POW!WOW SAN JOSE CALI

Street art Festival Pow wow San jose

This year, we were pleased to be invited at this last edition of Pow Wow San Jose, good vibes of authenticity. Almost the same atmosphere as the first Jams organized between us back then, between activists I mean, just for the pleasure of meeting and exchanging.

"Peace, Unity, and Respect" the three core values of Hip Hop culture

It had called me from the height of my sixteen years old self, and it became my philosophy, my ethics of life. Even today I am proud to belong to this fraternal culture, proud to shout loudly that I am a "Graffiti Writer".

Even though many of us deny graffiti and cease to paint lettering to give themselves a "cleaner" etiquette, they end up to stop painting on a wall just for fun with friends. I do not judge them. I do not condemn them. I pity them, poor slaves of the art market.

Never forget, graffiti is one of the purest art movement, the most chivalrous in my eyes. I will explain myself in a future article. Back on topic. ( sorry )

Location: 1st Street and West Virginia, San Jose,  California, United States

We painted the wall of this barber shop, and we were really proud to do it for owners like Premium Cutz on 1st Street.

 They had made the specific request for having us painting their wall since they knew our work and gave us a very respectful and appreciated carte blanche.

Concept :

We wanted to experiment on a wall our latest concept of Mix Mash that we painted on canvases. You can check them all on 123klan art gallery online. We finally managed to find a balance of integration of all our different universes and skills in one single composition. Not a remix, but an arrangement of all our own creations in one.

Graffiti writing, vector art, logo, typography, graphics, character design, color, everything is in it, but everything is in its place. I will say even more : everything has its own place on this wall.

                          We finally liberated ourselves creatively

In fact, no, not creatively liberated, because the creative part has never been constrained by us, "Libres et Sauvages ", we are and we still are ( Free and Savages ).

We liberated ourselves from the medium, the support on which each creation is realized. Prisoners of the implicit dogmas which surrounds us.

                          - It's not graffiti, so not on the wall.

                          - It's graffiti so not on canvas.

It is this kind of dictatorship, among other things. That is a part of the reason why we went very late on canvas in our career.

Try to be original and unique. More than never lose the fun in doing it.

Check this picture : now you can make the relation with the grid in our canvas ;p 

POW! WOW! San Jose (PWSJ)

POW! WOW! San Jose (PWSJ) is an internationally renowned week-long arts and culture festival originating in Hawaii in 2010, POW! WOW! Festivals happen in over a dozen of cities around the world. We were lucky to be a part of the beginning of Pow! Wow! Hawaii, and some of other location such as Long Beach, or Worcester.  As the first location in Northern California, PWSJ is produced by a team of local cultural curators and with years of real expertise, with people from the graffiti writing, full of respect and knowledge.  It’s a good thing to participate in such events, it reconciles with festival, it becomes to be really rare, but as good as it is rare, it is all the more valuable.      

Most of Mural festivals often start with graffiti writing. This allows the festivals to have certain Street credibility with uncultivated organizations ...

( caution: the following paragraph may contain exacerbated sarcasm)  

“ The graffiti artists, they manage with peanuts, they like to paint, most of the time they do it for free, and even see it illegally … and then we give them a great exposure. Well, you know the song, and especially its end. When we have the budget, we will give it to well-born impostors. Letting graffiti writers paint gives them a social, altruistic character to organisms. They help us, they save us from the street! Come on! We do not need to be saved, we did create a complete and complex artistic movement, from scratch, with no help. What disturbs the population the most is the fact that we did not need the society's existence for our movement to grow. But, worst of all, they have absolutely no control on us."

PS: Sorry, my first language stay French, not always easy to express yourself in another language, sometimes, this can make you smile.