She’s up to some great things and her book beautifully captures the “vivid and freaky” street art from the land of the midnight sun.

Check out ICEPICK and learn more about Thordis here!

Click here for more from Imeem

Citizens shall fear not when the heroic Caped Crusader and his crime-fighting chum, Boy Wonder, fight for freedom — and bring BOMB IT to a theater near you!

Australia… Canada… England… Mozambique… Here we come…

Keep checking our blog and screening list for updates!

Thanks to our amazing street teamer Javier Enciso for making it Comic Con!

Little Angel Was Here: A Keith Haring Collaborator Makes His Mark

In the summer of 1982 the artist Keith Haring and his companion, Juan Dubose, painted a mural of Haring’s now signature figures, flanked by atoms and three-eyed smiling faces, on the remains of a handball court near Houston Street and the Bowery on the Lower East Side. Rendered in Day-Glo orange, neon green, yellow and hot pink, the work took about two days to finish. After only a few months Haring covered over the images, which had begun to fade.

Haring died of AIDS in 1990. To celebrate what would have been his 50th birthday, his mural was recreated by admirers in May on the original 50-foot-long free-standing slab of concrete.

The wall was meticulously prepared for repainting, its layers of graffiti scraped off to reveal traces of Haring’s work. This time the mural — commissioned by the Keith Haring Foundation; Goldman Properties; and Deitch Projects, the gallery representing Haring’s estate — cost close to $30,000 and took nearly 10 days just to paint.

The mural has now taken on a second new life. On July 22 a graffiti artist and onetime protégé of Haring’s seriously altered it by filling in the negative space with an intricate black interlocking pattern and spray-painting it with the repeated tag LA II.

“When I was painting that mural, I didn’t feel like it was me, I felt like it was Keith’s spirit in me,” said the artist, Angel Ortiz, 41, who is known by the tag LA II, which stands for Little Angel.

In 1980 Haring was 22 and an up-and-coming artist painting in a schoolyard on the Lower East Side when he was first approached by Mr. Ortiz, then 13. Mr. Ortiz had heard that Haring was impressed by his graffiti and that he was looking for him.

An unusual pair, Haring, a gay art-school dropout from Kutztown, Pa., and Mr. Ortiz, a street-smart and straight Puerto Rican from the Baruch housing project, formed a strong creative bond. Mr. Ortiz became an influential collaborator on several of Haring’s early works.

In a 1992 Haring biography by John Gruen, Haring recounts: “We just immediately hit it off. It’s as if we’d known each other all our lives. He’s like my little brother.”

Mr. Ortiz never worked on the 1982 mural, although he had tagged the wall before Haring and Mr. Dubose made their mark. As a nod to his friend, Haring left Mr. Ortiz’s tag untouched, and this spring it was even replicated by the hired team of professional painters.

After seeing the new mural, Mr. Ortiz, who has struggled with obscurity in recent years, decided that it was time to make himself known.

Julia Gruen, executive director of the Keith Haring Foundation, said Mr. Ortiz was “respectful” in his tagging, and treated the mural as if he had been collaborating.

Fred Brathwaite, better known as Fab 5 Freddy, said, “I think Keith would have loved it.” Mr. Brathwaite, who sometimes acted as Haring’s ambassador to the pioneering graffiti culture, added, “Back then Keith was looking for influences and inspiration, and he got a great deal of it from LA II’s work.”

The artist Kenny Sharf, who was a friend of Haring’s, said: “Keith treated him as a true collaborator; he didn’t treat him like some little kid, which he actually was, really. He respected him and gave him half of whatever they collaborated on.”

A flier from a 1982 exhibition at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York features a photo of Haring and Mr. Ortiz posing in front of a backdrop of their energetic drawings.

But while Haring’s work grew in popularity, moving from subway graffiti to museum walls, Mr. Ortiz dropped out of high school in his junior year. After Haring died, Mr. Ortiz returned to his former life of the Lower East Side, his contributions by then largely ignored. In the early 1990s he became addicted to heroin and later served eight months in prison for possession.

The Keith Haring Foundation, which Haring established, also serves as his estate and provides grants to nonprofit organizations that assist children and AIDS-related causes. It has also transformed Haring’s art into what is essentially a brand, with merchandise from cookies to coat racks.

Mr. Ortiz contends that he has been denied credit and profits from the sale and licensing of artwork that he helped create.

Ms. Gruen said of the foundation, “We recognize his work and respect the history of his collaboration.” Mr. Ortiz, she said, “was compensated for all the work he did with Keith Haring in Keith Haring’s lifetime.”

