A controversial mural/installation went up in Miami this past week. Directed at the Occupy Wall Street Movement, watch the artist Above create his latest work. Video after the jump.

Zero Publishing presents a boxed edition of Above’s book “Passport.”

About ABOVE

From WIKI (born circa 1981) has been creating public art since 1995. ABOVE is an international contemporary street artist who keeps his identity concealed and is widely known for his multi-layer/full color social and political stencils, spinning wooden “arrow mobile” installations, and large mural “word play” paintings. ABOVE started traditional graffiti of tagging freight trains in California in 1995. ABOVE moved to Paris at the age of 19 where he started painting his trademark arrow (pointing above) all around the city. Since then ABOVE has been consistently traveling around the world doing many large self-financed “tours” with each tour exploring a new medium or style of artworks. ABOVE has been successful in putting his street artworks in over 90 cities in 60 different countries around the globe.

Technical Specs

• Edition: 200
• Sales start at edition number 61/200
• Hardcover book: signed/numbered – 12.25 x 12.25″ (31.1 x 31.1cm)
• 156 pages
• Over 120 color plates
• ISBN 978-1-937222-04-8
• Designed by Blaine Fontana of FONTANA STUDIOS

More Looks after the jump.

The latest from ABOVE is a pretty good story.

I was flown to Adelaide, Australia to paint a mural on a 63 metre (200 foot) long wall. Within just 3 days of my arrival I fell and broke my scapula in 2 parts as well as suffering from a head concussion ending up in the hospital twice. Part of my responsibilities for this mural project was to be a mentor to 3 already extremely talented local Australian artists making this project a collaborative effort and highly entertaining. As a collective we decided to comment and paint a word play to relate the adversities of this wall’s rocky surface, and fact that I literally fell broke my bones during this project. In the end it was the words that were always there to save us!

A full run down off all artists involved after the jump.

“‘A picture is worth 1,000 words.’ I sat for a while considering if I should describe this piece and the multi-layered meanings depicted in the painting?! The stencil and symbolism in the painting take on some heavy current topics of social, political, and racial issues just to name a few. I decided it’s best for you the viewer to interpret and look at this piece and make your decision on what you feel from it. Art has the amazing ability to be interpreted on a range of 1,000+ different meanings depending on who you ask. Some of you might find this piece offensive, constructive, ironic, or just plain stupid. I want to highly encourage all of you watching this to speak up and comment about your interpretation of this stencil and issues portrayed.” – Above.

Words from ABOVE, via Unurth –

I was invited to participate with L’association LE MUR (lemur.asso.fr/​) here in Paris. The association invites artists from around the world come and paint this billboard. Each artist is given 2 days to paint on the paper which will then be pasted up on the 24 foot x 9 foot billboard.

Being that I’m in France I felt it would only be normal to paint a french word play that that local parisiennes could appreciate. This french word play “Prendre le taureau par les cornes” (Take the bull by the horns) was a motivational message and extremely fun working with the positioning of the typography.’

After the jump, check out a video of ABOVE’s work in Paris.

Above shares a latest video and provides the key backdrop -

Last year I was traveling for 3-months around Europe and spent 2 weeks in Paris. One day when I was walking around Paris I found this spot but unfortunately I had just 1 day before my flight to Rome. After observing the large concrete frame on the wall, it gave me a lot of inspiration for several ideas on how to creatively interact with the un-used frame and location. One idea was to juxtapose an “art thief” stealing a popular painting like the Mona Lisa from the frame. I felt the idea and site-specific stencil would interact well with the un-used frame and the fact that the Mona Lisa is located just 10 minutes away inside the Louvre museum.

Time always changes things and with that new situations arise. Since last year when I was in Paris I’ve noticed a lot of new topics in street art and more importantly the thievery of art works in the street. I felt it more interesting and relative to have the art thief portrayed in the stencil stealing a piece of art that actually gets stolen quite often. The English artist Banksy is one of the most popular street artists and highly publicized victims of his street artworks being stolen. It’s not by random chance this happens to Banksy’s art as first and foremost he makes great work but also due to the fact that his indoor works have sold for several hundred thousand dollars you can imagine when he paints outside in the street his works are soon sought after by thieves.

It’s an interesting concept and somewhat of an irony as we the artists and the thieves are both working in an illegal manner. One illegal activity inspires another. The artist paints illegally with spray cans on a wall, while the thieves jack hammer and chip off illegally painted walls, illegally. It’s kind of like the pot calling the kettle black to a degree.
I took the initiative to comment and create a situation in this piece that could mimic both illegal acts simultaneously executed here in the painting and in the process.

Many years ago before Banksy’s mass appeal he painted his popular rat image that read, “Because I’m worthless.” Times have changed Banksy is a common household name as well as the increased value of his artworks. I felt like it would be applicable to the current state of affairs to appropriate his previous statement to “Because now I’m worth it” to reflect the past and current thievery of his street artworks.

“A lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to”
Banksy