By Karolina Kramplova

It’s 10am on a Saturday morning and a group of 25 people are waiting for tour guide David Stuart, a journalist and street art photographer, to start off the Shoreditch Street Art Tour. Comparing it to art galleries in London, this art experience may be described as an open-air version of a gallery where you can avoid listening to pretentious people. Instead you get to enjoy your cigarette, a cup of coffee and embrace the scruffiness of Shoreditch’s streets. 

 

The area was not always a hipster place that all the ‘cool’ kids wanted to go to. Back in the day, it was an industrial, working class neighbourhood. After being bombed during World War Two, artists took over the warehouses and factories in search of cheap rent. The walls of old brothels and shattered buildings are now covered in art created by international artists, expressed in various ways including stencils, sculptures, stickers and graffiti.

 

David Stuart begins by explaining his enthusiasm for street art by comparing it to the art you can witness in exhibitions: “When the art moves from the streets into indoors, it loses something: its spirit.” Considering his past, where he has spent 12 years photographing, writing and critically looking at this art world, his drive for his job is undeniable. He makes the tour so much more exciting and worthy of walking in the cold for three hours. 

 

 

 

 

Everyone is hopeful to see the first groundbreaking piece and that comes when Stuart takes the whole group 100 metres away from the meeting point at Spitalfields Market to see a sticker. The way he talks about a sticker, smaller than the size of a smartphone, proves how much of an enthusiast he actually is. His ability to grab everyone’s attention is probably due to his great storytelling skills. Each piece has a story and even a tiny sticker has more to it that one can first imagine.

 

A sticker of ‘Andre the Giant Has a Pose’ (a picture of a French professional wrestler) is what the artist, Shepard Fairey, first became known for. Stuart explains his life journey, which includes Fairey founding the clothing brand OBEY and creating the famous Obama poster ‘HOPE’. Whilst standing by the pole, a man from the group asks about another sticker next to Fairey’s. Stuart is again very prompt and knows everything about it, even though the question is very sudden and unexpected.  

 

A few minutes into the tour and it’s obvious to everyone that Stuart has amazing attention to detail through his ability to spot the smallest, but greatest, pieces. He points to the sky and an odd looking animal covered in bronze is sitting down at the top of a road pillar. This sculpture is by environmental artist Jonesy, who used the Ouroboros animal eating its own tail to portray our generation. He claims our species only uses non-renewable fuels leaving nothing left for the next generation. 

 

Whilst describing this particular piece, Stuart describes how art can be used to express political views, criticise society and promote environmental issues like Jonesy has done with his bronze casting. This form of street art has been used since the beginning of the millennium and artists like Banksy and D*Face “established the commercial market for street art in Shoreditch,” claims Stuart. 

 

 

 

 

Moving from the adjacent streets of the Spitalfields Market, the tour continues onto Fashion Street where Stuart points out how British artists copy Banksy’s signature style, such as his anti-advertising, humour-filled stencils carrying political messages. One of the first examples of artists inspired by Banksy’s work is Otto Shade with his ‘children and guns’ series of pieces. The underlying theme of this series is ‘the free Gaza movement’. 

 

Walking further down Fashion Street, Stuart stops between a graffiti piece and a more classic piece of street artwork. This is the perfect time for him to differentiate between graffiti and street art. He simply says: “Street artists want us to go to their galleries, buy their stencils, follow them on social media. They want our love. We are the audience. In terms of graffiti, they don’t care if we can read what they write.” This sermon-like description clarifies once and for all. These two terms can be confused all the time, but Stuart enlightens the whole group.

 

The group asks him how he determines where each piece belongs. At every stop, Stuart is confident about putting the art into categories until artists like Mr. Fan (Fanakapan) blurs the line between graffiti and street art. One of his pieces, at an abandoned backyard, includes a spray painted ‘STAR’. Each letter is in the form of a balloon. Stuart says the letters suggest it is graffiti, however he claims that because “we are the audience“ it also looks like street art. Artwork like this has the ability to surprise and confuse an enthusiast who has spent twelve years studying every single detail of the art of Shoreditch’s streets. 

 

 

 

 

Moving on to the area of Tower Hamlets, smaller pieces now grab Stuart’s attention. He shows the group a piece from French artist Gregos, who portrayed his negative view of Nicolas Sarközy through a face sculpture sticking out of a wall. There are a number of them around Shoreditch. A few streets further, under the ‘Grey Eagle Street’ sign, another environmentalist named Xylo portrays his message in the form of a small square sculpture. He promotes animal rights through his work. 

 

After quite a walk to the Cargo club, David Stuart victoriously shows everyone the original Banksy. This piece is featured in the garden of the club, as it is one of the go-to spots for a night out in London. Stuart’s eyes are like two sparks when he describes Banksy’s anti-corporatism piece, and the group could not get enough of it. 

 

David Stuart does it all. His story-telling skills make everyone feel like they are hearing from the actual artist. A good tour guide like him, an amazing one even, is very difficult to find. Nowadays, art exhibitions rely on voices trapped inside recorders and you do not have a face to match it with.