In 1984, pioneering street artist Keith Haring painted a mural in Collingwood, Melbourne at a school there. Today, that mural is only one of 31 Haring murals that still exist, but it was almost lost to time and controversy. Above is "Keith Haring Uncovered," a documentary telling the story of Haring's time down under and what happened after he was gone. From CityLab:

Collingwood was an industrial, blue-collar neighborhood when Haring arrived, but gentrification has swept through recently, filling it up with art galleries and expensive real estate. The school closed in 1987. In 2004, the mural was added to the Victorian Heritage Register but it continued to deteriorate. A concerned local stole the small wooden door that contained Haring’s signature to spare it from further decay. In 2010, Creative Victoria, a state agency that advocates for local creative industries, took over management of the site and an effort to conserve the mural began as part of a plan to make the former school into the new Collingwood Arts Precinct.

Today, the mural looks as fresh as it ever has, restored in 2014 by Antonio Rava, who is now responsible for the same task in Amsterdam. The anonymous door thief—one of the more rewarding interviews in Uncovered—returned the prized possession to its right place knowing that the mural’s fate appears to be in good hands now.

"My wife hates it when I work from home," writes Banksy on Instagram.

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Is Penis Man a hero or menace to Arizona? pic.twitter.com/FVjKAwMdww

— Charles Rahrig (@c_rahrig) January 20, 2020

Police have captured the culprit behind the "Penis Man" graffiti tags that, er, popped up in several dozen spots across Tempe and Phoenix, Arizona over the last two months. (News report from December below.) While Penis Man quickly developed a cult following, the cops weren't laughing. On Saturday, Tempe police revealed that they had nabbed Dustin Shomer, "on 16 counts of aggravated criminal damage, 8 counts of criminal damage and one count of criminal trespassing in the first degree." Shomer has since released a statement on the Facebook Unmodded - NEIGHB'rhood Group, as reported in the Phoenix New Times:

"I just spent the last 24 hours in Tempe and Phoenix police custody for spraying 'Penis Man,'" Shomer wrote. "They raided my condo and vehicle and swarmed my entire complex in west Phoenix with 25 heavily armed SWAT officers, and pointed a silenced assault rifle in my face.

"Anyone with any doubt who the bad guys are here ... be certain it is the City of Tempe, City of Phoenix, and police forces valleywide. There is no excuse for pointing an AR-15 in the face of a non-violent offender."

Shomer added in further posts that he spent a night at Maricopa County's Fourth Avenue Jail following more than five hours in Tempe police custody, during which time he was giving "nothing to eat."

He wrote that he was "told I wouldn't receive medical attention after requesting it, even though it was posted on the wall to ask if desired.

Over the weekend, Banksy stenciled a genius new artwork on a wall on Vyse Street in the Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham, UK.

Then last night, someone added red noses to the reindeer.)

Fantastic work by #Banksy to demonstrate the homelessness crisis in our city. We're working hard with partners to try to prevent and #endhomelessness but if you're concerned about someone sleeping rough, pls @Tell_StreetLink so we can offer them help and support #BanksyInBrum https://t.co/8XMDtP64vF

— Bham City Council (@BhamCityCouncil) December 10, 2019

In 2009, Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara was hanging out with his business manager Tim Blum in the Manhattan bar Niagrara. Nara pulled out a marker and drew some of his fantastic figures on the walls. (Later that night, he did the same thing at a subway station and was promptly arrested.) Last week, one of Nara's paintings sold in a Sotheby's auction for $24.9 million, driving up the value of his other work including this graffiti. According to Blum though, Nara doesn't want anyone to pull out the bar walls and sell his graffiti. Fortunately, the bar owners seem to agree. For now anyway. From CNN:

"The (drawings at the bar are) quite in keeping with his style," said David Schrader, head of private sales at Sotheby's. "My guess is it's probably worth hundreds of thousands. For sure, when an artist gets a record-selling price, it elevates them in the market. My gut is there are definitely people who would want to own this or the multiple pieces individually..."

The Niagara's management declined to comment, but a bartender told CNN that the artwork "has been a part of the bar for a long time and will stay that way." The drawings are safeguarded by a thin layer of plastic that was installed by the bar's ownership.

#DailyJapanArt via #NYPost:Yoshitomo Nara’s Decade-Old Doodles At East Village Dive Bar Niagara Could Be Worth Millions.Value Skyrocketed After His Painting “Knife Behind Back” Sold For $25 million @ Sotheby’s Hong Kong On Sunday#奈良美智 #YoshitomoNarahttps://t.co/P8AEGWSMjP

Mindbending work by Portugal-based graffiti artist Rodrigo Miguel Sepúlveda Nunes, aka Vile. See more at his Instagram feed, vile_graffiti.

(via Kottke)

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A post shared by ?VILE? (@vile_graffiti) on Aug 15, 2019 at 9:59am PDT

Graffiti Diplomacy is a Brooklyn-based graffiti art studio and educational outfit with a terrific Web site containing free lessons, handouts, and craft activities for beginning (and advanced) artists. Their "Urban Blight" diorama how-to, complete with popsicle stick picket fences, looks like a lot of fun to build and tag.

