The Underbelly Project, Paris: A Subterranean Graffiti Tomb, Ooh La La

Deep in an undisclosed location below the streets of Paris, the Underbelly Project lives again. Since Brooklyn’s temporarily secret guerrilla art gallery saw 100 graffiti and street artists, the French edition’s crew has been downsized to ten (FUTURA, SABER, more) plus a small flock of photographers and organizers. Read more »

SABER for Occupy Los Angeles

California-based graffiti artist SABER has come out to support Occupy Los Angeles over the weekend. Split, these are 64 protest signs: “Fox News is Poison,” “Bail Out Skid Row” and more. Together, it’s a giant, 30ft American flag. The massive Occupy Wall Street solidarity camp out in front of City Call is steadily growing. Meanwhile, SABER will return to City Hall on Oct 12 at 3:30 pm to continue his sky tag-assisted campaign and present his petition to end LA’s mural moratorium. (Photos: SABER/Twitter)

SABER, a California-based graffiti artist, dispatched skywriting planes over Downtown Los Angeles earlier today to challenge the city’s controversial moratorium on murals. New laws that were meant to curb the proliferation of advertisements and signage, have instead been used by officials to basically make it illegal for artists to paint large scale works, specifically if they involve spray paint and regardless if they have the owner’s permission. Read more »

When SABER first manipulated the American flag to make a viral video in support of health care reform last year, he unleashed a storm of conservative media wrath about how he was desecrating the flag, Jesus, puppies and everything good and American. True story. So, here are some more flags below from his Tarnished series, that will be on view at the Opera Gallery. Read more »

SABER hasn’t said much publicly since the federally-funded attack on his LA River mural, until now. After spying on the whitewashing work from afar, the Los Angeles-based graffiti writer actually felt “a calming sense of accomplishment” and went home and made some prints to sell you, saying “After I got back home from the river I was inspired to make some adjustments to a small number of the river posters I have, one hundred of them in total. They were signed, dated, numbered, and hand touched, all on the day it was buffed.” ($50)

Images via SABER

It turns out that SABER’s giant LA River piece was whitewashed with nearly a million dollars of economic stimulus funding. Thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, BJD Resourcing was awarded an $837,000 contract to clean up graffiti along Los Angeles’ drains and ditches. While touting the creation of eight new jobs, the US Army Corps of Engineers reports that contract is intended to make the largely unseen water channels “look presentable.” Considering how quickly their buff job will be painted over by graffiti writers and vandals, it sounds like a lot money being flushed down the drain.

Photos by Jay Field/USACE

SABER’s massive LA River piece, one of the biggest illegal roller paintings in the world, is gone. Allegedly taking a year and a half to complete, the MSK graffiti writer’s masterpiece has been painted white in a fraction of the time. Jump for the legendary painting in its original unfaded glory. |Known Gallery| Read more »

To hype the release of SABER’s “first-ever fine art print,” this clip was released of the Los Angeles writer discussing his take on the graffiti game and miscellaneous footage of him painting. The limited edition print is being released on Wednesday, July 3rd and features “10 colors, 6 or 7 heavy metallics” and “deep variation throughout.” Check back then and we’ll have more information.