The National News article has been shared by over 34.5K people on facebook within the first 4 hours of it being published. Some of the comments include:

‘Don’t the cops have anything else better to do than arrest such a prolific artist who has done so much good?’ shatstorm

‘I thought he was arrested in 2011… guess not. My thoughts and prayers go out to Banksy!’ Sly

one small seed did some research, and believe that this incident is just a re-hash of the hoax which occurred on February 22, 2013. The below picture’s are our case, and point:

2013:

2014:

Ok, so a few of the names have been changed, and the date amended, but we believe that Banksy is out there having a good laugh! What do you think? Share your comments below…

Watch our exclusive interview with Shepard Fairey (who featured in Banksy’s 2010 documentary Exit through the Gift Shop in 2010) here.

Issue 24 of one small seed asks you to ‘Listen to my Colour and Look at my Sound’. Music, motion, words and colour – looking beyond the obvious, our latest issue brings a union of the senses. To follow is an all-inclusive preview of the new issue: a full breakdown of content that resonates with inspiration. Hold on tight…

The human story is told in the language of pop culture. Coca Cola designed Santa Claus and Hugo Boss the uniforms for the Order of the Death’s Head. Jimi played The Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock and the Devil went down to Georgia. David Byrne wore a big suit and Princess Leia that bikini. We couldn’t handle the truth, needed a bigger boat and loved the smell of napalm in the morning. Assorted male models shot JFK, RFK and JR, then Biggy Smalls, Tupac and the Sheriff. And something made Andy Warhol’s Marilyns smile. Maybe it was the hand up the Mona Lisa’s skirt. (Gustav Swart)

This issue’s theme of ‘Listen to my Colour and Look at my Sound’ led us to some odd doors as we sought artists that bridged the divide between the visual and the aural.  An interview with legendary album artist Storm Thorgerson – referred to some as the 6^th member of Pink Floyd – allowed us to revisit the aesthetics of the ’70s, while 21^st Century poster designer Dan Khulken tells us about making posters for bands like Black Keys and The National. Issue 24 is a 30 000-plus words visual explosion, and one such visually exploding artist we spoke to is the infamous Gonzo illustrator and Hunter S Thompson’s partner-in-grime, Ralph Steadman. Another artist that tore through the ’70s and still doing what he does best is Horace Panter – the bass player of The Specials. In this issue, Panter gives us a candid account of his life in music and his life as an artist, from playing with The Clash to his time working as a white van man, he shares memories of his life on a road less traveled.

Our fashion spread this issue comes direct from Tokyo, Japan. Creating a 3D-like effect, reminiscent of Nintendo games and early Star Wars films, Japanese designer Kunihiko Morinaga created his Low Resolution collection around the 8-bit inspired colorful square blocks. Mari Sarai’s lewd black and white nudes feature as this issue’s photography section, her subjects including celebs like Gavin Rossdale’s daughter Daisy Lowe and model Janice Dickinson. We have a feast for the ears in the form of interviews with Kenya’s globe conquering Just a Band and the revolutionary American poet Abiodun Oyewole – the man who robbed the KKK and worked with legendary Jazz musician Gil Scott-Heron on his famous song ‘The Revolution will not be Televised’.

Ever tasted the letter ‘f’? Or smelled the colour blue? Well, some people have! One of our main features this issue is on Synesthesia – the condition that lets people see sound as colour – and trace its path through the methods and madness of some of the brightest stars in the human firmament. Click HERE for a preview of the feature. On the local frontier, we sit down with singer/song writer/actress Sannie Fox, electronic trio Digital Rockit and all four members from Cape Town band iScreamStix. Olmeca Editión Black Tequila joins us in showcasing electronic DJs/Producers, with this issue bringing Blush n Bass and Felix Laband to the party.  We watched architecture dance slowly to visible music in our architecture feature, looking at structures like The Sum of Days, NY; Stillspotting, NY; the Jewish Museum, Berlin; Jetty Square and more.

