Occupy Wall Street Art: www.occupywallstreet.org

What the Occupy Wall Street movement lacks in organizational clarity in its direction and goals, it makes up for with enthusiastic free-form grassroots activism that has gathered contagious pacifist support by way of visual virals – posters, signs and graffiti – awaking solidarity across the globe.

Occupy Wall Street posters- www.occupywallstreet.org

Adam Nelson Photo from Occupy Wall Street Demonstration

Though the media has been rather slow to cover the protests and the establishment quick to stifle any dialogue with pepper spray, it has gained more salt with such seasoned supporters as Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore who have issued statements helping to legitimize the struggle for many across America.

Here is a random selection of images, with more information and links listed below.

Adam Nelson Photo from Occupy Wall Street Demonstration

Banksy Political Graffiti

Adam Nelson photo from Occupy Wall Street protests

Adam Nelson Photo from Occupy Wall Street Protest

Occupy Wall Street Art: www.occupywallstreet.org

From the Peoplescube.com

Signs from Occupy Wall Street - Hangman noose from http://rafaele.tumblr.com/#7

Occupy Wall Street Art - Found and made - www.occupywallstreet.org

Why did you pepper Spray Me? Cartoons

Click here for more cartoons
For livestream and information: Occupy Wall Street
Some of the official posters can be downloaded for digital distribution from the OnlineWallSt.org.
More Photos from Adam Nelson’s facebook stream

From 'Do Not Enter Project' Long Island City, Brooklyn 2007. Mixed media on plastic, affixed to metal sign. From The Man of Sorrows collaboration with the Butoh artist, Ian Caskey. ©Dan Witz

Brooklyn street artist Dan Witz is known for his pranks and visual quips in urban landscapes. Witz integrates his work into street signage and creates installations that challenge passersby with illusions often camouflaged by habitual and mundane industrial architecture. But Witz is also a realist painter by training and works in the traditional studio in oil.

Dan Witz ABC No Rio oil and digital media on canvas 55.75 x 96 inches (142.24 x 243.84 cm)

His new show of oil-on-digital-media paintings at Jonathan Levine Gallery are photographs stitched together in photoshop and printed on canvas, then glazed and worked over using traditional painterly techniques. This new series entitled Mosh Pits is inspired by crowd scenes: photographs of people in nightclubs, at rush-hour in Grand Central Station, or of the non-human kind – packs of squirming rats and dogs. They depict masses of turbulent bodies seamlessly, but somehow sweatlessly stuck together.

Another series of portraits show his subjects ethereally lit by the glow of their mobile devices. They are captivating in the way they at once alienate and isolate their subjects within a sinister and saintly halo.

Dan Witz Mo oil and digital media on canvas 36 x 28 inches (94.44 x 71.12 cm) 37.5 x 29.5 x 2.5 inches, framed

Dan Witz Nadeen oil and digital media on canvas 26 x 20 inches (66.04 x 50.8 cm) 27.5 x 21.5 x 2.5 inches, framed

Dan Witz, Bedford Ave. Williamsburg, Brooklyn. 2006-7 ©Dan Witz

“These are real gloves I’ve altered and installed around my neighborhood. I’m calling the series “The Third Man” (after the movie). Much more to come on this project when the weather gets warmer,” describes Witz on his site.

East Village, NYC 2008. Mixed Media on Condo Wall from series 2008 Kilroy Variations Ugly New Buildings - ©Dan Witz

Dan Witz Gimp, LA Skid Row Grate

Dan Witz - Dog Diptych

Dan Witz Rats oil and mixed media on canvas 44 x 58 inches (111.76 x 147.32 cm) 45.5 x 59.75 inches, framed

Dan Witz Hand Frieze oil and mixed media on canvas 12 x 84 inches (30.48 x 213.36 cm) 14 x 85.75 x 1.5 inches, framed

