Sunday, May 18, 2008

The Cans Festival

 canfest One of the biggest urban art events was organized by (the great) Banksy himself and took place in May 2008 (as The Cannes Film festival). The tunnel underneath the Waterloo station in London (Leak Street) was overcrowded for all three days of the festival. The urban art lovers could see their underground stars (Bsas Stencil from Buenos Aires, the founder of  Stencil Revolution - Prism, Logan Hicks and many more) in action.

Photo by Rugenius  

 

Here, I tried to collect all the available info about this massive event:

The official site of the festival

The Wikipedia entry

The Cans Festival on Youtube

The Cans Festival on Flickr

Rugenius' blog post with photos

Gallery of photos from notcot.com

 

The festival in the news:

Video report from www.guardian.co.uk

ans Festival: Street art show brings crowds to Leake Street
London SE1, UK - May 5, 2008
The Cans Festival featured works by Banksy and street artists from around the world. The event also offered blank walls at the Lower Marsh end of the tunnel ...


Cool Hunting

Banksy Hosts The Cans Festival
Cool Hunting, NY - May 6, 2008
Banksy took on the idea by inviting artists to join him in London for The Cans Festival stencil party, this time not in a building but in a tunnel once used ...


Londonist

Review: The Cans Festival
Londonist, UK - May 4, 2008
Of course the big name that’s bringing the crowds to the Cans Festival is Banksy: it’s always interesting when he’s part of a project with prior approval. ...

Public to make their mark in Cans Festival
Worthing Today, UK - May 3, 2008
The Cans Festival, a three-day street party of stencil art, kicks off in an old tunnel formerly used by taxis, which was vacated when Eurostar left its ...

Banksy sets up stencil festival
Brantford Expositor, Canada - May 10, 2008
The subversive British tagger turned art-house sensation marshalled more than three dozen international artists for what he called the "Cans Festival" - and ...


ARTINFO

Street Artists Convene for Banksy "Cans Festival"
ARTINFO, NY - May 2, 2008
Organized by anonymous street superstar Banksy, the "Cans Festival" opens to the public this weekend; until today the exact location was kept secret while ...


guardian.co.uk

Looking for radical art? Try the South Bank, not Banksy
guardian.co.uk, UK - May 6, 2008
Despite the poised irreverence and iconoclasm of the Cans festival, it was the posters in the Hayward that - despite all the failed hopes of the '68 ...

banksy can festival exhibition opens today (gbr)

 

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

the interesting thing is whether something like the Cans festival is part of the process of gentrification, organising and formally presenting what was originally an underground and criminal activity. The UK is full of government sponsored "keep the kids happy" graffiti projects but luckily it doesn't stop the taggers.

I don't know, but in that light "gentrify this" seems a bit hollow.