Ending with the beginning, our cover for Issue 24 is devoted to one of the street artist/videographer Mr Brainwash’s tongue-in-cheek creations. This issue features a six-page interview with the artist, who talked to us from his L.A. home about money, art and Andy Warhol. Showcasing at 34FineArt Gallery in Woodstock, Cape Town is an exclusive selection of Mr Brainwash’s latest artwork, including issue 24’s ‘Madonna’ silk screen on paper with spray paint.

Right, without further ado… Here’s the breakdown for Issue 24 “Listen to my Colour and Look at my Sound”.

FEATURES

American Civil Rights Icon

Abiodun Oyewole: Grand, High Wizard

Founder member of The Last Poets talks about verse, Gil Scott-Heron and robbing the KKK. Click HERE to read our blog ‘The Revolution will not be Televised’ and find out more about the legendary Gil Scott-Heron: a spoken word poet, jazz genius and close friend to Abiodun Oyewole.

Defiant Photographer

Mari Sarai’s Girls on Film

Black-and-white nudes that stare right back and you and challenge the Gaze. Check out a video interview we found with Mari Sarai by visiting onesmallseed.tv HERE.

Aural architecture

Echo Chamber: The Sound of Space

Our investigation of sound and concrete spans the globe and classic art movies. First we took Manhattan, then we took Berlin. Click HERE and visit onesmallseed.tv to watch the video titled Berlin: Die Sinfonie der GroBstadt, which showcases a selection of abstract visual content that portrays the ‘life’ of a city.

Cape Town-based breakout band

iScreamStix: It ain’t Sorbet

A big scoop of local talent

Kenyan Globetrotters

Just an Interview with Just a Band

Meet the voice of East Africa’s ‘superhero’ Makmande. He may not exist but he sure kicks ass

Cross-sensory Exploration

Neuromagic: The Harmony of Synesthesia

We dive into the magical world inhabited by synesthetes: individuals who see, hear, feel, smell and even taste colour. Such people include legends of our time, like Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd, Marilyn Monroe and Vladimir Nabokov to name a few. Click HERE for a preview of the feature and then visit one small seed TV to see a video about this unique condition

Genre-busting rocker

Sannie Fox: Rage with the Machine

This star of stage and screen proves that you don’t have to be a fatbottomed girl to make the rocking world go round.

Gonzo illustrator

Ralph Steadman: Another Freak in the Freak Kingdom

We can’t stop here. It’s bat country

Controversial Pop Artist

Mr Brainwash: Laughing all the Way to the Banksy

We got a call from the man who calls himself ‘Banksy’s biggest piece of art’. We’ve uploaded a snippet of the interview featured in the magazine, simply click HERE and see if you can make out who Mr Brainwash really is…

Jozi Beats

Digital Rockit: The Neon Gods they Made

Local veterans of the electronic scene look forward and back

Classic Album Art

Storm Thorgerson: Dark Side of the Tunes

We get under the covers with the man who designed for bands like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Muse and machineri.

Troubadour’s Poster Boy

Dan Kuhlken: Dreaming of Electric Sheep

The National, The Black Keys, Red Hot Chilli Peppers… just some of the bands that LA-based design team DKNG have worked for

Musical contrasts

eleKTRONIK Dialogues

A new department brought to you in conjunction with Olmeca Editión Black Tequila dedicated to showcasing the best and brightest musical talent.

Ska rocker and painter

Horace Panter: If Music is your Special Thing

The bass player of The Specials went from fame to obscurity and back again

Avant-garde Fashion

Kunihiko Morinaga: Pretty in Pixels

Chic couture meets the chunky pixels of 8-bit arcade games on the catwalk. Check out our interview with Morinaga in the latest issue, and if you’re thirsty for more information on pixel fashion then check out our blog HERE.

DEPARTMENTS

IN STORE

Products for your eyes, hands, and mind…

BOOK REVIEWS

Get the critique on books that will read you.

SELECTED CREATIVES

We reveal the winners for Selected Creatives 06, a showcase of the very best uploaded to onesmallseed.net. Click HERE to check out who made the cut, voted by you on the one small seed network.

