london was host to an amazing cans festival this may, featuring some of the world’s best stencil artists. leake street, an unassuming tunnel of a road under waterloo railway station, was transformed into an open gallery and was plastered from road to ceiling with 100s of stencils and excellent street art.
i took 400 photos and thought i was being pretty selective!
world famous street artists, including banksy himself [perhaps not surprising as he was a key organiser of the event], put up both new and well-known pieces and the space is open to the public. in fact, while we were there, which was about 2 hours, a variety of different groups came and went, ranging from the usual suspects – young urbanites – to the more unusual punter – straight middleclass, just showing how widespread the appeal of street art has become. when the event opened there were queues of 1-2 hours to enter the space and thousands of people have made the journey to this cultural event. bristol had its own cultural event going on, the ‘not a penny off the pay’ show at stokes croft, and many of the writers there disappeared to get to and participate in the london show.
it’s far too difficult to pick favourites. in many ways the sheer number of stencils was quite overwhelming, but i’ll dig out a few here, just to give you a flavour…
large piece by banksy at the cans festival, london, showing the sheer scale of some of the street art
stencils by blek le rat at the cans festival, london
self-portrait stencil by c215 at the cans festival, london
excellent stencil by the equally excellent m-city at the cans festival, london
stencils by btoy, a star of the multi-layer artform, at the cans festival, london
this event proves that street art reaches the masses. the fact that the tate modern museum is currently exhibiting the work of six internationally acclaimed artists whose work is intricately linked to the urban environment, demonstrates how seriously the art world is taking this genre. they’re even painting the outside of their building! previously snubbed by many in the fine art world, its popularity with the public is making many major galleries re-think. it also shows how making walls available results in creative spaces that attract visitors. i’ll say it again – MORE WALLS!!!
get up there and see it all for yourself if you can
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