Dan Witz, Mosh Pits, Human and Otherwise – Gallery I – Solo Exhibition – June 30, 2011 through July 30, 2011, Jonathan Levine Gallery, 529 West 20th Street, 9th Floor | New York, NY 10011
For of the artist’s work can be seen at: http://www.danwitz.com

“Once upon a time, long before technology created an online global community, graffiti was a highly localized art form. Be it on the subway or in the street, graffiti was available only to those who crossed its path. Though photographs were shot and circulated amongst those in the know and sometimes even made it out into the world through early books and magazines, the truly exclusive were given to circulating the piecebook, an iconic black sketchbook with heavy stock paper, perfect for showcasing the most personal forms of marker-based artwork.”

Such is our introduction to Piecebook Reloaded, a new book on graffiti that’s just hit shelves. Like its predecessor, Sacha Jenkins and David Villorente’s Piecebook Reloaded recreates the look and feel of those elusive sketchbooks. Featuring the work of more than 50 graffiti legends, Piecebook Reloaded delivers the best of the best in its most confidential expression.

Ghost RIS, 2005

Leafing through the thick pages, you’re surprised that the ink from the pages isn’t running off on your hands. The quality of this book is astounding; the authenticity unparalleled in any comparable titles. Not since Henry Chalfant’s 1988 Subway Art has a graffiti book rang so true. Graffiti aficionado Carlo McCormick chimes in, “Surely the work of fanatical scholars, somewhere between the Holy Grail and the Rosetta Stone for the great secrecy that lurks in public, Piecebook is the definitive distillation of one of contemporary culture’s most enduring folk arts.”

“There’s nothing more honest than a drawing not intended for the world to see,” author Sacha Jenkins astutely observes. “The images culled for this tome have been through fire, having traveled borough to borough, bounding hand to hand, surviving the good and the bad that three-dimensional New York life can offer. Here we are, mustard stains and all.”

Pure and Noah, 1995

Graffiti artist-turned gallery sensation Eric Haze is ready for his fans again. The native New Yorker opened to a packed house Thursday night as his first US show in three years, “New Abstracts and Icons,” received praise.

Amid the chaos, SPREAD ArtCulture had a chance to talk with the artist.

SPREAD ArtCulture: Tell us about your show.

Eric Haze: This is my new show, “New Abstracts and Icons,” representing a solid three year’s worth of work in a few new directions I’ve been trying to take my personal work.

SAC: Have you mainly been working in New York for the duration?

EH: Yes, it’s part in parcel of re-experiencing New York after I’ve come back. I got in touch with my roots and a lot of my old peers. This show, on a lot of levels, represents a full circle back to the art world that I came out of in the 80s.

SAC: What influences, if any, did you draw on for this show?

EH: If I have any answer for that, part of it is listening to an innocence in mathematics that came through and some of it is about translating what I’ve always been as a designer into new mediums and back on a different playing field. Ultimately, if I was influenced by anything, it’s the modernists of the 50s and 60s and big, bald, minimal American painting.

Chelsea

After the success of the last New York Street Advertising Takeover in April 2009, Public Ad Campaign organized another band of artists to liberate the mostly illegally operated NPA billboards in Manhattan and Brooklyn on Sunday, October 25. Like last time, the first wave of volunteers in OSHA-approved neon vests, buffed the ad spots with white paint, followed by a second wave of artists who added their unique touches, turning the locations into temporary public canvasses and challenging the outdoor advertising company’s claims to legitimacy.

This time, however, the NPA became hip to the widespread attack pretty quickly and responded with violence-threatening workers and lots of wheatpaste, in some cases reclaiming the space as quickly as it had been buffed and decorated. The NYPD also joined the cat and mouse game and at last count, The tally was that five people were arrested (although it’s not clear if they were whitewashers or artists) and 114 billboards were painted.

The bizarre game continued for most of Sunday: billboards would be whitewashed, then murals painted, which led way to NPA workers infiltrating the scene and wheat pasting over the fresh art with low-quality post bills.

We will be there to bring you the latest on the inevitable part three.

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