Cute wheat-paste street art work of a dog in the meatpacking District of New York City.
– Posted by Supercore
The New York Times has published a story today about legendary New York City graffiti painter “Iz the Wiz,” who passed away earlier this month. The artist, whose real name was Michael Martin, was most active — and best known for — his illegal spray-can artwork on NYC subway cars in the 1970s and ’80s. There’s a great picture of his work on the Times website as well as a link to a recent video interview of Martins.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/arts/design/29martin.html
A few days ago we posted a video of Japanese artist Ken Hamazaki performing his sublime “Red Tea Ceremony” at the wonderful Kumukumu Gallery in New York City. (See post below.) Here we’re following up with a post of a still image of the event. Note the woman in the traditional kimono at left — she assists the artist during the ceremony.

We just stumbled upon an excellent and timely New York Times slideshow of Iranian art at an exhibition in Chelsea, in New York City. Given the recent election protests and government crackdown in Tehran, Iran, viewing this art work takes on a new cultural context and perspective.

This post is not about “street art” in the usual sense to which the website is devoted, but rather to a specific example of performance art by Japanese artist Ken Hamazaki, which can be seen in the video below. The piece is called “Red Tea Ceremony” and the artist performed it at the opening to his solo show of paintings at Kumukumu Gallery, on Rivington Street, in the Lower East Side of New York City.
Hamazaki is an Osaka-based artist who is well-known for his extreme use of the color red as a visual theme in a lot of his artwork. The Red Tea Ceremony is an aesthetic twist on a totemic Japanese tradition of preparing and serving macha, a kind of frothy green tea.
The exhibition of Hamazaki paintings are on show at Kumukumu from now through August 2, 2009.
We stumbled upon this massive wheat-paste street-art image of legendary actor Leonard Nimoy (who played Spock on the Star Trek television series and movies) by artist Mr. Brainwash in the Meatpacking District of New York City. The picture of the Nimoy has been put up in many variations of sizes and color on many places around downtown the past year. We look forward to seeing a lot more — We love the artist’s work.
- Posted by Supercore
Wheat-paste street art of a shark’s head in the Meatpacking District (a neighborhood we hate and love at the same time) of New York City. The “Toot” label is a mystery to us. There are few of these pieces around the cobblestone-paved nabe. This artwork is near the corner of Washington and W. 13th streets, near the new Standard Hotel and the High Line park.

The past couple of week’s news video showing election protests and government crackdowns in Tehran, Iran is dramatic and riveting. The country may be at transformational political and societal crossroads.
Street art and graffiti have long been a medium for political expression. We wondered, What contemporary street art scene, if any, is there in the Iranian capital? And to what degree is there a political edge to it?
For a taste, we’ve found the Iranian Graffiti and Street Art group photo pool page on Flickr.
One of the group’s biggest contributors is A1one, whose photostream has some images of the protests, including snaps that show “protest pencil” sticker art in the frame.
This wheat-paste image of a skeleton holding a cell phone is a classic by Spazmat. It’s practically an icon in the pantheon of global street art. The example is above the La Esquina mexican restaurant on Lafayette and Kenmare streets in SoHo, in New York City. It’s fresh work; We surmise that it was put up sometime in May or the first few days of June.
