Gotta talk about Banksy.
Street Art in Munich and more cool stuff, in your 1st-of-the-month newsletter.
Ciao,
how are you?
Rome is getting cold, and I am looking forward to throwing myself headfirst into some blog updates during the Christmas season.
Earlier this month, I visited Munich for one weekend to meet Shepard Fairey at the opening of his solo show "New Clear Power" at Munich's new contemporary art museum, "AMuseum." The exhibition is modest in size but very well conceived. My favorite wall is the one with Fairey's political posters next to the original stencils used to screen-print them. Well, that and the portrait of Keith Haring ;)
Meeting Fairey was a dream come true, but my favorite part of the evening was meeting some of you and spending time together. Our get-togethers have always been the highlight of my trips.
Overall, my weekend in Munich was highly fulfilling. For the first time in 11 years of travel blogging, I was able to see everything on my google map -here’s what I saw: Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3).
In addition to writing about Munich, I designed two custom itineraries, which I find to be very fun. I particularly enjoy this 'concierge' role, as it gives me the opportunity to express my unquenched curiosity for the unique, the unusual, and the unknown in each city. If you have a winter holiday trip coming up, get in touch ;)
That's all for now… gotta go back to writing about Munich; my goal is to publish all the articles left by next week, in case some of you are going to check out Christmas markets in Bavaria.
Until next month,
Giulia
New on the blog!
Street Art Munich: From the Birthplace of German Graffiti to the Capital of Urban Art
When you think about graffiti and street art in Germany, the first place that comes to mind might be Berlin, but, actually, the German graffiti scene was born in Munich. Over the decades, Munich’s scene has only evolved, attracting renowned graffiti writers and street artists from abroad eager to leave a sign in the city where it all began.
MUCA: The Museum of Urban Art in Munich
Let’s walk through the MUCA collection together…
Vegan and Vegetarian Restaurants in Munich
Where, and what, I ate in Munich.
Marielle Franco Tribute Mural by Jorit
A quick chat with Jorit while he was painting in Rome ;)
You somehow stumbled upon my blog and subscribed to the newsletter, but you have no idea who I am and how my blogging journey has unfolded so far? Here I share the ups and downs of my first 11 years of blogging :)
If you value genuine blogging, and have been using my travel and street art maps, please consider making a contribution. Your support makes all of this possible.
Street Dispatch - November 22
This month, we are going to talk exclusively about Banksy. I already suspected it when Banksy's stencils appeared on seven war-ravaged sites in Ukraine, and then the Guess debacle made it clear: I no longer needed the other "street art news" I had saved for this newsletter.
Banksy in Ukraine
There were doubts when the first stencil appeared, but they were all dispelled quickly. Last month, Banksy traveled to Ukraine, where he created seven new works. It's not the first time that Banksy uses his street art to direct our attention to conflicts while we look the other way.
You all know about Banksy's infamous stencils, so I won't write about his art this time. What I want to underline today is the site-specificity of street art; how the location and support establish the meaning of the piece.
For their nature, stencils can be used repeatedly; the premise is that a street artist will spread the image cut out on the stencil, and will do it quickly. However, the stencil of two children using a metal tank trap as a seesaw gains an entirely different meaning when it is sprayed on the ruins of bombed buildings (rather than on a canvas, for example).
His artworks on the West Bank Barrier are another particularly pertinent example of how Banksy selects the walls for their transformative potential -his walls are both a structure and a symbol. It may seem obvious while looking at the photos of Banksy's stencils on war-ravaged sites in Ukraine, but try to keep this in mind any time you look at street art in a photo (even better: when you consume it as part of a stream of unrelated images, like on Instagram).
Try this exercise, and then let me know ;)
Banksy VS Guess
As impactful as these stencils have been, the true Banksy Highlight of the month -in my opinion- is the artist's accusations against clothing brand Guess of using his designs without permission.
On Instagram, Banksy wrote:
This is yet another round of the Street Art VS Fast Fashion match. The most famous case happened in 2018 when street artist Revok sued H&M for using images of his graffiti in a commercial campaign without permission. It sparked a debate on whether a graffiti artist can claim his rights for something done illegally in the first place, a hearth-felt theme in the graffiti community. Eventually, H&M withdrew the campaign -but people at Guess must have missed the memo.
Last but not least
Earlier this month, Banksy won an appeal to allow him to keep the trademark of one of his most famous images, the monkey wearing a sandwich board, at the EU Intellectual Property Office.
Street Art Open Calls
The great Waterford Walls Festival (Ireland) has opened the official artist applications for 2023! You can register before the end of December.
A story worth reading -if you haven’t yet
Published in March 2017 from Bethlehem, Palestine
Banksy’s Walled-Off Hotel in the West Bank
Dear Giulia, to read your words is always a joy. I'm so glad that I get to receive all of your recs in my mailbox every month and I'm so impressed at how committed you are to your craft. ❤︎