Arabic Graffiti

'Walls That Speak' documentary from Al Jazeera


Julien Breton






Ashekman

New piece by Yazan and Tasso in Beruit


There's a little video about protest graffiti in Cairo on the BBC website here; "The political turmoil in Egypt has seen the overthrow of two presidents, as well as conflict and mass demonstrations on the streets. The struggles are reflected in an explosion of graffiti on the walls of Cairo as people use their new-found freedoms to express different views.  James Reynolds has been on a graffiti tour of the city."

A few new pieces by artists previously mentioned on this thread.

Yazan: "Ali [Abdallah] was a homeless man, and the legend of Bliss Street. I have personally crossed Ali countless times on his street.  A few months ago, Ali died on the coldest night of Beirut's winter because he was living in pitiful conditions. Ali's death triggered short-lived actions to help the homeless in Beirut (for one or two weeks).  I painted this mural a few hundred meters from Ali's street to immortalize him and to remind us that we should not wait the death of another Ali to help others.  I wrote "Ghadan Yawmone Afdal"(Tomorrow is a better day) while listening to a song of the similar title by Mashrou' Leila, in the hope that tomorrow will be a better day."


Zepha


eL Seed

Given the escalating conflict in Syria, I thought people might be interested in what's going on with art in the country. In 2011 some schoolchildren aged between 10 and 15 years graffitied the manta of the Arab Spring - 'The people want to overthrow the regime' - on the wall of their school in Dara'a. The school children were subsequently 'arrested' and tortured by al-Assad's internal security forces and it was this action which sparked the Syrian uprising.

Beyond slogans strayed on walls, the main form of art on the streets are stencils of people killed over the last two years.

For obvious reasons there aren't any street artists producing detailed murals  and I know that this is a thread about arabic graffiti but there's some really interesting and important work being produced in the studio.

Youssef Abdelke
Abdelke was imprisoned for a month, and only released this week, for committing the apparently heinous crime of signing a declaration calling for Bashar al-Assad to step down; it's not a coincidence that unhappily Abadlke was also a political prisoner for two years under the rule of Hafez al-Assad.  Abdelke has been one of Syria's leading artists for years and his etchings and charcoal drawings cover a wide range of subjects from contemplative still lives to acerbic political commentry and satire.





Tammam Azzam
Azzam's 'Syrian Museum' images involve Photoshopping beautiful images of Western art onto war-ravaged Syrian buildings.






Ali Ferzat
Ferzat is a political cartoonist whose work has satirically poked fun at the successive al-Assad regimes and Syria's corrupt, wealthy elite for years. In 2011 he was kidnapped and had both his hands broken but he's still drawing and still smiling.



If anyone would like to help those still in Syria and those who have fled across the border to other areas of the Levant you can do so by donating towards the Disasters Emergency Committee's Syria Crisis Appeal.

Nadine Kanso's photography juxtaposes two sides of life in Beirut; the sectarian and political tensions symbolised by the corresponding graffiti and the carefree and hedonistic party life symbolised by the photos from clubs and bars.

I'm glad eL Seed is getting more and more recognition. It seems to be opening up a lot of opportunities for him, which can only be a good thing.

Thanks for the link to Zepha's last show.  If I haven't said it before, I'd love to see photos of your Zepha piece when it arrives and you get it up on the wall. There's a smaller (66cmx85cm) mixed media on paper piece here by Zepha. It's one of my favourite pieces by him but sadly I won't be in a position to buy anything anytime soon. I hope it finds a good home though.

A few more pieces from Egypt:

Icy and Sot from Iran

Zepha's piece from the 'Street Urban Art' festival in Kesserine, Tunisia:


Yazan's sculpture from the 'Art For Peace' charity auction:

Graffiti and street art from the Arabian Peninsula...

I love Arcacia Blank's textual interventions in Dubai; simple but but very effective.  And his photography is great too:

 
Colours of Life is a loose collective of artists painting in the Yemeni city of Ta'izz:


Murad Subay is done some really interesting projects around the Yemeni capital Sana'a about poverty and 'disappeared' political prisoners.  This piece is from a project where he painted 12 pieces in 12 hours about different social problems in the country.  Yemen has the second highest rate of gun ownership in the world and I thought this piece cut straight to the chase very well:


Abdullah Mohammed Alshehri has pasted his image of Sarah Attah competing at the 2012 Olympics all over the Saudia Arabia and I seem to remember seeing one in London too.  Attah was the first Saudi women to compete in track and field:


Nana is one of a group of female street artists in the Saudi city of Jeddah:


There's a nice little blog about Kuwait's embryonic street art scene here:


If only Bernie Ecclestone had got out and about during preparations for the Bahrain Grand Prix he might not come out with such monumentally stupid comments as: "I keep asking people what human rights are. I don't know what they are. The rights are; the people that live in a country abide by the laws of the country, whatever they are.”

Just a few things...

The murals and calligraphy of Moroccan artist Khaled al Saai:






Interesting interview with eL Seed about his forthcoming book on The National:


A nice new pieces by Yazan entitled 'Salam' (Peace):