporary, ephemeral character of just-here-right-now, gone-in-a-sec. It also makes it look as if we had just walked into a factory sale, goods have just been delivered, straight out of the boxes, prices must be affordable a bit like a solde-de-presse in Paris. Lastly it's of course a cheap way of making a creative interior design. And praise to the girls here, it is very creative, just take a look at these pictures.

By the way the shop will not end in August as they say it will continue, they will expand the brands they carry; Acne and Henrik Vibskov will be part of the collection. They will be different from the rest of Utrecht fashion retail by having a younger target (by comparison Zolamanola is somewhat older) the brands and collections will reflect a Nordic lifestyle, and there will be an edge of androgyny to it. Or Boyfriendslook. Or Tomboys, as they aim at making the same stuff available for both girls and boys.

B E D F O R D
open for just one month, the two people who run the initiative took holidays or gave themselves evening-shifts for one month in order to be able to run it. They managed to run 4 different shows during that period, each with an opening on friday night of an artist duo, of course with a grand opening party with music and drinks. The music / DJ offers his mix on Mixtapes @ Soundcloud.com. In Bedford art, music and fashion comes together in a curated match. Besides from the art-duo-exhibition there is also a store that offers furniture, books, t-shirts and edgy fashion. Bedford perfectly illustrates the idea of creative entrepreneurship. It curates the space to a personal idea of what is their extraordinary menu, everything offered is creative, edgy and off the beaten path, but's still pop and comprehensible enough to be just cool, you would instantly want to wear that or house that in your living-room to be cool too.

 

Cupboards by Jifke Heijster

Hannekes boom
suddenly one day it was there, it looks like it has been constructed in an overnight hurry. Just as you would raise an illegal construction on an abandoned lot. But Hannekes Boom is not in a random place it occupies a corner of the Eastern harbor of Amsterdam where boats have been harboring since 1662.  it might look temporary, but it's there to stay, for at least five years I have been told.
The building and all the interior has been constructed using salvaged material, urban debris. Though some of it looks more like it came from the beach. It's all very slammed together and a patchwork of what almost seems random materials. The bar-chairs are 3 beer-crates held together with a roadstrap, and raw treetrunks seem to be carrying the roof. There are rough edges a plenty here, artistic graffiti illustrations decorating the toilet-doors, and Hannekes praises itself to be the new cultural hotspot. On the website Hannekes talks a lot about the history of the place as well as the authentic food. Last I must say was a bit of a disappointment.

...in the world of crooks (2)

The answer to the question of who is that Superhero that is going to save us in a world full of crooks has finally been revealed;

through our actions we will demonstrate our ethics, what we do will be the proof of our ethics or lack thereof. This must be a message to the bankers amongst us, I guess.

read part one here

...in-world-full-of-crooks (1)

... in a world full of crooks

Just opposite the City Movies at the Drift somebody has taken the opportunity to paint a large graffiti on the plywood that encases the scaffolding of some rebuild project. The scaffolding has been used as a canvas to draft something that looks like a modern Western sketched up in comic book style. Not unfitting for a graffiti situated next to a cinema. The whole looks a bit too unplanned for it to be accidental, so the thought strikes me, that it's commissioned work by City Movies. Complete speculation from my side. Some pieces of the comic has been left as blank canvases, an invitation for other graffiti artists to play along and help complete the story. Maybe when this piece comes to it's end, we will discover who was behind it, and what the plan was.

the SUPER adventures of a normal kid

living in a dark grey world full of CROOKS

BUT... there is someone coming out a nothing... ACTION HERO

and he's bringing things in life like: ART, BURNRS

without ANYONE

and from... to..

The End