“Secret Team is a graffiti zine strictly for writers. The first issue features writers from around the country as well as the UK and New Zealand.”
“We started it because there is nothing for writers locally, if you want to see street art or characters you can find tons of that anywhere but actual graffiti letters and handstyles - the crux of what writing is - is not catered for by anyone, so we stepped in.”
“There are many writers in SA with good style and lettering but get no chance to shine, whereas character ‘writers’ get a lot of limelight so we wanted to showcase some local skills and make a zine just for those who piece, tag, throwup, etc.”
Secret Team is available at Shelflife Store (119 Loop Street, Cape Town) for R25
You can keep the zine going by sending submissions to zecretteam@gmail.com
Alliance Française invites you to meet Jace, graffiti artist from Reunion Island:
Talk & demo
Friday 15 March, 2pm
at Alliance Française de Durban
22 Sutton Crescent
Morningside
Durban
Tel: 031 312 9582 / Fax: 031 312 2864
Free coffee & biscuits RSVP before Thurs 14 at
culture.afdurban@alliance.org.za
“Jace is a graffiti artist originally from Le Havre in northern France who has lived on Reunion Island since he was 9 years old. He created Gouzou, a humorous, faceless character who remains fearless under any climate, in any circumstance and any country. It is Jace’s passion for drawing and his dream of an underground lifestyle that prompted him to specialize in graffiti art. Fascinated by the idea of transforming advertising posters, he has exhibited his work in many countries around the world. Eager to protect his freedom of expression, he no longer wants to solely express himself through Gouzou, and we can expect surprises during his residency in Durban.”
“Ntombenhle Mbongwe is studying at the KZNSA Durban Centre for Photography since last year, she’s a durbanite photographer and has been the winner of the Alliance Française Foundation photography competition in Kwazulu-Natal. She will follow Jace at every step of the residency and go to Reunion Island for the South African Season in France for the presentation of the work they’ve made together.”
“Jace will give a talk about his trips all round the world - together with the character he created 20 years ago, Gouzou - and about his residency/tour in South Africa & Botswana.”
>> Download a PDF with all the tour info and workshop dates here: pdf_jace_eng.pdf
Herakut is the graffiti duo of Hera (Jasmin Siddiqui) and Akut (Falk Lehmann). Since meeting in 2004, they have exhibited their works worldwide and have a very distinct graffiti style, often working with various mediums on outside walls and in galleries (including sculpture). Most of their work is improvised as the two combine their different skills - Akut’s photo-realism and Hera’s spontaneous and almost ‘dirty’ means of painting - resulting in almost dreamlike paintings which grab the viewers attention.
Looking forward to seeing who else is going to grace Johannesburg with their art…
Painting The Town, a long running Cape Town graffiti blog, have been working on a book which will be released next month. This will be the first book on South African graffiti and will feature pictures and interviews with writers from the Cape Town scene.
Wednesday 17 October 2012, 16:00 – 18:00 The Lovell Gallery, 139 Albert Road, Woodstock.
As part of the process toward drafting a Public Art Regulatory Framework, the City of Cape Town’s Arts and Culture Department, in partnership with the Lovell Gallery, will be hosting a public discussion that addresses the politics and practices around contemporary street art. This will be followed by a film screening of a street art documentary.
The discussion will be chaired by Zayd Minty; Manager of the City’s Arts and Culture Department. Panelists include: Farzanah Badsha (Creative Cape Town) and Roger van Wyk (Educentric cc)Augustine Kofie(international street artist), Ricky-Lee Gordon (Word of Art). The forum invites a discussion around cultural processes and practices of street art.
Grant Pascoe, the Mayoral Committee member for the Tourism, Events and Marketing Directorate has the following to say: “The City of Cape Town is committed to enabling creativity in our city. The World Design Capital 2014 accolade is evidence of our growing stature as a cultural capital. The promotion of Public Art, including Street Art, is critical to a city with aspirations to foster creativity. For this reason we are pleased to have brought this forum of artists, industry leaders and cultural practitioners to discuss Public Art. This forum is part of the City’s ongoing attempts to nurture local art and artists, to beautify and enliven city spaces and to create an enabling environment for public art”.
The following issues will also be tabled for public discussion: Street Art in the Social and Political life of the City, Street Art as Fine Art – addressing street art as visual culture and Public / Street Art Policies both nationally and internationally.
To confirm your attendance, please RSVP to Nikita Campbell:
Nikita.Campbell@capetown.gov.za / 021 417 4095
Check out the new designer resin toy from The Given:
Keg O’ Boom is the realisation of years worth of idea’s, planning and hard work from Cape Town artist and designer; The Given. This limited edition resin figure has been hand molded and cast from The Given’s original sculpt and no more than 50 pieces of this brilliant figure will see the light of day - with one in every five being rare glow-in-the-dark variants and one ultra rare hand-painted figure!
The figure will be available during a pre-order period of one month for the surprisingly low amount of R150 and for R180 after that period.
We invite you to take part in making this project a success so that South Africa’s vinyl/resin toy scene can grow.
“We’re excited to officially launch Trees for Zambia – a project by Greenpop in association with Zambezi Nkuku.”
“Zambia has the 2nd highest deforestation rate in the world and we want to start doing some thing about it, but we need your help! We’ll be planting over 5000 trees in 3 weeks this July in Livingstone to kick-start an ongoing reforestation and eco-education project. Volunteers from all over (community members, school children and local business people) are getting their hands dirty to green the area.”
Check out a previous Greenpop project with Reverse Graffiti HERE.