FILM REVIEWS

This issue we check out Mike Cahill’s Another Earth; Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar, Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, Tarsem Singh’s Immortals, Lars von Trier’s Melancholia and Paula Van der Oest’s Black Butterflies.

MUSIC REVIEWS

We dissect the beats that are supposed to move your feet.

NOW SHOWING

Issue 24 showcases some of the most gripping videos we found in 2011, including Influencers; Jeff Staple; Earth time-lapse view from Space; Press Pause Play; Morpho Towers: Two Standing Spirals; Brain Eno’s Imaginary Landscapes and Berlin Die Sinfonie Der Grosstadt, a fascinating video that sheds light on the discourse of aural architecture. Click HERE to watch these awesome videos.

THE LAST WORD

We leave this to South African writer duo Headline Payoff and illustration by Mark Venter.

But looking at the two definitions, how far apart are plagiarism and intertextuality really. In a post-modern age so much media in all it’s forms are a hybrid or pastiche of what has been before, with frankenstein like efficiency, media is chopped up from all era’s and blended together to make something new, while paying homage to the narrative which informed it. In Issue 24 of one small seed – out now! – we chat to Mr Brainwash, the man who refers to himself as ‘Banksy’s greatest work of art’… But how original is his art, or is it ‘art’ at all?

Andy Warhol started the pop art scene in the 1960’s, with his factory and screen print process, a leading figure in the visual art movement, he was best known for his paintings of iconic american products, the campbells soup cans, coca-cola and iconic celebrities of the time, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson. Even though he was attacked for capitulating to consumerism, pop art asked what is art, who decides what art is, Warhol painted soup cans and openly embraced the market culture, courting the rich and famous and gaining commissions for their portraits.

Fourty years later we have Mr Brainwash, a pseudonym for Thierry Guetta, his art of choice involves stencils and silk screens of well known icons in the pop art style used by Warhol. How far can intertextuality and pastiche or parody go before they become plagiarism? The hyperconsciousness of Mr Brainwash’s art is far from subtle, while all art is linked in the evolution of genre and style and reference the past in a global communication while evolving, where is the line between referencing and property theft drawn? Mr Brainwash commented on Andy Warhol saying, “I think that Warhol would have done the same if he were still alive” .

Another artist Mr Brainwash flatters with imitation is Banksy the popular and controversial graffiti artist out of Bristol. Banksy’s distinctive stenciling style encompasses political and social commentary, satirizing famous artwork, artists and public figures.The stencil style of Banksy is a nod to parisian graffiti artist, Blek le Rat. Unlike Mr Brainwash, Banksy’s graffiti parodies the very people who clamor to buy it. At his inception as a graffiti artist, Banksy was considered a counterculture artist, with his stencils and artworks a scathing commentary on consumerism and politics. But how can you comment on a culture that makes you wealthy, is it wrong to profit from social commentary and profit well? In the age of capitalism and consumerism, counter culture cannot exist for in a post -modern age the boundaries between high and low culture are blurred, and that which is outside the mainstream culture will simply be appropriated by it and become part of it.

And so the cycle continues, from Warhol to Blek le Rat, Banksy and Mr Brainwash, art at it’s finest, retouched, reproduced and referenced or plagiarized. To read the exclusive interview with Mr Brainswash get your copy of one small seed issue 24 out on sale in January and hear his thoughts on his art, Banksy and Andy Warhol.

images: Mr Brainwash

Relevant links:

Underground Exchange Art Exhibition
Indidginus Sofa Surfer Album Launch
International Reggae Day
Zula Bar Relaunch
PH Fat Worldwide Success Tour
London Street Photography Festival 2011 presents Vivian Maier
Win a signed copy of Velocity
Splitscreen: A Love Story

ISSUE 20 FEATURES:

