Results tagged “posterchild”

After street artist (and Torontoist contributor) Posterchild finished philosopher flâneur Mark Kingwell's recent book, Concrete Reveries: Consciousness and the City, the Vandalist curator and street art advocate noticed that Kingwell's celebration of concrete and the cities built out of it missed one reverie in particular: graffiti.

Last week, passersby at the corner of Queen and Ossington began to take notice of a curious wooden crate protruding from the side of a building. Some gathered around it with great awe and wonder, while others scoffed dismissively, thinking, “So what? It’s a frickin’ box sticking out of a frickin’ wall.”

So you're in love. Yeah, yeah, we've heard it all before. You've got yourself a girl, or a guy―whatever. You love 'em. But you sure as hell don't wanna buy a diamond ring―haven't you heard of that thing called the recession? Lovers, what are you going to do to let your soulmate (and the rest of the city) know that you're really not cheating on them when you come home late from "overtime"? We've got an idea―lock 'em down, with a heavy-duty padlock. No, no, we here at Torontoist don't encourage spousal abuse; you've got us all wrong. What we're saying is―take a cue from Europe―lock that love down.

Love padlocks are, if nothing else, the most secure way to symbolize keeping what you love safe. And while Posterchild's love locks can't stop cranes from knocking down each piece of our precious Sam's structure, they'll likely be outlasted by the sign: the chair of Ryerson's Experts Advisory Committee for the Master Plan, Linda Grayson, told us this week that the two oversized records won't be going too far. While they haven't decided on an exact location yet, she said that, after chatting with "the man" Sam Sniderman himself, the marquee will go either on the south or west side of the new Student Learning Centre being constructed in Sam's old spot, as to not block the east and west windows. And if it's not on the building itself, it will be nearby, says Grayson, noting that Sniderman is pleased with that idea, too.

                

For his latest project, Posterchild (Torontoist fave, and, yeah, Torontoist staffer) bought five dollar-store disposable cameras and stuck them to walls along Queen Street West and College Street inside homemade boxes he'd painted "Take A Photo, Leave A Photo" onto. Torontonians took care of the former half of the instructions by taking photos of themselves and their friends, and, weeks later, Post fulfilled the latter—with the three boxes that hadn't been stolen—by developing the film, framing the photographs, and mounting them on the same walls they were shot from. Genius.

WORDS: Join the Toronto Cyclists Union at CineCycle tonight for the launch party of Dandyhorse, a new Toronto-based urban cycling magazine. The magazine will feature articles about commuting, advocacy, couriers, safety, fashion, and anything else related to bikes, and the party will have DJs, a cash bar, cake, and—of course—lots of brand new magazines. CineCycle (behind 129 Spadina Avenue), 7:30 p.m., $5.

Posterchild has taken a brief respite from making wonderful street art (did you see his latest guerilla gardening boxes?) to make...dolls?!

Photo by Dimsumdarren from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Public relations is a tricky job, especially for the companies that operate illegal signs across Toronto. They've already got to deal with a site dedicated solely to putting an end to the practice, an increasingly aware and increasingly concerned populace, and those damned vandals who forgo legal means of dissent by dealing with the problem directly. So it comes as a bit of a surprise that Posterchild, a prominent member of (and advocate for) the lattermost group, has decided to lend a helping hand to add some much-needed accountability to the whole operation.

We should have known! The culprits responsible for the Pac-Man recreation on a streetcar shelter outside Kensington Market have stepped forward, and they're neither advertisers nor immoralists: they're Teeth (responsible for this charming bear-woman) and our very own Posterchild (who is something of a fan of video games).

Photos (top, and bottom) by wvs from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Posterchild––street artist extraordinaire and our new curator for Vandalist––has taken it on himself to fill the empty hooks of the TTC's subways, streetcars, and buses with new and improved information flyers. For the past week, he's posted details of one flyer a day to his blog: Monday was a subway and streetcar colouring book; Tuesday was tips on how to flirt on the subway (pictured above); Wednesday was a guided graffiti tour along the 510 Spadina streetcar route; Thursday was a cryptogram, maze, connect-the-dots game, and riddles; and today's, Friday, was a claim that the whole system is now free.

Torontoist has already done a pretty good job of letting you know how rad Posterchild is. In fact, the extent to which Torontoist writes about Posterchild could be seen as the textual equivalent of a marriage proposal. So without rehashing what has already been said about our favourite local street artist/public space crusader, just know that his radness is still on the upswing with new and improved versions of what he’s known best for:...

Yes, Posterchild is at it again, this time remixing "OBEY" for the Stencil Revolution Stencil Challenge, letting a smiling cop with a stencil do the work for him. This, however, is not yet another hey-look-at-this-cool-graff post; instead, Posterchild sent us his graffiti manifesto that accompanied the stencil, a lengthy document "about how we deal with graffiti and Illegal ads, and a proposal for change." In a city as obsessed with graffiti as we are—for it and against it—Posterchild's extensive examination of the history of graffiti, its problems, and its potential solutions is an important document, especially, coming as it does, from a street artist.

In light of today's Torontoist vs. Torontoist debate on emergency vehicles' "Support Our Troops" ribbons, Posterchild (who is becoming a regular on Torontoist; we've interviewed him, written about his Canada Post mailing stickers, and showed off his feature film debut) sends us links to his recent work in and around Kensington Market: an infinite "Support" ribbon, and regular ribbons that read "Support Our Troupes" or "Support Our Koopa Troopas," each one pasted onto the front of a ubiquitous white delivery truck.

Toronto street artist (or what have you) Posterchild, the subject of a recent Tall Poppy interview right here on Torontoist, sent us along these two videos earlier this week from his first "first major film effort" Left Out In The Cold.

You are more familiar with street artist Posterchild's work than you realize. Visit his site Blade Diary, and you'll immediately recognize his posters, stencils and outdoor installations. Like fellow stenciler Banksy once said, "If you have a statue in the city centre you could go past it every day on your way to school and never even notice it, right. But as soon as someone puts a traffic cone on its head, you've made your own sculpture." Posterchild isn't just putting up drawings on outdoor walls; he's changing the way we see our public spaces. And now that you know his works are there, you'll start to see them all over the downtown core.

When we heard about StiCanada, an exhibition done by Toronto street artist Posterchild, we were more than game to roam the alleyways of Kensington Market. The pieces, made by street artists from around the globe, are created solely on Canada Post address stickers. Posterchild, on his website, explains the use of labels as "something of a tradition in Graffiti and Street Art. Postal stickers are quick to apply, easy to get ahold of, and often free."