Calling all writers and artists Paint for Palestine
Israel Apartheid Week 5 – 11 March 2012
“PAINTFORPALESTINE is a call to all street artists and graffiti writers to use this week to create work with FREEPALESTINE as the theme, to promote the Palestinian cause and raise awareness around the fight for human rights that ensues daily within Israel and the Occupied Territories. The colours of the banned Palestinian Flag are Red, Black, White and Green and have come to symbolise the right to self-determination that the Palestinian people are fighting for.”
The Spanish art collective, Boa Mistura (meaning ‘Good Mixture’) have released a book documenting their time spent in Cape Town last year. They were only here for one month as part of the /A Word Of Art artist residency, but this did not stop the five men; Arkoh, Derko, Pahg, Purone and Rdick from doing anything half-hearted.
We’re not sure if the book is going to be available for purchase, but we do know that there will be a local screening of their Cape Town film, Diamond Inside, in the near future.
350.org, an organisation that aims to build a global movement to solve the climate crisis, launched Earth in 2010, a collaborative arts project to help spark this movement. Now, select artists (including South Africa’s Freddy Sam) have taken to the streets, creating works that are in public space for all to see.
‘Art has the power to move the masses and get people to stop, think and ideally act on the greatest challenge of our time.’
“Fifteen local artists have been selected to design, illustrate or photograph work around the theme of Khayelitsha Culture. The work will be turned into large scale wheat pastes and will be pasted around Khayelitsha and the inner city of Cape Town.”
“The aim: to take the exhibition out of the gallery space and into the streets of both city and township. Spreading the art into the different cultures and allowing the greater community access.”
There will be live updates on the SJ Artists twitter feed. Final images will be on sale on the Between10&5 website to raise funds for this project and other projects in the future.
Participating artists:
Simon Berndt (One Horse Town)
Cassandra Leigh
Lauren Fowler
Wesley Van Eeden
Russel Goodman
Swain Hoogervorst & Paul Ward
Miné Jonker & Clinton Campbell (Studio Muti)
Black Koki & 35ten73 (Love & Hate)
Julia Merrett
Claire Homewood
Mak1one
Fuzzy Slippers (Mafuta Ink)
Donna Solovei
Yuma Yoshimura (TOKYO)
Linsey Levendall
Jonx Pillemer
The project begins this Friday, 9 September until 30 September 2011.
The concept of Splitpiece is to join photographs of artworks that have been created on different walls, forming one whole picture that has diverse backgrounds. The theory behind this concept, created by Falko, is to create unity. This is a unique idea and Falko has been creating more exciting murals with Nard in the small town of Darling.
New murals will be revealed on his Flickr photostream this week. All the murals are in one residential street - Akkerboom Laan - and form a living gallery like no other.
The local graffiti world is buzzing after news of what happened in Durban on Sunday. Seven graffiti artists were arrested at the Eiy5 Memorial Graffiti Jam in Sydney Road and are now appearing in court on September 14. This event was organised and publicised weeks before, with permission from the perceived owner of the wall. It now seems like the wall had been leased from the municipality and was never a legal graffiti wall.
The Citizen and The Mercury newspapers published articles on Monday stating that these men were related to gangs and that this was gang graffiti. Find these here
The overwhelming response is that these articles were sensationalist, melodramatic and pieces of irresponsible journalism. A new website has been set up to create awareness and respond to what has happened… www.gangsofgraffiti.wordpress.com
A graffiti jam that took place in Durban yesterday took a turn for the worse when seven people were arrested on charges relating to vandalism. The event was created to pay tribute to a deceased friend and was held at a location where several graffiti jams have taken place over the last few years.
PUMA and SHELFLIFE, Cape Town’s premium street-wear and graffiti supply store, have joined forces once again. The two have collaborated to create their first range of mens and ladies sneakers, a first for an independent retailer in South African history. The collection will be released worldwide on the 8th of August 2011. The featured release is the “Train Runner”. This sneaker is inspired by the bold yellow & grey South African metro trains that are notoriously dangerous for many reasons. These are a must for art fanatics and sneaker collectors alike.
LAUNCH-PARTYENTRYCOMPETITION
To stand a chance to win a ticket to the PUMA X SHELFLIFE
sneaker launch party, all you have to do is submit any picture of
a South African train. It can be anything from the insides to the
outside and does not have to include graffiti. Best photos win.
Read all about Wide Open Walls 2011 in our Rest of Africa section. The project took place earlier this month in The Gambia and featured some great artists from all around the world.
Spanish art collective Boamistura have just released the trailer for their forthcoming documentary about the time they spent in Cape Town earlier this year.
Faith47 is one of South Africa’s best graffiti artists and one of the leading female urban artists in the world. She creates powerful, thought-provoking images that reflect on social issues. Her artwork speaks to the individual as it crosses both artistic and cultural borders.
Her first book is due for release in March 2011 through From Here to Fame Publishing as part of the ONTHERUN series.
Title: FAITH 47
Series: On The Run Books
Author: From Here to Fame Publishing
Pages: 128 full color
Photographs: ca. 250 photographs & illustrations
Format: 23.5 x 16cm (9.25 x 6.3 inches)
Language: English edition
Published: 5th of March 2011 ISBN Paperback: 978-3-937946-08-5
Price Paperback: 9.95 €
Limited collector’s Edition: ISBN Hardcover: 978-3-937946-09-2
Silver Embossed Hardcover with Jacket & Stitch Binding
Price Hardcover: 14.95 €
Features news, pics and event info to keep you updated with what is happening in the South African graffiti scene. Also featuring some international news.
