Yet another blog about Shoreditch street art
There are many hugely well-informed articles about street art. This isn’t one of them. This is a rather thinly veiled excuse to show lots of photos I’ve taken over the last couple of years, mainly around Shoreditch (which is pretty close to Clerkenwell, so that’ll do). And the good thing is, the photography itself doesn’t need to be anything special, as the real visual interest comes from the work itself. Easy!
Having said that, I did go to the effort of finding out a few bits and bobs about some of the artists, and realised there’s a whole, huge, wonderful world of street art out there in London. And many, many other places around the world. There’s tagging, wildstyle, roller, crew, legal walls, mural, sticker, stencil, roller, yarn bombing and all sorts of other words you can look up. And a plethora of interesting questions one could ask. At what stage does graffiti become street art? Are either of them vandalism? How much of street art is done in secret and illegally, and how much is carried out with permission or a commission?
Instead of answering those questions, however, I’m going to show lots of pretty pictures (well I find them pretty), with a few words to break them up.
Thierry Noir
Thierry Noir is a well known name and has a very recognisable visual style, although he still remains relatively unknown. At age 22, he went from his home town of Lyon to Berlin. He painted the Berlin Wall illegally every day for five years with bold, cartoon-like images of animals and human faces. In order to paint quickly and avoid arrest in West Berlin, Noir simplified his figures into one continuous line painted with one or two bright colours. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall he has been invited to paint all over the globe from South Korea to Mexico.
Noir's exploits and highly distinctive visual language have become world famous and immortalised in popular culture such as Wim Wenders' 1987 film Wings of Desire and the cover of U2's album Acthung Baby.
Around 2014, Noir completed a number of murals in Shoreditch, where he also held his first solo exhibition.
I took these photos before I knew who’d actually done them. Then stumbled across a small gallery in Shoreditch selling everything from original works, to wellington boots. I was torn between disappointment that the young radical rebel had ‘sold out’, and admiration that a truly talented artist was finally being rewarded for a lifetime of brave and important work. Having read a little about him, I’m very much in the second camp.
Ben Eine
Ben Eine is best known for the vibrant typographical letters that have popped up all over East London over the past half of the decade. He was brought up in South London and started out in the world of graffiti when he was just 14. He says “I wanted to be part of that hooded tracksuit gang thing. I did it pretty hardcore for about 20 years and the last time I had a close escape from prison.’ Now a big part of the London street art scene, Eine is eager to point out that street art is very different to graffiti. “Street artists want to add something to the environment. They consider the audience, whereas graffiti writers don’t care about anyone except themselves, they do it purely for the kick”.
Stik
Stik started painting around his hometown of Hackney, East London in 2001. He became homeless around this time, and endured destitution for a period lasting about 10 years. He regularly relied on the generosity of friends for a place to stay, but he also spent many nights on the streets or in abandoned buildings. Stik lived through a lot of violence on the streets, and he recalls many times when he felt his life was in danger and he expected to die. “My pieces are about moving through the cityscape and feeling insecure.” The figures often seem to convey a sense of questioning or longing, sometimes even despair. “A lot of my work is loaded with a kind of melancholy,”
His simple stick figures can be seen throughout the streets of London, and now overseas too. Each location is carefully considered, and many are regularly revisited and maintained.
The current development of ‘Shoreditch Triangle’ where Old Street, Great Eastern Street and Rivington Street converge has angered the street art community, conservationists and locals alike. Hackney planners have approved plans for a 22-storey hotel replacing a 1950s office building and the former Foundry pub described as “a crucible of the Britart movement”. This abandoned site had been used as an unofficial gathering place for street art for years.
The removal of some advertising boarding has revealed three figures from London artist Stik that hadn’t been seen in years. This remains on view for the time being.
The most famous current UK street artist (or possibly artist of any type?) is, of course, Banksy. And two of his early pieces were also to be found at the same site, dating from 2004 when the Foundry was still at the centre of the graffiti scene in the area. They had been protected beneath a wooden structure since 2007, to allow new works to be painted on the wall. One of a giant rat holding a knife and fork and the other a TV being thrown out of a window. Whilst the Banksy work was saved, there was no such luck for Ben Eine’s prophetic declaration ‘The Last Day’s of Shoreditch’. This was knocked down as gentrification and development are slowly but surely changing the character of the area.
The wall segment was lifted moved to the front of the site in May 2019. It is thought that it will be turned around to be visible from the inside of the new blingy building. A spokeswoman for developers said: "The aim of the client and design team is to permanently locate the artworks on site, in one of the public galleries at ground floor – this is to be agreed with Hackney council." Commenting on the irony of saving his works and not the venue itself, Banksy said at the time, “It’s a bit like demolishing the Tate and preserving the Ice-Cream van outside.”
Banksy
The above photo shows a more recent Banksy from 2017. The Jean-Michel Basquiat-inspired artworks appeared on the walls of the Barbican, just days before the London gallery opened a major exhibition of the late New York artist's work.
Like Banksy and the other artists mentioned in this blog-type thing, New York artist Basquiat also took to the streets to find an audience for distinct vision. As did his mate Keith Haring, possibly the most famous ‘street artist’ of them all. But that’s a whole other blog, I guess. And has even less to do with Clerkenwell than this one.
Here are a few links about some of the artists mentioned. Well worth a look:
Chris Walker @Clerkenwell101