As for the wall, she said, its future is under discussion. Mr. Ortiz said: “I don’t want to be rich and famous. What keeps me going is my art.” He added, “I wanted to show the foundation: This is LA II, this is how it all started.”

To read the original article go here

“Street art and graffiti are visual freedoms of speech especially when the art is good. It helps enliven a society for those people who rarely go to galleries and museums, it is provides a little life for a city.”

Why is Bomb It! so gosh darn good? Well, there are many reasons for this. One of the mainonesbeing the fact that Jon explores the cultural and socio-political reasons for the art worldover. He’s interviewed writers from New York to Barcelona to South Africa. It’s interesting to see howAmerican graffiti writers compare and contrast with the rest of the world and each other. It’s profoundly clear the motivation which inspires these individuals to “get up”. When Lady Pink speaks from her New York roots as opposed to LA’s DJ Lady Tribe, its apparent that these two are coming from two very different worlds. Aesthetically, the differences are clear, but culturally, socially, and politically, they are widely varied.

See the entire Anti-Mag article here

Check out this SEEN blog post for an interview with Bomb It’s music supervisor David Garcia for more info on the music featured in Bomb It!

http://rcrdlbl.com/2008/06/05/film_bomb_it_la_premiere_exclusive_interview

Barack Mural seen at MotherJones.com

Photo by Diane DaCruz-DiDonato

“Internet gives graffiti vandals a global audience”

The arrest of one of L.A.’s most prolific taggers reflects a growing trend for photos and videos of the vandalism to be posted online.

By Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer May 28, 2008

The arrest of a man authorities describe as one of Los Angeles’ most prolific taggers underscores a growing phenomenon on the Internet: graffiti vandals who videotape their handiwork and place it on the Web for the world the see.

Detectives said they are increasingly dealing with tech-savvy vandals who use blogs, social networking and photo and video sharing sites to advertise their vandalism. Experts say the so-called “bombers” compete for the most outrageous tactics. “Buket” became an Internet star for tagging a Hollywood Freeway overpass, with cars zooming by 20 feet below.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Devin Vanderlaan, the investigator who arrested Cyrus Yazdani, a.k.a. “Buket,” said he believes the explosion in graffiti in the Los Angeles area in the last few years has been driven in no small part by the Internet, which not only is a convenient way to show off your tags but pushes its boundaries.

“The whole reason they do this is for the not only for the thrill but for exposure, for the recognition by other taggers,” Vanderlaan said. “Now, by taking pictures or video, their homies don’t have to walk, drive or take the bus to see their tags. They go online.”

Indeed, Yazdani’s alleged videos have gotten more hits since his arrest. Yazdani was booked into the L.A. County Jail on suspicion of felony vandalism and could not be reached for comment.

Roger Gastman who has written several books on graffiti tagging, said the Internet has, in effect, helped to democratize graffiti.

“Social networking sites and the Internet have helped spread every culture and subculture to every nook and cranny possible and graffiti is no exception,” Gastman said. “Social networking sites have absolutely helped graffiti’s popularity. It’s everywhere. Graffiti doesn’t have economic or race rules anymore. When people think of graffiti years ago they thought of black urban and hip-hop. Now, graffiti is not defined by race or tax bracket.”

Tim Kephart, founder of Graffiti Tracker Inc., which catalogs tags for law enforcement, said he’s seen no evidence to suggest Internet posts have worsened the graffiti problem.

“It’s just another audience for these tagger to brag about what they are doing,” he said.

But officials worry that the daredevil tactics could get out of hand.

“Throwing up a bomb here or a bomb there isn’t going to do it anymore,” Vanderlaan said. “They are going for something crazier like hanging off a sign or building or doing it in volume.”

PieceBook: The Secret Drawings of Graffiti Writers
By Sasha Jenkins and David Villorente

Original in concept and design, this living history of the graffiti movement mimics the actual sketchbooks graffiti artists use to perfect their work before it goes public.

Before it hits the wall, graffiti is often painstakingly planned out in a sketchbook or piece book. Well-worn and dog-eared, these books are passed along from artist to artist as a way of sharing ideas and offering instruction. Here hundreds of drawings, most of them never before published, are reproduced on uncoated paper to resemble the pages of an authentic piecebook. Bold and beautiful works from graffiti history’s most important sources or seeds T-Kid, Dondi, Daze, Crash, Lady Pink, Cap and Ghost, amongst others represent a dizzying array of techniques. The authors, former graffiti practitioners themselves, offer biographies of the artists and an introductory essay on why piecebooks have become such valuable historical records. Fans of graffiti will find this an irresistible inside look at how their favorite artists perfect their talents.

Grab a copy at Amazon.com by going here