Small Eats

Had my first week at my new job this week and it's been pretty full on, a lot to learn but it's already pretty varied and different. So I haven't been able to keep up with much this week, but here's a little round up of a few arty/asian things I've seen.

The new London Elektricity album has been included in the ART VINYL awards. I've thought for a while that Hospital Records put a lot of effort into their album covers. Helped by Trickartt they create some pretty cool images. Of course this wouldn't be a Hot Pot post without some reference to Flickr so here is Trickartt's Flickr. I particularly like his Berocca Obama.

On the Obama theme too, a new exhibition has opened in Miami with loads of artwork covering the new U.S President elect

Following on from the Monkey - Journey to the West Opera, Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn have put together a new short film based on it. It's pretty cool I reckon.
It seems there's a lot of art stuff going on in Miami at the moment as I also found this


For more like this check these folks: Rogerio Degaki, Krampf Gallery and Tokyo Gallery
This is a pretty big post and it probably doesn't make any sense but nevermind. Oh and I learnt a random fact this week, 5000 people work at Harrods, 5000!!!

Adam Neate Free Art

This Friday Nov 14th, Adam Neate, a street artist renowned for giving away his work for free by leaving it on London's streets will distribute 1,000 silkscreen prints around the streets of London. During the night, teams will work from the outskirts of London towards the centre, leaving the prints as they go.

It's estimated that the collective worth of these prints is £1million, so if you walk past one of these prints, looking a little out of place, give it a second thought and pick it up, it might make Christmas all the merrier!

Reverse Graffiti

Reverse Graffiti

Where graffiti is often viewed as making marks on otherwise "clean" surfaces, reverse graffiti involves cleaning previously dirty wall with high pressure hoses in order to make a picture. This flips our usual ideas about the artform, highlighting how dirty some of our surroundings really are. The examples above come from road tunnels which are covered in layers of grime.

Japanese Graffiti

A forthcoming book on Japanese Graffiti shows artists there have been influenced by American graffers but have given the format their own unique spin, including imagery from anime, japanese traditions and kanji script.

HERE!!!!!!
A number of the more forward thinking Japanese artists can be found here. Their styles and designs are a lot less aggressive than traditional grafitti, briniging life to otherwise dull building fronts. Sasu's blog in particular, shows this.

Drawing on the Street and Drawing in an Ad

Two nice examples of drawing working well on both a street art billboard and an animation for a Nike Women campaign. The billboard is drawn by Hellovon, a London based illustrator.

The Berliner Dom/Disney/Hokusai

Street artist Jaybo has created a Hokusai influenced projection onto the Berliner Dom, the largest cathedral in Berlin. The image is comprised of cartoon hands that linked together make up the shape of the wave. The result is pretty spectacular!

Slinkachu at Cosh Gallery Soho London

A new exhibition to launch in London this week - "Ground Zero: Little People in the City" by Slinkachu under the tagline "Little handpainted people, left in London to fend for themselves". I would try to explain the results of his work, but the blurb from the gallery does a great job:

"Slinkachu has taken street art to a new scale,
painstakingly hand-painting tiny characters that live
in a world that’s too small for us to always notice
beneath our feet. His street installations are
constructed in all sorts of public spaces, the portrayal
of little lives that mirror our own. Working in miniature
opens up the city landscapes in unexpected ways
and this is explored in Ground Zero where he literally
brings you down to a new level.
Ground Zero is both street art installations and
photography. The two go hand in hand with the
subsequent photograph uncovering his hidden
world. The show depicts the little fears and anxieties
of city life and the general feeling of being alone or
insignificant in a large city. While the scenes reflect
the loneliness and melancholy of urban life there is
always an underlying sense of humour and feeling of
empathy"

A Little Bit of Beijing

Images courtesy of Dan Eckstein.

Dan Eckstein has gone on a photographic journey of China, covering 10,000km in eight weeks and creating a document of China as it is from the high rises of Beijing to the Tibetan Plateau and the Yangzi river. In Beijing, Eckstein visited the 798 space art district, aburgeoning arts district in the northwest of Beijing. For a number of years, Beijing based artists and designers have made this area their home and the work being produced there is at the forefront of Chinese contemporary art. The studios and galleries are housed in old munitions and metals factories which in themselves are quite striking spaces.

Dan's Picture China photoblog can be seen here

The digital building Beijing:

Hospital Records Designs

I've often thought that designing album covers would be a great job. These three examples from Hospital Records show a great sense of humour.

Street Art My Arse

No comments needed really, it speaks for itself!

Li Wei - Dangerous

No- they're not photoshopped. Li Wei creates these "performance art photos" using props and extremely strong wires. His photos show him in precarious situations where for the viewer, the only possible outcome is disaster. These situations range from the above, to falling from the sky to having already landed, head first into various objects (cars, the ground, lakes).

His work evokes strong reactions from passers by: "The first reaction is astonishment. Some people think they are full of sense of humour. They are curious about how I did this".

It's this sense of humour, albeit slightly dark, that makes these images so striking. It's something that I mentioned in a previous post and I'm glad I've been able to find an example so quickly to illustrate my point.

Find more of Li Wei's photos here

China's Creative Imperative - Kunal Sinha

"I've learnt from my experience in China to never under-estimate the Chinese. Kunal's insight creates a compelling case that they have what it takes to move beyond the world's factory to become a force in creativity. "
— Colin Giles, President, Nokia China



Burying your head in the sand...
....if you think that China is not going to become a creative force in the future. This follows on from my last post, creativity in China is booming at the moment, especially in the fields of music and illustration/design. It's timely that a Strategy Director at Ogilvy Greater China has just published a book on the subject.

China' s in a unique position to absorb the best of all the creative talent and ideas arriving on it's shores, and to build a strong visual/design community and identity of its own. I think the next ten to twenty years will be a hugely exciting time to be involved with this kind of work in China. As the above image illustrates, the Chinese have a unique sense of humour and it will be this, combined with striking visual imagery which will hopefully provide some very inspiring work.