Saturday, June 11, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
R.I.P Leon Botha
Shocking news. South African Hip hop legend and painter; Leon Botha, has died. I have only gotton word of it now but apparently he passed away on Sunday at the age of 26, due to complications of his disease; Progeria. He is alleged to be have been the longest living example of a person with this condition, a disease that rapidly ages the human body.
I have only really scratched the surface of this beautiful human beings work and from what I have seen so far, he had some mad shit going down. Feeding a passion for martial arts, spirituality and philosophy Leon used the platforms of Hip hop and oil-painting to deliver his unique cosmic message. I am deeply saddened that I never got a chance to meet this extraordinary cat. Anyway I hope to blog some of this guys work and create more of an awareness around this very special individual, who probably mostly only associated with Die Antwoord's Ninja Video. For now you can check out his myspace and official website. Mad love.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Arabic Graffiti
So recently I've been taking an interest in 15th century Islamic arts, from the calligraphers to the miniaturists, its highly disciplined tradition of art that is far removed from the frivolous painters of the west at that point in history. I have also always been interested in graffiti as means of reinterpreting the urban landscape.
So finding this book, Arabic Graffiti(ISBN:978-3937946269) was a terrific find. Arabic by its very nature carries a distinct warrior-like ethos and how that relates to modern graffiti is something I'd defineately like to explore a bit more. It was Rammmellzee, the great american lingual alchemist, who devised the theory behind the "Wildstyle". He spoke in depth about the 'militarisation of the alphabet' in his theory of Gothic Futurism. Anyway I hope to blog a bit more about this book once I get hold of a copy.
P.S. The last picture, the "CTRL+ALT+DELETE" on the Palestinian wall isn't really arabic and falls within the genre intelligent/socially-concious street-art, but fuck it's a damn fine piece of graffiti.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
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