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Tag: street art

  • Trayvon Martin Street Art Memorial By Matthew Hincman Is A Hidden Treasure Of Boston

    A street artist in Boston has constructed his own small memorial to Trayvon Martin. Since the death of Martin over two years ago, America has still remained shaken, and many in the world are finding their own, sometimes small ways, of dealing. You could say the artist, Matthew Hincman, is adding a small word to the massive conversation that happened in the wake of the shooting and subsequent trial

    What is the artist trying to say? Hincman is quite succinct in this description of the memorial on his website:

    This site-specific sculpture depicts a cast-away hoodie sweatshirt lying on the ground, referencing the tragic killing of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, in 2012. Affixed to an abandoned lamp-post base in the shadow of the 1871 West Roxbury Civil War Soldier’s Monument, in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood, STILL aims to provoke reflection on the legacy of racism, power, and privilege in the United States.

    WBUR interviewed Hincman and discovered that he found the abandoned lamppost and was dying to leave his mark on it. “There’s no collective memory around those historical monuments any more,” he told them “Who do we memorialize? Why do we memorialize them in the public space?”

    So he and his assistant placed the memorial without even asking permission first.


    Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

    Hincman is somewhat famous for sneaking installation art into various public places. Here he discusses the philosophy behind the art in terms of an oddly curved park bench:

    The art installation is gaining momentum on Twitter, with a few intrepid wanderers of Boston snapping their own photos of the memorial:

    Of course, not all memorial street artists are as subtle, small, or creative as Hincman. Memorials to Martin are becoming a global phenomenon. It’s certain Hincman is not the last to leave his mark.

    Image via YouTube.

  • Walmart Has Been Selling Banksy Knockoffs

    Walmart and Banksy are two names that sound odd in the same sentence, but sometimes life imitates art.

    The company has reportedly been selling knockoffs of some famous paintings by the street artist through a third-party vendor on their website, and recently took the items down after Banksy’s reps called them out on it.

    California street artist Eddie Colla says that one of his works–which has the words “If you want to achieve greatness stop asking for permission” stenciled on it–was also being sold on the site but was marked as a Banksy piece. The irony of his art being sold by a huge corporation is not lost on him.

    “That’s the irony, isn’t it?” Colla said. “I made a piece about individuals controlling their own fate and not making their success contingent on the approval of others. It then gets adopted by a neo-feudal corporation like Walmart.”

    Walmart issued a statement about the art–which has been taken off their site–saying, “These items are sold through our Marketplace third-party sellers Wayfair and PlumStruck. We’ve taken action to disable the one item in question by Callo, and it will be unpublished later tonight around midnight PT. We will also instruct Wayfair and Plumstruck to review their artwork to ensure the descriptions are accurate. They’ve provided great products and experiences to our customers and are contracted to comply with product copyright, safety, testing and certification requirements. We’ll work closely with them on the review.”

    Banksy–and street art in general–has been in high demand this year due to something of a “street residency” in New York City in the fall. The U.K.-based artist left his mark on several streets around the boroughs, some of which was promptly chiseled down by rabid fans and some of which was covered over by other artists. Banksy also pulled a controversial stunt towards the end of his stay in the city, setting up a booth full of his stencils–which are worth thousands of dollars–and selling only a few due to the public’s assumption that they were fakes.

    Image: Walmart/LAist

  • Banksy Piece Tagged, Graffiti Artist Beaten Up

    Banksy has taken over New York in the last couple of weeks, leaving his stenciled artwork all over the place and creating little pockets of art appreciation every time someone spots the work. But for as many people as there are who want to enjoy the work, have their picture taken with it, and celebrate their own little moment in the history of street art, there are almost as many who want to either destroy the work due to their belief that Banksy is a sell-out or take it down and hang it up in their house. Because of this, Banksy supporters have started getting handsy with anyone who poses a threat to the artwork.

    According to AnimalNewYork.com, a graffiti artist tagged Banksy’s latest creation–a stencil in Williamsburg showing two women walking over a stone arch–and was quickly taken down by the manager of the building it was on. Soon after, a group of people grabbed their own paint and began restoring the work as best they could.

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    The street artist pulled a prank on New Yorkers earlier this month when he set up a street booth containing original stencils and sold them for $60 apiece. Passerby thought they were knock-offs, so only three people bought the works. They are valued at up to $30,000 (Molly Crabapple wrote a lovely piece about the whole thing here).

    Images: Aymann Ismail/ANIMALNewYork
    Lead image: Banksy.com