Next weeks, we will be working in Showroom MAMA as part of the cultuurtraject. We will be working on group paintings and together with high-school kids we will paint a mural that’s on view for everybody. Friday the 19th of December the mural will be baptised during a special opening party! More info: HERE

Finally both Lastplakkers are back from the worlds oldest city, Damascus. They spent a total of three weeks there teaching the basics of graffiti and history, culture and techniques we're quickly adopted by the almost 25 students. Finding the right paint was the only obstacle. Since there's no graffiti scene in Syria, the only available paint was either WIN from Thailand, or Bosny, a brand that qualified itself as 'English Industry'. To make things worse, the cap system was 'male' instead of the common 'female', but we managed.

The whole project was organised by the Greek Orthodox Church of Syria and was guided by the UNDP, AllArtNow and the Dutch Embassy. Students received training in sexuall education and we're tought to use art as a communicative form, of wich graffiti was one. After one day of trying techniques and sketching we divided the group in pairs of two and gave each a board to produce their final work on. The results we're surprisingly good, both technical and conceptual and most important; all students had a lot of fun.

Both Sterf and Oles have developed a big heart for Syria and can be found walking the streets listening to the sounds of George Wassouf, eating falafel and drinking pomme granate juice per liter. Shokran Syria!

Last week OX-Alien, Boortorrie, the girls and CES 53 went to Los Angeles for the Lastplak show in the Found Gallery. Curator Jonny was so kind to pick us up, let us crash in his gallery and show us around town. We had some great Mexican dinners and adopted Tecate beers for that week. Due to a minor jetlag, the first day we were out allready at 06.00 am with our bermuda's on waiting for the sun to come out. Nearby on Sunset Ave. there was the great 24hrs. Tang's donut shop serving us steady recipe breakfast everyday. We checked out Hollywood Boulevard where everybody was getting their costumes for Halloween or debating on the elections and proposition 8. Later that week there was a huge Halloween block party where out of 300.000 people of course OX-Alien and CES 53 had to get arrested. Thanks to our diplomatic passports we could save 'em from holiday in Guantanamo Bay. We visited Venice Beach and the Big Geezers preparing for their show they were having a week later. At Melrose we bothered all the shops and Scientology Church to paint their walls. In the end we got to paint the gallery's opposite neighbour's house and the 14-forty designers fence. In the meantime we put up our show at the gallery. A lot of works got stuck in the mail and got in, just in time for the opening. Customs had brutally cut up our " Arnold Swartenigger: "I'll be black"  painting, but we were able to resize it on another frame. The opening was nice. Everybody was pretty hung over from Halloween the day before, but still took the effort to check out the show. Afterwards we went to a crazy, almost over, artists exhibition / party in a former brewery with a lot of mushroomheads and hippies hitting the chilum and watching deep sea documentaries. The view from the balcony on downtown L.A. was just as nice. The last days we spend doing some touristic stuff like climbing up the Hollywood hills for the famous view on L.A. and shopping for clothes and shoes offcourse. Then it was time to say goodbye and hit back to rainy holland. You can still check out the show till the end of november.

Sunday the 26th of October we did a workhop in Centraal Museum Utrecht. Here some pics.

Last weekend we painted a long fence in the Oldenbarneveltstraat in Rotterdam city centre. Participating artists were: Grrt, Boortorrie, Ox-Alien, Yen, Sterf, Pinwin, Biriol, Surch, Volt, Wes, Thor & Z.

Oles, Pinwin, Sake, MayB, Boortorrie & Lady Missing are back from St. Petersburg where we did a retrospective photo exhibition with some additional paintings in the Mayakovski Public Library.This part of the building used to be the Dutch Reformed Church and was re-opened last year as an (pretty conservative) exhibition space by Mayor of Rotterdam Ivo Opstelten.

The content of the expo was very unusual to this place and the organisation "Foundation Friends of St. Petersburg". They were quite worried if the expo would be ready in time (opening next day) and if the public would like it or not. Big part of the visitors are Dutch diplomats and acquaintances.

The day we arrived we barely had time to put away our stuff in our terrific appartment. Immediately we had to come over to the place and start putting up the expo. After a lot of hassle and worries of the organisation the show looked tight. The opening was a big succes, and the organisation was very surprised and pleased that besides all the officials there were a lot of youngsters present at the expo, drinking champagne, Baltika beers (!!) and eating Dutch cheese and sausages that the organisation insisted millions of times we should bring. We met some nice people and young starting streets artists like Solea at the opening that later showed us some nice Ins and Outs of St. Petersburg. Still we were worried where our friend ACAB was hanging out. He was supposed to travel to St. Petersburg by himself but we did'nt hear anything from him for two days, phone dead, etc. We thought he might be confiscated by KGB, deported to Siberia, or prostituting or smoking crack somewhere on the streets… In the end it appeared that he could not find his passport and the possibilities to take his flight, bummer! After the opening the locals showed us some bars and clubs where at some point when we entered all other visitors immediately left… We had the greatest time drinking, dancing on the tables and Sake kicking around the furniture on crap early 90's house music and great Balkan beats.

The following days we walked across town and the river, eating soljanka soup with undefinable pieces of meat in it. We painted trackside in the outskirts and a Lastplak tribute to St. Petersburg wall in some nice alley. Of course we were embraced by the local inhabitants and even a complete wedding showed up for a romantic photoshoot. Then we hooked up with TRUN and his friends, a bunch of the very few serious graffiti writers around town. Graffiti like we know it is very young in St. Petersburg and has only been around for about ten years.The guys showed us an interiour of a shop they were painting, these guys gained superior skills in a short time! Besides the photorealistic sprayed portraits, shoes and the Manhattan skyline, these guys also understand very well how to drop a decent piece out on the streets. Near the end of our stay we spend a nice at the Primorskaya "beach" were we painted a nice wall together. Also we had a "carpe diem" moment and rolled a big fun "beachbuster" on a wall on the beach. Then it was time for some more drinks, dinner and partytime before returning to Rotterdam. We said goodbye to all of our new friends, PinWin and MayB made a piece with the last drops of paint en everybody spent their last money on touristic crap, chocolate and  drinks.

We hope to be back soon, Russia!

Last Sunday we also finished the wall next to the Vrendenburg in Utrecht for the No Label festival, a part of the Culturele zondagen.

Last weekend it was time for the annual Wereld van Witte de With festival here in Rotterdam. For us it's the fourth time in a row to participate in this festival (thanks to the Mothership!). This years theme was 'Green', so we decided to trash a Hummer, one of the biggest enviromental polluters. Snodevormgevers from Eindhoven made a replica for us, and we had three days to trash it, together with our setting (a ghetto alley). We had a great time and it's nice to be a part of this festival again! More photo's click HERE!