Drago – Street art publisher

On November 18th, The Thousands, an exhibition of some of the world’s best street art, opened in London for just 5 days. It featured original work by some of the top names in street art: Faile, Banksy, KAWS, Shepard Fairey, Swoon, Herakut, Barry McGee and many more.

Last summer, the Tate Modern put street art outside their museum, and this year the Bristol Museum let Banksy take over for a few months. Those are definite steps in the right direction, but The Thousands  has demonstrated to the art world and the public that there are great works within the sphere of “street art,” and that street artists deserve a place in art history at least equal to that of The Young British Artists or the great pop artists. Unlike any show that a gallery can organize (not that there’s anything wrong with art galleries), the goal of The Thousands is not to sell work, but to publicize it, and the vast majority of the work on display won’t be for sale. 80% of the works in the show came from private collections and this five-day exhibition was a one-off, one-time chance to see works that normally remain under lock and key in the homes of elite urban art lovers.

The young RJ Rushmore pulled it off and impressed us all. The opening was packed, apart from the photos here’s another measure of perspective: 600 bottles of Brew Dog demolished in under three hours. The evening was frequented by friends, art lovers, collectors, journalists, gallerists, and of course artists. We got to meet Know Hope, Pure Evil, Elbowtoe, Herakut, and members of the Burning Candy Crew like Tek33, Sweet Toof, GLDPEG, and Rowdy.

For those of you who missed this five-day phenomenon, you will be happy to know that we took plenty of pictures and video footage so that you can live vicariously through us…Or…you can pick up a copy of the accompanying book and check it out yourself…and then kick yourself for missing it. Twice.

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