Bomb-It, the movie premier - LA

If you are in Los Angeles or nearby you should definitely make it down for the premier of Bomb-It, Jon Reiss's new street art documentary. It's pretty stellar, and we're sponsoring the premier party with magazines. So hop down and get a free copy!

Holy shit it's Holy Sin!

Just got a fresh batch of pics in of his work in Vienna.

Tomorrow night in New York Fuckin City:

Make sure to get there early...

The Beautiful Beginning of a Beautiful Thing

Dearest Oversprayers,
I am so thrilled to announce the first official OS Grates Mural - "So Here's the Story" by Ripo. Appropriately resembling a kind of title page for the project, Ripo's mural kicks off what we hope to be a long and happy relationship with these lovely grates (just around the corner from our offices, its located just south of the corner of Wyckoff and Willoughby, Jefferson stop on the L train).
Big thanks to Ad Hoc Gallery and Sabotaz

Visiting and local artists are all welcome to submit requests to paint one or both garage doors, so spread the word and email submissions to monica(dot)overspray(at)gmail(dot)com.
Keep an eye out for some nasty Austrian work coming soon :)

What's your definition of property?

Brought to you by the great minds of Little People comes the Inner City Snail Project.

click here for more

A nationwide search? Really??

Taken from the Montreal Gazette:

"Nationwide hunt for man accused of graffiti
Police say he may be headed for Montreal

Saskatoon police issued a Canada-wide warrant Friday for an alleged graffiti artist after Vancouver police tipped them off about his cross-Canada travel plans.

Victor Briestensky, 20, is charged with two counts of mischief under $5,000 and four counts of breach of a recognizance order. Police allege Briestensky's "tag" - a symbol identifying his graffiti work - was found at least once in Saskatoon and twice in Regina.

Investigators believe he is headed for Montreal and may try to leave the country.

Vancouver Province"

Seen in Vienna

--- SMURF ---

BAST show - BROOKLYN!

Books brings it

Our boy Books III has a new project. Inquire for prices:

shows at Pure Evil gallery

No New Enemies

"No New Enemies," a group show featuring Neasden Control Centre, Boris Hoppek, Alex Diamond, Bo 130, Microbo, Morcky, the Bogue, and Wayne Horse among many other artists, wrapped up in Brussels over the weekend at Les Nuits Botanique. The show was amazing! Take a look at some pictures.

Electric Windows

Our friends Dan and Kalene from Thundercut and Open Space pulled off their show, "Electric Windows" in Beacon, NY this past weekend. 24 artists came together to create live artwork and to have their work installed on the exterior of a 19th century factory building. Overspray-endorsed artist, ILOVEMYBOO, had a piece in one of the windows. The opening went off great, and the exterior exhibit will be up for you to see for the next 12 months. The inside show is only going till June 7th though. Definitely check this out!

Electric Windows
May 17th - June 7th
Open Space Gallery
510 Main St.
Beacon, NY

www.openspacebeacon.com
www.thundercut.com
www.electricwindowsbeacon.com

cut up

be there

Be sure not to miss this one

we are sponsoring this here party

get a free magazine if you're lucky..

I Can Has Street Art

For all you internet geeks out there, it seems a band of intrepid SF-ites have painted the world's largest LOLcat on the side of a building. Sources report that, once the work was done, they went to eat cheezburgers.

Check out more coverage here: http://laughingsquid.com/the-worlds-largest-lolcat-invisible-bike-mural/

(thanks for the tip, Fay)

Knitta Please in New York

Adbusters magazine says 'STREET ART IS DEAD"

Sometime in the autumn of 2006, an anonymous figure began a campaign in the pre-dawn streets of New York. Armed with paint cans and propaganda, he set out to cast a blight upon once sacred images. With furious, brightly colored bursts, wall after wall of celebrated street art was systematically obliterated. Revolutionary creativity does not shock or entertain the bourgeoisie, read communiqués posted at the scene, it destroys them. Deriding street artists as “advance scouts for capital,” the Splasher, as he came to be known, was issuing a proclamation.

The first evidence of a rising discontent came in the summer. It began with the artist known as Swoon. In a world filled with violent color and provocative imagery, her work stood apart - restrained and serene. Her ethereal figures quietly populated the city’s bridge embankments and back alleys bringing a haunting, humanistic quality to otherwise drab urban areas. Then someone started crossing out their eyes. In large black letters, the words SOLD TO MoMA were stenciled next to the newly blind.

It’s a cycle that has become all too familiar. Anything subversive, anything meant to disrupt the status quo and challenge traditional models of thought and behavior is eventually adopted into the mainstream it is swimming against. Once caught in the currents of convention, it becomes powerless. Just another commodity to be traded in the system. Swoon had long been regarded as a holdout, not to be counted among artists growing increasingly more inclined to traffic with the consumer culture they were meant to be undermining. But then she sold. Whether an out should be affixed remains a matter of opinion. One thing is clear – the sale of her work signaled to someone that she had lost sight of the mission.

The splashing began last November. And though Swoon was among the first to be hit, she was no longer alone. What was originally conceived as the antipode to a gallery culture that focused too much attention on the individual was now producing megawatt stars of its own. The brighter an artist’s work shone on the street, the more likely it was to draw the ire of the Splasher. This fact gave rise to an obvious and widely propagated theory: the Splasher resented success. Perhaps he was a jealous artist unable to garner the same attention paid to the darlings of the scene. Or maybe a misguided revolutionary clinging naïvely to the idealistic notion that true artists must remain uncorrupted by the forces of capitalism. Either way, his criticisms were dismissed as bullshit.

