Ancient Street Art

We took an adult field trip with some friends to the Oriental Institute Museum after a nice fatty. There were all these bugged-out artifacts in glass cases that had been dug up from the ruins of ancient hoods. Some dated all the way back to 6,000-8,000 BC. Anywho, we were particularly amused by the ridiculous descriptions under each finding... we were all like "how is a muffoccur from TODAY gonna know off G.P. that these tiny sea-shell-looking pottery pieces were actually figurines of women's souls & shit like that? Who's to say what every idol was? Who knows what each marking meant?

So we started peeping all these crazy carvings on slate slabs illustrating what appeared to be a land of terror & strife. There were unfamiliar creatures roaming about... human-figurines who looked like treasure trolls... giants, flying man-lions & monkey-man slaves in neck-chains...

then the thought struck us:

What if these ancient artifacts were in fact street art? You know, like the graffiti, sticker-art culture & vinyl toy industry of today? That would explain why we find pebbles with drawings of muffoccurs getting eaten by unruly plagues of dino-beasts who eat humans. Thousands of years into the future, perhaps the street art on the wall below will be dug up & contain (to distant-future plaeontologists) what appears to be the story of mammoth buffalo-men roaming about, eating humans. The connection became quite evident!

And explains why little figurines like these always appear to be found in bulk...
they're dug up from the ruins of perhaps an ancient Rotofugi ((vinyl toy shop)) of the past.

Even when looking at this finding, it makes sense: the possessed elf-archer who decapitates muffoccurs is the same possessed rat-bastard who decapitates muffinking countries.

*****PEACE TO THE BABIES*****

Who's designjesse?

You know how you put your name in a google search to see what randomly pops up? Well, sometimes googling sends you a pleasant surprise. We found designjesse, some cool photographer's flickr page ((we have no idea who, but you rock designjesse)). There were photos of Kinky Notti from our show at the CRB Loft, but the dope thing about it was how we were classified in the set called "musical people" along with other banging artists like Nas & even Klaxons.

Speaking of Klaxons, we're a big fan of this video: Gravity's Rainbow. The whole psychedelic 80's, f*cked-up-on-purpose graphics, with the clever transitions thru television screens just kinda worked for us.


Another thing we're really into is worldwide street art... & apparently, so is designjesse. We loved these shots from Paris and NY that somehow, inadvertently put both cities up for comparison. And from here, Paris really seems smarter with their illustration, design-influenced graffiti, but hey.

Oui Oui Paris

N.Y. is still fly

Check out more designjesse photos on flickr

Guns & Brushes

Kinky Notti was hangin' out with some of our "artsy friends" (oohwee oohwee ooo). The invite to Guns and Brushes came in the form of one the most poetic emails we've ever received. The subject read "SAVING CHICAGO FROM ARTISTIC GENTRIFICATION..." Guns and Brushes turned out to be a gallery showcase, aimed to focus on the artists who chose to pursue work and talents over social status and formal education.


They called this month's exhibit "Live Jive", conceived by the hands of poet/ healer/ painter Smokie; Chicago’s own fresh engineer artist Casmir Mercedes; and event producer, Dustin. It was tight...We got to see some people we hadn't seen in a minute and we got a lil taste of what's good in the hood. We could see the artists' heavy nfluence by Basquiat... it was sort of like looking at a cave man's work on some Back-to-the-Future-Graffiti-type-shit. We could dig it.

Behold the Trinity behind Guns and Brushes

Word to Smokie, the artist behind this Kink Not portrait

"Her" by Casmir & Smokie

We were bobbing our headz and vibing all nite. We didn't even peep our guy, Sonny Daze hiding up in an elevated loft til the end when we were bouncing out. DrUNkeN MoNkeeE hosted and kept disappearing and reappearing all nite in masks and shit, on some real ninja shit. We missed his performance, but we still walked away with a small consolation prize.

DJ Sonny Daze pumpin through the speakers...
Looking like "All is Well"

DJ Sonny Daze sitting high

BTW, thankx for that hot exclusive, Drunk Monk!

I think they called this one Wine on Drywall

5 degrees was the high that nite

Note: art shows in sub-zero temps with busted heaters suckass! When was the last time you saw a bunch of free wine sitting out not being consumed? It was too cold to even get drunk! Some Maker's shots probably woulda done the trick. But overall, the event felt like exactly what we are looking for in our quest to begin a wild revolution within the Chicago artist community. A new "artist playground" is developing...POP Life is emerging, Kink Not??