New Year's Eve....Hotel des Street Art, San Francisco

If you are heading to San Francisco for New Year's Eve, then you can't find a better art-inspired hotel than Hotel des Arts in downtown near the Embarcadero which also acts as an art gallery.

Sam Flores, CA

You could be sleeping with David Choe, Buff Monster or London Police. My choice would be Sam Flores ;) But get you minds out of the gutter. I'm talking about the artists who designed the rooms of this boutique hotel!

Book'em Dano Check out the complete list of artists and rooms if you're looking to stay at Hotel des Arts.

Hotel des Arts
447 Bush Street
San Francisco, California 94108
USA

Tel: 1.415.956.3232 or 1.800.956.4322
Fax: 1.415.956.0399
reservations@sfhoteldesarts.com


Find the best prices on Hotels.com

LA street graffiti vs. The Buff Squad

Hey there websters! Since June, I've been consumed with traveling and managing a new work project, but I'm back...Expect more posts on my favorite stuff as I backfill some of the events I didn't write about!

Here we go....Archive #1.

Driving around town in the summer I spotted these fellas out on the streets. "The Los Angeles Beautification Team" buffing some parking lot walls and street utility boxes. I'm glad they are not whitewashing the legal pieces I snapped somewhere between Echo Park and West Hollywood.

As the title says, "Please Don't Buff".

UNleashed Magazine is out! #ArtInTheStreets edition

The magazine is fresh off of the press. And it's a weighty, 124 page tome with full color images of amazing street art.

Copies of the magazine have been circulating since last night's launch party in honor of Fab 5 Freddy who I interviewed for the magazine. Other interviews include Patti Astor, Nick Walker, Futura, TATS Cru, Kenny Scharf, The London Police and Logan Hicks.

And each page is packed full of wonderful, glorious images of street art from Fab 5 Freddy's latest Swarovski crystal encrusted pictures to Logan Hicks' photorealistic stencil paintings.

Stay tuned! I will be re-publishing the stories I wrote over the next few weeks as the MOCA "Art in the Street" exhibitions gets underway.

PS If you're going to be at the MOCA members' opening of the show on Saturday 16th April then the publisher will be handing out copies of the magazine on the night. 

London Police come to XLarge

Mike D's XLarge is still going strong in Silverlake. The upstairs section was a Grand Royal record store in 1997, then it later converted to Fat Beats, and now in 2007 it's been reborn as the Upstairs Gallery.

Until 10th May, the Upstairs Gallery is presenting a special London Police exhibition. I never quite understood the name of the trio...all I knew was there was an Amsterdam connection...so what's up with the 'London' name?! Well, Freddi C explained one of the founding members is from London...ahhh, I see said the blind man!

Anyway, that trivia aside, the clown-ish black and white characters pasted/painted by London Police are called 'Lads'. They feature heavily in this show, but I don't think that the canvases are strong - they seem to lack a real vision and execution finesse. The Chinese characters just look sad and haggard. There was nothing new to see here for me. Even the clean, strong 'Lads' looked shy in the Upstairs Gallery. May be London Police should've forgotten about canvases and just spent the time to completely trick out the gallery space like the collaborations in Japan. The Tokyo collaborative show pictures look really strong!

If you were at the Upstairs Gallery you might have got one of the limited-edition (sold out) cushions or t-shirts. The gallery will produce items for each show under the 'XLarge Gallery' label. Cool! I'm looking forward to the next one...

The Dutch are coming: Kirstin and Karin will be in town to see this show before it closes...it's kinda ironic for the Dutch to travel 5,000 miles and go see a Dutch art show. Umm...may be we'll skip it ;-)