Revision as of 06:03, 6 March 2015

About ABOVE

Above is an international street artist who has deliberately chosen to keep his identity concealed.[1] He was born in California in 1981 and has been creating public art since 1995.[2] Above is known for his multi-layer, full color social and political stencils, spinning wooden arrow-shaped kinetic art installations, and large text-based painted murals. Above's artworks regardless of medium usually have a strong message or awareness about social, political or international current events. Above began painting graffiti by tagging (writing his ABOVE graffiti signature) on freight trains in California in 1995.[3] At the age of 19, Above moved to Paris, France, where he started painting his trademark arrow icon pointing 'above'.[4] Since 2001, Above has self-financed annual tours around the world, with each tour exploring a new part of the world and often a new medium or style of artwork. During the past 16 years Above has painted artworks in the streets of 100+ cities in 60+ different countries around the world.

Early career

By his own account, Above was born and raised in California. He states that art and music were practiced and encouraged by both parents at an early age.[5] At age fifteen, Above started spray painting the letters A-B-O-V-E on freight trains in California. Three years later, Above changed from painting traditional letter graffiti to an arrow symbol that pointed 'above'. In an interview he stated that he thought it was useless to paint the side of a fast moving train with letters if nobody could read it. Above said he wanted something that could be seen and understood in a fraction of a second regardless of how fast it was moving.[6] In 2001, at the age of 19, Above moved from California to Paris, France. At that time Paris was home to street artists like Zevs, Invader, Stak, Honet and Andre.[7] Above and the other Parisian artists were part of a movement in street art that was heavily based on characters and logos rather than more traditional letter based graffiti. In 2003, Above returned to California where he started installing hanging wooden arrow mobiles.

2004

Following his arrow mobile project, the artist went on a self-titled "U.S.A. Tour" in 2004. He drove 5,000 miles (8,000 km) across the United States hanging 300 plus arrow mobiles in 14 major cities.[1] It was during Above's U.S.A. tour that he introduced elements of word play by writing a word on both sides of the spinning arrows to suggest a dialog.[8] He has declined to respond to questions about how he is able to hang his mobiles so high, saying, "I value and respect that we all have imaginations and for me to interfere with what your imagination is creating, or thinking, would be wrong."

2005

After finishing the U.S.A. Tour, Above returned to Europe in 2005. When asked in an interview why he did not hang his arrow mobiles in Europe after his U.S.A. tour, he responded, "In the United States there are an almost infinite amount of overhead telephone wires and street cables. However I was unsure of how the different European countries 'overhead' wires and supports were so I decided to evolve the wooden arrows I made in Paris in 2002 and focus on putting these on elevated walls around Europe while at the same time observing and researching more about the overhead wires in all the countries I visit."[9] Above visited 15 countries during his 4-month long European tour, installing around 500 of the larger wooden fabric arrows.

2006

After returning to California, Above began planning a new tour, which he called a 'Sign Language Tour'. By his own reports, Above counterfeited Eurail tickets for the tour, which spanned 6 months and 26 countries.[11][12] Above's sign language tour focused almost exclusively on his wordplay sign language arrow mobiles, which were made from fabric glued onto the wood with stenciled four letter words on each side. Above is quoted saying 'sign language is a form of communication using movements instead of sound. I found a lot of charm and power knowing that the arrow mobiles when hung are constantly moving around, most of all spinning around and around. It made logical sense to paint 1-word on each face of the arrow so conceptually speaking when the wind would spin the arrow mobile there would be a small word play dialog to anyone who looked at it."[12] Above customized arrows to certain countries language such as French (J'ai/faim, chez/vous), Spanish (Hace/sol, como/esta) German (uber/alle) and Italian (ciao/ciao)."

2007

In 2007, Above expanded from the word play of the previous year by painting much larger word play murals on the sides of buildings in South and Central America. He said in an interview that he wanted to return to painting letters, like the traditional graffiti he did when he was younger, but instead of painting his name, he wanted to paint word-based art that was site specific and which could easily be read and connect with.[13][14] Above funded his 'South Central Tour' by working as a waiter in a restaurant in Alaska for four months in spring 2007.[15] Above's south central tour lasted about five months, starting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, spanning 18 cities in 13 countries, and ending in Mexico City, Mexico

2008

After the completion of the south central tour in Mexico City in May 2008, Above was invited to go to Europe to participate in the first annual Fame Festival, a street art festival in southern Italy.[17] Later that summer, he traveled to Lisbon, Portugal, where he painted his "Giving to the poor" stencil commenting on social issues of homelessness. Above is quoted on his website: "Every day I walked by this bank ATM machine and this particular homeless woman was sitting in the same place every day begging for money. I found it sadly ironic that just six feet away from here there were people lining up to withdraw money. The obvious social and economic clash inspired me to make this piece."[18] In October 2008, Above returned to his home in California, when the New York Stock Exchange (NTSE) took a drastic crash, marking a worsening of the 2008 recession. Above stenciled on the exterior of a Washington Mutual building (one of several banks that collapsed during this period) an image of the NYSE bar graph with a downward sloping red line that went all the way down into the street gutter, mimicking the results that occurred just a few days before.

2009

In April, Above created a stenciled mural depicting four children searching for "Easter AIGs" in response to the breaking scandal surrounding American International Group and the degree to which it profited from the 2008 bailout.

In May 2009, Above started another tour of Europe lasting four-months. This tour did not seem to have a title as with most of Above's previous tours. In July, he painted a social and political stencil piece titled 'Bridging the divide' directly on the Berlin Wall where the artwork depicted a young girl jumping up trying to grab a bouquet of flowers from a person on the other side of the Berlin wall while a smiling guard looked on. This piece was painted on the 20th year anniversary of the Berlin wall being torn down.[19]

In August 2009, Above returned from Europe and moved to Portland, Oregon, where he started a charitable project involving the homeless population the city. He stated in an interview, "I wanted to address and draw more attention to the homeless crisis here in Portland. I wanted to learn more about this homeless epidemic by listening directly to the homeless community on an individual person to person level. During the month of November, 2009 I rode my bike around Portland wanting to listen to homeless individuals that wanted to share their story and suggestion on what shelters really help out with services as well as where I should donate the money fund raised from this 'Homeless not hopeless' print."

References

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Contact

www.goabove.com

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