all eyes on the main game

a reasonable result, all things considered.

great graphics had Tim out of the car and tugging at the cable ties – all to no avail…

…clearly the eponymous Bill Indman now walks the streets of Freiburg. In the Black Forest you can’t see the art for the trees. With due deference to Mel Ramsden for this arcane art historical reference…

Photography Makes It Real. At first glance. Or rather ghostly when you take a second look… Reconsider your Picnic Plans.

Or as Tory Maguire observes maybe you can photograph your way out of danger…

Thanks to Iain McG for making the heroic u-turn to enable me to capture this image.

P.S If I was more adept at Photoshop, I would have inverted the photograph for you…

Ivan Solotaroff writes in The Guardian: Philadelphia is a city of murals. More than 2,800 have been commissioned by the civic Mural Arts Program, which itself grew out of the city’s Anti-Graffiti Network. Typically, murals here celebrate ethnic traditions or Philly mainstays like jazz, or basketball legend Julius “Dr J” Erving; but these messages are far closer to graffiti, their boldness drawing attention to their huge words and whimsically postmodern cartoons and motifs. Unlike traditional graffiti, however, where the message is often simply the artist’s street-name, these are consistently positive and amusing, equally thought-provoking and eye-pleasing.

They are romantic, too: visible from the commuter train, as if one is riding through a billet-doux. A Love Letter for You is a collaboration between the Mural Arts Program and Stephen Powers, a 42-year-old artist who emerged on West Philly walls and rooftops 25 years ago, under the street-name ESPO. As a 17-year-old hoodlum then, Powers was inspired by Cornbread, the seminal graffiti writer who covered Philadelphia with his name to catch a girl’s attention. Cornbread spraypainted not only walls but police cars, the visiting Jackson 5′s private jet and an elephant in the city zoo. Love Letter reads like a series of notes left on a bedside table or refrigerator…

See the series here

I’d love to be able to say: “seen in London recently”. But thanks to the volcano, I’ll have to show you one of those anonymous viral images instead: Iconophilia offers a prize to the best title lodged as a comment in the next week. Go for it! The prize? Don’t let it put you off!

And did you see? “There is no budget for the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion commission. It is paid for by sponsorship, sponsorship help-in-kind and the sale of the finished structure, which does not cover more than 40% of its cost. The Serpentine Gallery collaborates with a range of companies and individuals whose support makes it possible to realise the Pavilion.”

See the slide show of all the pavilions here.