• PHOTOGRAPHY: MICHAEL MEYERSFELD
• ARTIST KILMANY-JO LIVERSAGE: ORDA
• GERMAN TOY DESIGNERS, COARSE: FUTURISITC FRENEMIES
• ARCHITECTURE: STARCHITECTURE
• PHOTOGRAPHER: BRIAN MCCARTY’S PLAYFUL THERAPY
• WELCOME TO THE FUTURE-RETRO
• TOMORROWLAND: INTERVIEW WITH FUTURIST MIKE WALSH
• THE TELEVISION WILL BE REVOLUTIONISED, EVEN MORE
• MUSIC AND THE FUTURE
• MUSIC: OLD SKOOL VS NU SKOOL
• POP FACTS: FUTURE VS RETRO
• LIFESTYLE: C-MAX ROLLER DERBY LEAGUE
• CONVERSE: OPTIMISTIC REBELS
• ELECTRONIC MUSIC: HELLO (AGAIN) TECHNO
• RETRO ROCK & ROLL: CORTINA WHIPLASH
• ARE YOU THE NEW BANKSY?
• URBAN LADIES WEAR: RETRO ROGUE
• NY FASHION PHOTOGRAPHER TOMAAS: PLASTIC IS THE NEW BLACK
• POST-TRIASSIC INSTRUMENTAL: BATELEUR
• EIGHTIES POP SURVIVALISTS: DURAN DURAN
• AFRO-FUTURISTIC MUSIC: SPOEK MATHAMBO & MSHINI WAM

Beholders of Les Poupees – the thoroughly seductive characters created by Miss Van – can not help but be enthralled by these lascivious creatures, their overwhelming femininity and the pure eroticism emanating from their gorgeous frames. It’s been fourteen years since the original sultry-eyed Les Poupee de Miss Van first appeared.

Miss Van began painting in the streets at the tender age of 18, not with spray-can in hand, but rather latex paint and brush – as favoured by counterparts, Brazilian graff greats Os Gemeos. The year was 1991. The city, her hometown Toulouse, France. Toulouse is world-renowned for its graffiti scene, Miss Van and her accomplices back then (Mademoiselle Kat and Fafi), couldn’t have help starting a feminine graffiti movement in a more apt place. While the streets occupied her spare time, she was a full-time student completing a four-year degree in fine art.

Seven years on and with enough street-cred behind her, Miss Van held her first gallery exhibition at Galerie Diloy in Toulouse. By the time Parisian Galerie Magda Danysz had proposed to represent her, she had already exhibited in London and Rotterdam. She has since gone on to exhibit in Barcelona, L.A., New York, Melbourne, Sydney, Stockholm, Milan, Amsterdam and Anvers, as well as participating in prestigious group exhibitions alongside the likes of Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Os Gemeos, Swoon, Mike Giant and Takashi Murakami.

On querying the sensual overtures of her work, her response is simple – ‘I just enjoy painting my fantasies without censoring myself,’ she says.

Her buxom burlesque babes echo pure sexual frisson, though Miss Van is quick to point out that not all of them are vivacious pin-up girls – she ascribes them with varied emotions, ‘sometimes melancholic, sometimes arrogant, sometimes coy… much like us (girls).’ It is the sensitivity with which she conveys these feelings that is most laudable.

She has admitted to her beauties being semi-autobiographical, and although her work may have manifested in earlier years through her shocking pink hair and girly wardrobe, it has since steadily transformed to display her own emotional expansion, emerging from girlhood into womanhood and yet still oscillating between the two.Her newest body of work, which will be showing at Galerie Magda Danysz later this year,

explores a broader range of intensity and complexity of sentiment, from melancholic turbulence to the ambiguity and fragility that accompanies provocation.

The evolution is inspiring, beautiful and very real.

The now Barcelonan resident is venturing further afield, from curating big-name group shows and working on her first book, to exhibiting in Asia and South America. With the steady progression and unfaltering passion which encompasses this artist, one can only look forward to what her feminine evolution may unfurl. Though the gallery has taken precedence and the studio has offered a safer space to experiment, her provocative nature still revels in the thrill of the street.

Read the rest of issue 08

Read the rest of issue 08: Part2

Click here to view our #flashBack selection for September.