Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Elephants and other interesting street art in London

From: http://matthias-haker.deviantart.com/art/London-Sunset-153377151
London is a wonderful place. Every once in a while you can find an exhibitions that requires you to go treasure hunting trough the streets. A pleasant way to spice up those days when its suddenly warm and you just want to stay outdoors for as long as possible.

The Elephant Parade was my favourite one, and featured this beauty here.



Play Me I'm Yours was also really amazing. The exhibition is over and there are only three left, two of them are in Kings Cross station. I been past and listened to people play,  these people are never just randomly plonking around they are sitting there, playing their hearts out. I will make it my mission to one day sit there and watch them play.

One that still exists is the Seven Noses Soho by Peter Berthound. Its on my list of things to do in summer 2014.

Another thing you can look at are street turf "wars" such as the one between Banksy and King Robbo



However, I find it hard to be walking round all these obscure places at night looking for men with tell tale paint sheens and cans of spray paints. However, there are websites that keep track of all the street art and tell you when they are exhibiting in different museums.

http://streetartlondon.co.uk/
http://www.ldngraffiti.co.uk/events/index.html

http://greatwen.com/2013/10/18/london-by-the-bollards/
If you are so inclined, then who not check out the Bollards in London? Sadly the original site is down but there is a set on Flickr of all the treasures you can come across.

The Londonist is a great place for keeping up with what is going on in London, as is the one man mission that is DiamondGeezer  he has been walking the streets of London and England since 2002 showing us all the things it would take you forever to discover. He is just like one of those amazingly knowledgeable people that all the software companies try to recreate, but Siri will never ever be as good as him!

London is constantly being constructed and decontructed around us. Somethings stay in a state of disrepair for a long time.  It would be fun to go in and snoop around but that's dangerous and probably very cold at this time of year, but you can do it from the safety of your own home by looking at Derelict London you may also be curious about the tube, have a look at Abandoned Stations. Yes, somebody has been there, done that and made a blog about it.

Speaking about the tube, London Underground tackles such mysteries such as Who is Private Rod



http://www.flickr.com/photos/molly/223195168/

And the incredibly odd people we find on the tube and this fox.

 Then, there is Secret London. If you live here, live it, love it, don't be a tourist.