With the Dark Knight opening today, I thought what better way to show my excitement for the film then by showing the video lapse of, no not the movie or trailer, but of AUGOR x REVOK painting a Dark Knight billboard in LA. Don’t be confused by the first part of the video as it is LA’s dynamic duo causing some good old wreck, building up suspense to the classic billboard.
Like Batman has (had?) Robin, NYC has the SMART crew to handle our Batman billboards, while LA has AUGOR and REVOK of the MSK crew to take care of business on the West Side.
This makes me wonder where DARKS and DAYS are during all this. You would think a Dark Knight canvas would be perfect for that duo.
Following the below post on 11 Spring Street, I felt it was necessary to put up this photograph of the building located just down the street. Right on the corner of Spring and Bowery sits another canvas of street artist and graffiti writers. While this building never reached the notoriety of 11 Spring Street, it’s walls have still been graced with the works of REVS, Judith Supine, WK, Shepard Fairey, the IRAK crew and many, many more. Now the majority of the building is covered in memorial graffiti for Joey Semz. Props.
It has been over a year now since NYC, nay the World lost one of the most valuable street art canvases ever to exist. For years 11 Spring Street was the equivalent of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with the works of modern day Michaelangelo’s gracing every inch of it. 11 Spring Street amplified the difference between graffiti and street art (because yes, there is a HUGE difference) and the battle and embracing between these two cultures. The walls were constantly changing and telling the stories of those putting their mark on them and tales of the city. The reason I am writing about 11 Spring so long after it has been covered in construction tarps and scaffolding, in the interim of being whitewashed and becoming multi-million dollar condo’s, is simple, I walked passed the decomposed shell of a building that was once a gorgeous piece of art, life and NYC and just missed it. This is yet another example of old and true NYC being phased out into anywhere U.S.A.
In the early morning hours in mid-December, an amazing masterpiece of epic pink proportions appeared above the Melrose strip. Not MOCA’s Murakami billboard itself, but rather a young curator’s fantasy art show: “Murakami/AUGOR/REVOK.” The spectacle lasted two days, and then it was gone. For most of us who missed it entirely, the billboard became art-opening gossip - already a mythic achievement - and yet another coup pulled off by a couple of L.A.’s most prolific and talented AWR/MSK writers. Luckily, REVOK carried his camera that day, and L.A. Weekly received the photo; we were wowed. So, it turns out, was Murakami, whose Kaikai Kiki studio found the evidence via the Internet and had the billboard surreptitiously removed. Murakami buffing billboards all the way from Japan? On the contrary, according to his representatives, he found it “so wonderful, he had to have it for his collection.” Our billboard is now on its way to Tokyo.