Blu

It was Friday lunchtime, and I was standing looking at this huge work of graffitti art painted on the front of the Tate Modern:(photo from http://www.blublu.org/blog/ )

I started to sketch the big face(s). Four people came along. From their conversation it was clear that one of them knew the artist. He told me the artist was from Bologna in Italy and was called Blu. He advised me to look on YouTube for Blu's amazing animated works of grafitti. If like me you wonder how you can have animated graffiti then take a look at this stunning video:

I went back to my sketching. A lady from Friction TV came along with a film camera.

She asked a man next to me whether she could film him answering the question

'will galleries and companies kill graffiti art by commercialising it and sanitising it?'

The man said that these graftti artists had devoted lots of time and care honing a skill and were entitled to take some money for it. Then she filmed me. I wanted to say that galleries, record companies, fashion companies and the like need new movements and ideas from time to time, but can't generate them themselves. They're forced to take ideas from the street because that is where new movements come from. But I actually went on a bit of a ramble comparing the work we were looking at to the numskulls mixed in with a Guantanomo bay critique.

She told us both that our contributions would be put up on the Friction TV website within hours, but as I write they are not up there: maybe we didn't get through quality control.