Best Street Art/Graffiti

OK, maybe reconstituted thrift-store clothes and witty handbags don’t exactly jibe with the traditional macho, street-art, culture-jamming definition of “guerrilla.” But with the second annual INDIE CRAFT EXPERIENCE in Atlanta rating a mention in the New York Times Magazine, the ladies-and-lads who craft proved creativity isn’t just limited to galleries. And they upped the profile on nontraditional art-making in the city.
www.ice-atlanta.com.

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Atlanta’s own Berlin Wall and the city’s favorite soapbox, the KROG STREET TUNNEL is a trippy kaleidoscope of politics and explosive color thankfully overlooked by the city’s anti-graffiti law enforcers. The colorful display significantly adds to the city’s beleaguered funky quotient. Shows change daily.
Between DeKalb Avenue and Wylie Street at the border of Cabbagetown and Inman Park.

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The underground's form of branding and reclaiming public space is full of visionaries. But few achieve the graphic purity of Dr. Blade's stark, stunning black figures of piercing-eyed hawks executed in a clean, black, gray and white Teutonic style. Dr. Blade's street signs (often seen next to the laughing ghosts of www.mrfangs.com) mark multiple graffiti nooks from Atlanta's Cabbagetown to Mass MoCA, which featured the Atlanta artist in a May show dedicated to graffiti at the Massachusetts art space. "www.drblade.org" less...

Though purists will argue long into the night about how graffiti can't actually be brought into a gallery setting, YOUNGBLOOD GALLERY in Grant Park nevertheless bridges street culture and the art world in fresh ways. Since its inception in 1997 in a former TV repair shop, the gallery has recognized the importance of graffiti by staging an annual graffiti exhibition (this year's featuring Hense and Born), as well as graffiti influenced artists, like this year's "The Animal Show." The art space also features a range of national and local writers on its exterior walls, including Gtek, Raven, Glue, Stem, Web and Totem. The gallery is currently trying to secure permits to allow the exterior graffiti to remain following the implementation of a city ordinance penalizing businesses that don't clean graffiti from their facades. "629 Glenwood Ave., 404-627-0393. www.youngbloodgallery.com " less...