Anthony Lister mural in Sydney

Globetrotting artist Anthony Lister recently visited Sydney to paint this mural, which was found in Darlinghurst by an Acid Midget reader who submitted the photo. Lister does these murals when he isn't staging anti-Australian exhibitions, making drunk scribbles or scrawling aerosol around das Berlin. Er ist ein Übermensch.

What do you think an artist of Lister's calibre charges for a mural like this? And how do you think this compares to what he makes for canvases? A muralist recently told me the difference is significant. So how do even mid-level artists - whether bonafide street artists or just art school-trained bros painting for the lower classes - reconcile the difference between what business owners pay for paint versus collectors?

Yes, they are different mediums for separate audiences. Canvas is preserved indoors. Murals are weather-damaged and sometimes have "TOY" or "ART FAG" sprayed on top by low-level taggers using authenticity as an excuse to remain insignificant.

While money makes you unhappy, watch this short film that splices stock footage Lister supplied from his travels:



You might also like:

-Bogan Paradise exhibition
-Lister in Berlin
-Lister visits scummy Sydney bar
-Graffiti Wars: Listers uppercuts Brisbane Council like a boss

Darlinghurst street art, Sydney **UPDATED**

 (Langley St, Darlinghurst, Sydney)

The back streets of Darlinghurst often reveal exciting pieces of street art. Exciting because you might not expect them as you turn a corner or step out of a window.

The angel in this wheatpaste masks its face in shame. Sad.

 

This one is from Sydney artist Ears. Haven't seen much by Ears lately, although there are plenty of his pieces at retail outlets and cafes around Sydney and Melbourne.

 

I've seen this dashing duck before but can't remember who does them. If you know please get in touch and I will update.

**UPDATE: This is by Numskull. Thanks to Colin for the heads up.

 This is a collaboration between Beastman and Ears. What I'd like to see them create one beast. What would that look like? What's your biggest fetish? There, you have it.

This one is apparently by Sam Aja. It reminds me of a body tracing on Denison St, Newtown in this post.

I'm not sure who did the next two, although it's probably obvious to you. Let me know the name if you do.

**UPDATE: Thanks again to Colin for letting me know these cone head pieces by Max Berry.

 

Do you sometimes dream images likes this? Does it remind you of when you were young?

Another one from Ears. Are his masked characters just like us? They have multiple faces/personalities. They look unhappy.

Thank you for watching.

End.

Darlinghurst street art

 (Darlinghurst Rd, Darlinghurst, Sydney)

I found these images in the deep recesses of Acid Midget's photo database. I'm glad I did, because now I can share them with you like it's a bootleg vinyl and you're a Beatles fan.

These are located at Star Car Wash. Its main wall is filled with stencils and posters. However, I think some of these are now gone. The main poster above is by Jumbo and Zap.

But I'm not certain how many of these works are gone. That's because, when I visit Darlinghurst, I usually visit Una's for jager schnitzel and a quiet red. And I would usually say 'I also score sweet drugs in Darlo', but too many respectable people tell me they read this blog and now 'my audience is everything'.

The Sid Vicious stencil on the left is by Numskull. I'm not sure if he did the horn hat man too.

 This haunted house is by Mini Graff, who has a house fetish.

Vexta did this sleeping man. At first glance you'd can't be sure whether it's a person or not.

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Darlinghurst Car Wash Stencils

Slug does dirty dog graffiti

(Whites Lane, Darlinghurst, Sydney)

Do you call it art when a demon decapitates a dirty drug-doing dog?

Of course. Call it what you like.

Street artist/graffiti writer Slug has been pro-motherfucking-lific around Sydney the past six months. I often struggle finding time to publish his work.

If he even calls it that.

Would you vote Slug in the top tier of Sydney's graf scene?

An Acid Midget reader recently asked if we could put him in touch with Slug for a commission.

Can you guess how far he got with that?

Try fucking a ghost.

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Artist: Slug

1000 photos of darlinghurst and kings cross

Here's a video montage containing 1000 photos of Darlo and the Cross. They move quite fast so you might have to 'pause-play' 500-1000 times.

I wouldn't say it 'conveys a sense' of what these neighbourhoods are like, but it's a way to get an idea before you cum here.

Via Wooster.

darlinghurst brothel

(Crown Ln, Darlinghurst)

There is a brothel behind this door.

Great place to throw your balls around.

Go on, you'll score easily.

Have a try shooter.

Are brothels good venues for sporting events?

Have you considered marking your underground organisation with a basketball hoop?

How many points could you score with $100?

Should brothel stopovers be a "team sport"?

luv u darlo

(Cnr Oxford and Riley Sts, Darlinghurst)

Spotted a shoe in this phone booth on Saturday night.

It's been a while since this has happened. Reminds me of the early Acid Midget days, before the blog took shape.

Feel glad it hasn't all "gone to shit".

Feel proud of Darlinghurst ppl fixing new shoes to phone booths.