Graffiti Crafting # 1 - Learn How To Make A Popsicle Stick Graffiti Picket Fence

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Last week, residents of a Sammamish, Washington neighborhood woke up to racist graffiti, including swastikas and the n-word, on their homes and garages. (Video report below.) Now, it seems the perpetrators returned to spray-paint an apology. From KIRO 7:

“More graffiti was found at Klahanie Park. It was a couple different things,” King County Sheriff’s Sergeant Ryan Abbott told KIRO Radio. “First it was the word spray-painted ‘Sorry’, and then next to that there was another spray-paint — it was hard to read — that read, ‘Not hate, just’ something, and then another ‘Sorry.'”

It’s in the same red spray paint as before,” Sergeant Abbott said, “and they were just trying to say that they didn’t mean any hate by their tags, which of course were offensive as you had read, but now they’re updating it to say this..."

Police are continuing to investigate. They’re hoping that surveillance video will provide additional information.

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On Tuesday morning, an Australian pilot took some artistic liberties with his flight path.

ABC News:

The Diamond Star plane, operated by Flight Training Adelaide, spent a little over three hours in the air on Tuesday to draw the letters over South Australia.

The message was not seen by people on the ground, but was visible to aviation followers watching live flight tracking programs and websites.

It is believed the pilot, who was working out of Parafield Airport, north of Adelaide, was "running in" a new engine.

The FlightAware website captured the pilot's work between 8:53am to 11:57am.

The pilot flew several loops, creating some somewhat explicit graffiti along the coast, before tracing "I'm bored" over the Princes Highway.

Retired Qantas A380 pilot Chris Wilson said he thought the message was "harmless".

screenshot by Flightaware via ABC News

(Gizmodo) Read the rest

This weekend, thieves stole the Banksy mural painted on the emergency exit door of the Bataclan concert venue in Paris. The Bataclan is where on November 13, 2015 Islamic State militants launched a terrorist attack by killing 90 people during an Eagles of Death Metal concert before continuing with shootings and suicide bombings that resulted in 130 deaths total and more than 400 injuries. From the BBC News:

The theft, which occurred overnight on Friday, involved "a group of hooded individuals armed with angle grinders", AFP news agency reports, citing a source close to the investigation.

The suspects then reportedly drove away with the artwork in a truck.

L’œuvre de @originaIbanksy hommage aux victimes du 13/11 a été volée. pic.twitter.com/FMHoobzRXm

— Bataclan (@bataclan_) January 26, 2019

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This Banksy artwork was painted late last night a on a steelworker's garage in Port Talbot, South Wales, UK. From CNN:

The art, which appears to pay homage to the town's industrial past, depicts a child playing in what looks like snow. But viewed from another angle this appears to be embers and smoke from a skip fire....

Properties and cars were covered with black dust from the town's steelworks in July, which has been suggested as a potential inspiration for the work...

A Neath Port Talbot council spokesperson told CNN in a statement that they are sending officers to liaise with the property owner in order to assist in protecting the artwork but noted that the graffiti is on private property.

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. . . . Season’s greetings . . .

A post shared by Banksy (@banksy) on Dec 19, 2018 at 6:53am PST

Fashioned after real full-sized galvanized steel dumpsters, these miniature desktop Dumpsty's stand in at just 10 inches tall and 11 inches wide (which is big enough to hold magazines). The blank models come in a variety of body and lid colors and are ready to be customized (or not).

Priced at $195 each, they ain't cheap. But, wow, what a cool conversation piece.

Beautifully pre-designed one-of-a-kind editions are available too, like this one by street artist Jimbo Phillips ($495):

Or this one by Burn353 ($395):

Check out their Instagram for more inspiration.

(DudeIWantThat) Read the rest

Political art collective INDECLINE (previously) create provocative works. Their latest repurposes a gold ore processing facility on the Mojave National Preserve that was closed in 1994 and declared a Superfund site. Read the rest

There are Advent calendars and then there is the Banks's Brewery's Advent calendar.

Launched on December 1, the UK beer brand's countdown to Christmas stands over 36 feet tall because it's spray painted on the boarded-up windows of a deserted building in the English city of Wolverhampton.

Their bluntly-stated calendar is part of a larger campaign called "Tells it like it is" and its gritty commentary is meant to appeal to a young, working class audience.

Big Al’s Creative Emporium, the London-based creative agency behind it all, explains:

How do you reassert an identity for a traditional pint of Black Country bitter on a shoestring? Paint it on the walls. That’s how.

Banks’ was a traditional West Midland’s beer in decline, feeling a bit dated and with an ageing core of traditional drinkers. Despite an extremely limited marketing budget, we wanted to give the brand new lease of life by appropriating the straight talking wit and grit of its industrial Black Country roots.

Our solution was to develop a graffiti campaign around the thought ‘Tells it like it is’ and getting our messages on to unconventional urban spaces to create a subversive ambient campaign, which in turn we were able to activate as social media campaign taking on a life of its own.

Here's a peek at some of those messages:

See the rest over at Ads of the World.

Previously: There's an advent calendar full of weed Read the rest

Instagram user Lonseometown9 documents their ongoing series of street art that transforms dumped sofas, chairs, and televisions into sad clowns. Read the rest

Swedish street artist Huge creates a lot of cool stuff, but he's best know for his balloon art that looks like those novelty letter-shaped mylar balloons in various levels of inflation. Read the rest

Shahak Shapira reported hundreds of racist, sexist, abusive or otherwise hateful Tweets.

Twitter didn't delete them, so he sprayed them on the pavement outside the company's offices in Germany.

Update: Shahak Shapira's name was missing the "r". I eget the eo. Read the rest