Saturday Graffiti Extravaganza – Sueme and Kid Zoom

Looking around on various blogs on a quiet Saturday afternoon, I found a couple of great things I’d like to share – an interview with Kid Zoom, and a video of Sueme painting in various European locations last summer.

First, via the ever-wonderful street art blog, vandalog, complex.com has an article entitled How To Make It: 10 Rules For Success From Street Artists. The first interview is with Kid Zoom, an Australian-born artist who now lives and works in NYC. His rule for success as a street artist is quite simple: Don’t be a street artist.

“Theres that great quote floating around the web attributed to Robert Downey Jr., ‘Listen, smile, agree, and then do whatever the fuck you were gonna do anyway.’

Be an artist. Artists have always been working on the streets and in public, but ‘street art’ is a relatively new term. Before that, it was called Art Intervention, Guerrilla Art, Detournement, Graffiti, Vandalism, Protest Art, etc. I’d argue that most of the great street artists dont really consider what they do street art exactly; or if they do, they see it as only a component of what they do as an artist (or activist).

Read the full interview here:  Kid Zoom – Rule: Don’t be a street artist

Pretty inspirational, right? This advice easily applies to any art discipline. Don’t let other people define your work as an artist or even worse, struggle to stay within the confines of a label. I definitely agree and try to keep that in mind, especially when I start worrying about my own work. Make what you want to make, damn the torpedoes.

For those of you unfamiliar with Kid Zoom’s work, here’s a taster – an installation he did based on his childhood home. More of his work can be seen on his website.

Kid Zoom (Ian Strange) Home – Cockatoo Island (installation view)

Now, for the second part … via Juxtapoz, Scott Sueme is a Canadian artist born in Calgary, Alberta, who now lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. Last summer he went to Europe and, well, made this video so that our minds could be blown. Thanks, Sueme! This guy’s work is so tight it’s nuts.

More of Kid Zoom’s work can be seen on his website, and Scott Sueme has his own website, too.