Luv u Darlo. Luv/h8 u hipsters. Luv u disenfranchised homeless ppl. Love u MGMT, although ur second album is stylistically regressive. Luv u Bar Cleveland staff, for being rude assholes 9/10 times.

car wash

(Star Car Wash, Darlinghurst Rd, Darlinghurst)

 

(ibid)

 

(ibid)

 

you'll swear it does

Saw this bow chalk drawing near the corner of Francis and Riley Sts, Darlinghurst.

They're relatively common and you may have spotted one or two as you conduct whatever "business" you do in alleyways.

So pretty, so endearing. They're a reminder there's a gift at every corner.

But, um, if you look closely you'll swear it looks like a penis.

gerald the dog

(Esther Ln, Surry Hills)

Gerald the Dog was always agreeable. He lived in Surry Hills with his owner and was known about town for his youthful optimism and yellow skin. He stayed close to his owner’s feet around the home and up and down Bourke and Crown Sts, to defend him from harm.

Gerald was tidy and well-mannered. He always took his dishes to the kitchen, occasionally loaded them in the Miele dishwasher or even did them manually, propped on a bar stool while scrubbing in yellow rubber gloves. He always scooped his own shit too. He placed it in sealed bags and remembered to drop those turd stones (they were yellow like his skin) in the bin every night, after drinking his hot milo.

Aside from productive days at dog training school - where Gerald learnt gymnastics, Latin and classical piano – he also had an active social life filled with weekly dinner functions, dogtail parties and $1000-a-head fundraisers.

(Crown Ln, Darlinghurst)

But Gerald’s life quickly fell to pieces.

On meeting a group of hipster-puppies from Newtown that "partied", Gerald’s fortunes began to unravel.

He began drinking heavily and experimented with drugs. One night he managed to rack a five-gram bag of meow meow before "going inter-spieces" in an orge with a pink poodle, LaPerm cat and a heavily tattooed goldfish.

After partying with these puppies for a few months Gerald was expelled from dog training school, became a stray and had several bitches up the duff. He was addicted to a concoction of drugs, most notably meth, and scavenged for money as a "ladydog" outside Campbell House, giving tug jobs between methadone hits.

You might say poor Gerald’s life went to the dogs.

Woof.

PRO ANYTHING

Where is the scene? Where are the cultural movements? Surry Hills, what has happened to you? What was once a bustling art and music crowd, who previously competed to out-style, out-move and out-party each other on every level and in doing so developed an unpredictable and original movement for the fashion-istas to feed from, is now stagnant and unrecognizable.

A few years ago when I moved to the city from the south coast it seemed no matter what night of the week it was you could walk the streets of this cultural hub and stumble into a raging house party or free-boozing gallery opening and be inspired by the new and interesting people and their innovative ideas. Over the past year those quirky underground nights have slowly disappeared and with it the once artistically snowballing scene, has been replaced by business studying fashion followers. Have the pioneers of those days lost faith and gone underground when their unique niche got too crowded, or is their a deeper reason for this unfortunate change?

The main issue seems to be a distinct lack of pro-active thought. The kids of Surry Hills are an eclectic bunch to say the least and the answer to our problem is among them. The people who are going to reinvigorate the scene aren’t the designer label clad wankers in thousand dollar Incu jackets and thousand dollar hand made leather shoes, nor is it the upper class North Shore kids who dress down in Cream On Crown uniforms and samurai inspired hairstyles, it’s the quirky artists and eccentric muso’s avoiding the “in areas”. I’m not saying it’s limited to these categories of people at all, what I’m saying is bring on more of the weirdo’s and less predictability. Graffiti artists, fashion designers, graphic designers, dj’s, drugged out fashion models, junkies, hippies; these are the people that drove your hazy subculture coke and condoms fuelled nights at places like the old China Heights gallery, Health Club, Ox Arts, Hollywood, Thursday Nights Live at 77, and the Manner.

 Everyone’s heard about recent changes to liquor licensing laws to promote small bars. Could the popping up of a few trendy bars have achieved the paradox of its goal by reducing our inner-city culture? I mean, by providing an area of attractive coolness have we really just provided an area for the ‘i-wanna-be-seen-looking-cool’ herd to culminate? I’m sick to death of Sydney’s shiny, plastic, recently refurbished bar scene. Leave the grunge. Leave the dank. That’s the character and atmosphere we’re all craving and having a place to hang out, shoot the breeze and enjoy reasonably priced drinks is a good place to breed active-thought. 

Don’t slit your wrists just yet boys and girls, the well of opportunity is still half full. Put down the razor and pick up a guitar, a paintbrush, a spray can, or a hammer and go create something. Go destroy something. Get passionate about a community issue and do something about it! Sex, drugs and rock n’ roll will never die so keep your ear to the ground because there are still wild warehouse parties and late night beach parties, it’s just that the once notorious Surry Hills events have shifted more often toward newer low-key areas like Marrickville, St Peters and Redfern. Maybe I’m being over melodramatic and everything’s really OK and the scene is as strong as it has ever been and I, as an individual have just missed the eight ball so in conclusion I’ll finish by just saying the possibilities are endless, so get out there and start rattling cages, rocking boats and getting all anti-establishment n’ shit.