After all, he did hit a Banksy.

In the soaring pantheon of street art, none sits on high quite like the mythic Briton. When he descended upon Williamsburg, a Brooklyn neighborhood teetering on the precipice of gentrification, the piece he bestowed there was widely heralded as a gift. Stenciled on the face of an otherwise unremarkable building, a small girl skips rope blissfully unaware that the cord she grips in her small hands originates from a nearby electrical box. A young boy raised on painted toes stands poised to flip the switch. The work was a pristine example of the graceful commentary the world has come to expect from the enigmatic artist. When the Splasher defaced it, he committed the ultimate act of blasphemy. In wounded awe, we mouthed a collective why?

From the Splasher’s communiqué: A Dadaist once smashed a clock, dipped the pieces in ink, pressed the ink-soaked pieces against a sheet of paper and had it framed. His purpose was to criticize the modernist idealization of efficiency. Rather than inspiring the widespread smashing of clocks and the re-evaluation of time in society, the piece of paper itself has become a sought-after commodity.

Banksy’s work is largely found on walls. It can be found on the working-class walls of Bristol, the wall erected to further define the separation between Israel and the occupied territories and on walls in the Los Angeles home of actor Brad Pitt. Last year, the sale of his work broke records at Sotheby’s.

The underground art scene whipped itself into a frenzy trying to uncover the Splasher’s identity. Having suffered the desecration of Banksy, there was a universal thirst for blood. The blogosphere was set ablaze in rumor and online tribunals formed in which suspects were named, tried and convicted by a jury of their virtual peers. It all became very simple. The Splasher was a villain and the artists were his victims. The artists, it was decided, must be protected.

But it wasn’t them he was after – it was us.

All art is subject to the same evolutionary cycle. It is created, absorbed into collective consciousness and then coveted. It’s not enough that it exists, it must be owned. Street art grew out of a resistance to this fact. It was a fuck you to the fastidious little gallery owner and his 50 percent cut. A rejection of the exploitative nature of the collector. It was democratic rebellion. Art for everyone. But then we started buying it. And now we, as a culture who demand ownership and insist that art be hung on gleaming white walls, are the ones being splashed.

you are bummed if you are not in the Netherlands..

This just in from the ZonenKinder:

'Hello there,

we would like to announce the upcoming group-exhibition we are taking part in. The exhibition is called "STREETVISION" feat. l`atlas, lastplak, klub7, d-struct, bitches in control, super a, zonenkinder and many more (you can find the official flyer in the attachment) and will take place in Breda, Netherlands from 23rd may - 29th june 2008!

For further informations please check: www.noisivision.nl/streetvision

all the best
peace.
Carolin&Philipp

--
Zonenkinder Collective

www.zonenkindercollective.de.vu'

NOV YORK CITY

Factory Fresh opens! - the new Orchard Street Art Gallery

Our friends Ad and Ali (of Skewville and Pufferella fame) are launching their new space in Bushwick in June! Finally!
If you dont know, Ad and Ali are the former proprietors of the Orchard Street Art Gallery. Early home to what we now know as the New York street art scene's infant coughs and murmurs. Nod respectful props to them and come show some love. NOT TO BE MISSED.



The people and the space, in their own words:
'Factory Fresh is the newest space brought to you by Ali Ha and Ad Devillle formerly of Orchard Street Art Gallery in Manhatten's Lower East Side. SInce 2002 Ali and Ad have shown the art of themselves and the art of fellow artist they met in the global street art scene and in the NYC Community. Many people consider their gallery to be the first and only street art gallery during their time on Orchard Street.

High hopes & new horizons lead Ad and Ali with their latest space Factory Fresh aiming to push the art boundries further bringing the latest art works from the freshest artists around the globe and always at factory direct prices.

Factory Fresh Opens During the Bushwick Open Studios weekend Friday June 6, 2008 from 6pm-10pm. And Saturday June 7 from 1-9pm.

Factory Fresh is located at 1053 Flushing Avenue between Morgan and Knickerbocker, off the L train Morgan Stop'

The Show:
FACTORY FRESH
direct from
SKEWVILLE

'Grand Opening Party
Friday, June 6th 6-9pm

Limited show only till
Saturday, June 7th 1-9pm


Skewville will transform this former brooklyn bodega into a Pop-Art Market for the galleries grand opening. Skewville has been making great advancements in the experimentation of street stamping technology along with revamping city materials to communicate phrases like “FRESH” and “FAME GAME”.

Yet, most know is Skewville’s Sneaker mission, WHEN DOGS FLY, since 1999 they have been manufacturing fake wooden sneakers, which can be found tossed over thousands of power lines in your neighborhood and all over the world.


www.whendogsfly.com
www.skewville.org'

WWW.FACTORYFRESH.NET

Kofie'One relaunches his dope website!

Long time Overspray golden child, Kofie'One of Los Angeles, has relaunched his website. This man is hands down one of the most talented young artists working today. Prolific doesnt begin to approach defining his work ethic. Here are a smattering of images grabbed from his new website. Have a gander and keep an eye out for the storm.
www.keepdrafting.com



















Some of his dope photography with a polaroid Land camera: