Solus - Mis-Spent Youth - Solo - Dublin 4th August

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LSD Magazine Interviews Iranian Street Artists - ICY & SOT

If you peer past the stereotypes, endless propaganda on both sides of the divide and the dark theocratic veil of Iran, it won’t be long before you touch both the not so silent underground and the extraordinarily nuanced pathos of Icy and Sot’s art. Infusing the international visual language of global street art with a deeply personal and targeted meaning, their spectacular range of work takes on the political, the individual and the universal as haunting flashes of innocence sweep through bold statements of identity, freedom and social justice. Whether it be sperbly layered stencils rendering an almost photographic sense of fleeting memory, silent screams of humanity, intensely political canvases beckoning a new dawn of cultural freedom or quick cheeky pastes in Tehran’s streets, they have truly made the medium their own and made the stencil and the can sing their own biting refrain. They were open enough and brave enough to speak to LSD, although we did keep our direct political questions to a minimum. If its a tale of resistance and the triumph of the spirit you’re after - the art does all the talking you need.


Tell us a little about Tabriz and the creative scene there 

Its a city in the north-west of Iran, and kinda boring - there really isn’t much going on here to be honest. It does have really beautiful countryside and landscapes surrounding it, but all the creativity is mostly focused on the traditional art fields


How did you first develop an interest in art 

It started with our career in skateboarding, especially Sot’s. We used to watch skate videos and play skate games all the time, and we saw graffiti and stencils on the walls which initially sparked our interest. We then started with smallthings like stickers and small amateur stencils, and we began spraying them and posting them up on our spots and gathering places.

How did being brothers and working together influence the development of your art 

We were and are best friends, and when we started, there were very few people (most of whom were in our circle of friends) who knew what graffiti, stencil and the whole street culture was. Being brothers helped us a lot as we did everything together – drinking, hanging out, stencilling – everything and overall we just understood each other.


When did you first begin to cut stencils and how differently did you have to approach that from canvas pieces 

A few years ago when we began thinking about our first exhibition and we started sophisticating our works around 2008.

Is your art seen as a political statement in Iran 

Well it is, even our non-political works are considered offensive to the government and it’s also illegal like everywhere else except for the glaring fact that it’s much more dangerous for us here as the accusations potentially levelled at you go way beyond vandalism and criminal damage, so the risks are far greater


How do the public respond to your work and how does that differ with the reaction of the authorities 

Graffiti and stencil has a long way to go before it becomes a part of our culture, and people realise what it really is. because of the lack of exposure here in this field, people aren’t familiar enough with these sorts of things., maybe if a pedestrian passes by a graffiti or stencil they might not know what it is or they might not have any interest in it, or maybe in some cases they might even wipe it off. For an example Icy once did a wheatpaste, went away for a few minutes just for it to dry off and when he came back a guy was tearing it off. But despite all of this it does now and again impact and influence some people on very rare occasions. 

READ FULL ICY & SOT INTERVIEW 

LSD Magazine Issue 7

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Irish Street Artist Karma in Amsterdam (HomeGrown)

This is brand new work from artist Karma, so new in fact, we received the email after he'd done it at 05.27am this morning. So this is the first public glimpse of the pieces unless a shed-load of people have already been there this morning!!! 

"I had my eyes on this site last week..Did a quick trip back last night to finish the job off the way it was always ment to be . Anyways It's called HOMEGROWN..:)"

We always appreciate artists sending us their pieces as soon as done and will do our best to get the pieces on the blog as the earliest convenience.  Massive respect to Karma currently doing the rounds in Holland... Nice One

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Otto Schade hits Cold London

Friend of LSD Magazine Otto was in London recently banging up his new creations about town. We interviewed Otto in a past LSD Issue so look out for that... meanwhile back on the streets...

Otto and Nine-0

 

Photos Courtesy of LSD Photographer: Claude London http://www.flickr.com/photos/claudelondon/

Banksy Tags The Simpson's - Removed

Our man on the inside Banksy has recently been sanctioned by Hollywood studios, by this of course we're not speaking of the said studios near Dagenham, Essex, no we mean the proper Hollywood. Since Exit through the Gift Shop became a roaring success for Banksy and dare i say it 'Mr Brainwash' What it did show was that some things never change. Respected artists throughout the ages have employed the skills of others to construct their visions and why not, after-all for some its the idea, for others the texture, shape or form but does it really matter whether the artist makes the art themselves. This is something collectors will find out in the future and when they discover the work was created en-mass by an army of bionic helpers. Will the piece retain the same value as if the artist himself made the work or will the actual artist's piece be worth more purely because they did it. How many artists do you think are out there creating hundreds or in Brainwashes case thousands of art pieces for their shows? A tiny handful of artists have achieved this level of appreciation and globe attention. Banksy has put in the hardwork and now reaps rewards which no-one can take away from him.