 

use me like a scaffold

Found a graffiti series on Foley St recently while traipsing the streets with Arpeggiate Me, the newest Acid Midget recruit. We saw this confused donkey cartoon in a doorway. Looks like a Sydney Morning Herald caricature of a clumsy politician. Thinking this donkey is how Senator Penny Wong might’ve felt after the non-binding Copenhagen Accord was signed. Miss u Penny…

When you see this stencil chicken you’ll spend five minutes thinking about how someone got up there and painted it. This street artist is either pulling midnight ladder tricks or using cars like scaffolding.

Here is another squiggle face. Not sure if the artist is getting better, worse, that i’m finding them in the wrong order, or if it’s a case of ______.

This skull is painted on an upside-down page pulled from a phone book. I found one in Surry Hills a while back.

I heard some prints like this are glued to walls using a flour/water mixture. I also heard that if it rains in an alleyway, you’re probably getting pissed on.

gimme an i!

Darlinghurst Nights has reported on alphabet tags that are popping up all over Sydney. I came across this one on Bourke St. Love In Flagranti like I love croissants and Café Zoe. They do nu-disco like Obama does "being an African-American president in a largely white government".

What would 'i' be to you?

me, ok

“Come into my garage and let me service your Volkswagon/Toyota/wife. Then your dollars will be magically swallowed in the vortex of my corruption.”

symbolism: taylor square

If you cum to Taylor Square, Darlinghurst you’re in for a hard one.

You’ll probably pull your eye-balls off selectively placed phallic symbols erected in the area.

But i wood recommend sliding your gaze to squirting streams coming from the blowing fountain installation jizzing between Bourke and Oxford Sts.

Or you might sack that idea to cock your attention toward these ribbed poles. They’re below waist height and above knee height. Mmmm dickalicious.

mr squiggle vs crack cocaine

Shot this graffiti portrait in Kings Ln, Darlinghurst.

Now i realise it's hard to prove, but this appears to be painted with only two lines.

The first is basically the freak's entire head and its features, the second is the little tuft of hair on top.

The practicalities of creating street art like this - i.e. dude, hurry the fuck up before the rozzers get here - has directly influenced its aesthetic qualities.

These include intuitive use of line, repetition of concentric circles, using an inverse colour to the panel, improvisation.

"I'm in a rush, i'm nervous", the artist says.

In a sense this reflects on the artist. Without any other evidence it could therefore be considered a self-portrait.

 Another squiggle portait found in Holdsworth Ln, Paddington.

I think it's painted with only one line. It's also quite large, the top is probably about 2m from the road.

Note the inverse colours again. Simple (yet) effective.

These pieces show that the human face is simply made of circles and triangles.

Remember seeing a Da Vinci sketch for his giant Horse. At its most basic the sketch is little more than well-placed circles.

meth man

Here is a portrait of an unknown figure on a shop wall on Little Oxford St.

Seems like a character from a Spawn comic. Vile, repulsive, underworldly - yet strangely attractive.

Anthony Lister, the artist, has created a figure with deformed features, facial scars and swollen gums.

Meth Man seems a fitting name for it.

Name suggestions lovers, please.

cross training

Dude 1: Dude, why you wearing only one shoe?

Dude 2: The other one had to go.

D1: What? You got rid of it?

D2: Yeah. Left it on Little Oxford St on the way back from The Columbian. Only so many blowjobs I can give in a pair of trainers. After squatting 1000 times they tend to lock up.

D1: So did you walk home with a missing shoe?

D2: Nah, the guy I fellated like a broken vacuum pump gave me a ride home. I couldn’t really see after we were done.

D1: Dude, need to borrow a pair of mine?

D2: Pfft, don’t be ridiculous. Every pair you have is locked up too.

with intent to fornicate

People live above Pocket Bar, so you better not have a good fucking time.

Sit down, order your Pimm's and lemonade and shut the FUCK UP.

Otherwise the Pocket Police will rock up in skinny jeans, slung below that tuft of hair between their ______ and _____sack, to arrest you for socialisation with intent to fornicate.

But, um, Pocket Bar closes at midnight every night. Who’s in bed before 12 on weekends anyway, apart from you and i?

x

the politics of heroin

Four milk crates are wedged in the ridges of this tree trunk at Green Park on Burton St, Darlinghurst.

This could be proof that homeless bros are getting either:

A) Too intellectual. They have regular meetings “under the old oak tree” to discuss the dialogues of Plato.

or

B) Not enough heroin. For these dudes to have time for “discussing” shit, they’re obviously not:

A) Asking people to “spare some change” for 18 hours, before finding more coins in a payphone refund slot

or

B) Munting on a staircase, which could suggest:

A) Street-purchased smack has become weaker

or

B) There is a supply shortage brought about by:

A) Bureaucratic assholes like you keeping dealers in prison

or

B) A crashing market caused by homeless bros chatting on milk crates because it's more “upwardly mobile” than getting high.