Today the Simpson's Tomorrow Boondocks...

LSD Magazine Interviews - C215 (Issue 5)

Laced with a both a haunting realism and an otherworldly transcendence of the flesh into the immortal mysteries of identity, the supremely prolific and painfully genuine C215’s work drips with the whirlwind emotions of the human condition. He speaks through the universal language of communication, the human face to the universal elements of our existence and our shared hopes and shattered dreams through savagely emotive, yet silently reflective portraits that define the commonalities of humanity through the fragmentation we all feel so witheringly and all collude in so blindly...This is intangible complexity in all its conflicted clarity and the man himself took a moment for an exchange of ideas with LSD

Can you tell us a little about your background and your early journey...

My life was reasonably stable until the age of 14 when I became a raging drug addict : hash, heroin, coke and moreover LSD. My LSD period was unarguably great for opening up channels of creativity, but led also to a certain self destruction. I traveled with the Nomads alongside Spiral Tribe in the early 90’s until I found myself in jail and was forced to re assess my condition, realising that it was time to get myself clean of drugs and start out on the next phase of my life. I began to study tentatively, before the momentum began to snowball and I eventually found myself with a masters degree in Art History, another in History and 2 bachelors degrees, one in German, and the other in English. I feel at the same time both modern and classic. 

What impact did the illegal rave scene have on your creativity and your perception of the world?

It gave me the opportunity to discover that you can be at the heart of a movement that is bigger than you and step outside pure individualism into communal goals, communal living, and a wider purpose. It woke me up to the fact that you don’t need to go to night clubs or museums to experience art, but that you can feel art, create art and be art by yourself, doing it with your mates in unexpected places each with their own intangible character like abandoned warehouses or caves. Ultimately, art is visual poetry, and poetry is always unexpected. 

 Is there a beauty in the abandoned?

Whatever is abandoned can equally be saved, and that is the essence of romanticism. Abandoned warehouses, asylums and derelict wastelands reflect our own lives, with a strong sense of the ephemeral. We feel small and modest when we weigh our prized individualism against time and the wider universe, and consider how long any of us or anything we do will last within collective memory. Time being stopped in a specific place helps us to understand how short and transient life really is.

What does our attitude to public space say about us as a society?

In today’s Western cities we find ourselves living in an increasingly puritan atmosphere. Under the questionable cover of struggling against crime and terrorism, cities have been cleaned up to the point of obliterating any form of self expression with the glaring exception of branding and corporate advertising. The bottom line is that within in a modern liberal economy, public space exists solely to generate profits for commercial interests through the penetration and shaping of our daily reality - that’s it. It’s up to us to change this scandalous dynamic and speak about the place of human beings in the urban landscape. Raising that voice and letting it ring out and be heard would truly be a new humanism

READ ENTIRE C215 INTERVIEW IN LSD MAGAZINE ISSUE 5 - ONLINE HERE

RSH vs. BRISTOL @ Upfest

RSH vs. BRISTOL

Upfest
June 5 & 6th 2010 / upfest.co.uk

UpFest Bristol, the UK's largest urban art festival with 200 participating artists and over 8k visitors, has invited graffiti artist RSH (Raymond Salvatore Harmon) to contribute an astounding 50 square
meter (538 sq ft) piece to this year's festival. Covering the entire surface of an empty lot just around the corner from the Tobacco Factory Harmon's piece will be the largest work by a single artist ever
presented at UpFest.

Harmon's psychedelic pieces have been haunting the streets of London for the past few years. His hallucinatory sea-monster like creations can be found creeping out of canals, across streets and under bridges. As one of the few artists who work dominantly on the ground (as opposed to walls) Harmon's pieces often encompass entire street intersections and underpasses. (More recently Harmon has been plastering the UK with his anti-Tory "Remember Thatcher!" stenciled posters.)

RSH will be painting live on the afternoon of June 5th.

UpFest
June 5 and 6th 2010
Tobacco Factory
Raleigh Road, Bristol

 raymondharmon.com

Twat Kray Twins @ Westminster - Feb 2010

Our old mate Twat has stepped up a gear this year as he finally announced leaving his life long career to pursue another life long ambition and that is to live the life of a full time artist. No more clocking in for our man Twat. If your goner make a statement to declare your grand arrival as artiste extraordinaire, planting some big ones on the dear ole 'Ouse's of Parliament' is the way to do it. If we're not mistaken that just might be everyman hero Brian Hawkins humble abode. 'Gawd bless Brian and Gawd bless Twat a man with a plan... Watch This Space...