Kid Acne’s Stabby Women were a project he originally started during a trip to Sao Paulo. These heroines take over forgotten and derelict spaces at the bottoms of doorways and amongst other graffiti and street art cohorts. Over 500 of these ladies inhabit cities such as New York, Paris, Barcelona, Munich and London, as well as Sao Paulo. The zine is the perfect format to document and spread the word about these small, ephemeral, yet powerful and recognized works of art.
Ripo explains his own take on the Barcelona leg of the project and how it fits with the city in this exclusive text just for NNE.
“Anybody talking about graffiti and street art in Barcelona knows that this is a city where most people talk about “what was” rather than what is there now. Pre-2005 you could paint walls in the daytime with a joint and a beer and the fuzz would drive by without a problem. Post-2005 and all you saw was washed grey streets and putting up a sticker could get you a 700€ fine, or more. Although getting up has gotten harder the toughest thing is staying up. This thanks to the never-ending buff and the limited number of spaces that everyone hits that don’t get cleaned, namely the doors and roll down shutters.
I’m not talking about the ‘old days’ just to reminisce, I’m just setting the stage for May, 2009, when Kid Acne’s women came through town, and again I took notice of something other than just tags and throw ups in the streets. Before the wide range of work you could see was incredible, now mostly it’s just bombing. Not that bombing doesn’t taste great and satisfies your hunger, but you can’t live on hamburgers alone. The women and animals had character, they stood out, they felt like a proper campaign, each piece was carefully crafted, and most importantly they were in really good spots both on the main streets and tiny alleyways that I had barely even discovered myself after five years of living here. Some tourists come here, hit a few shutters or tags, and leave with little more than a severe hang over and sunburn.
These little gals made themselves known, stomped out their ground at the bottom of doorways all around the center (over a few of my tags even, but no hard feelings) and a lot of them are still up today over a year later. Another small but significant sign of life in a city that’s suffocating in its own sea of grey paint.”
- RIPO
Kid Acne – STABBY WOMEN (Invisible Spies)
Launch date: 27st August 2010
Retail price: £15.00
Format: A5 Portrait
• 52 page custom fanzine
• Hand-pulled screen printed cover in pink flouro ink
• Traditional litho-print blood red on stone grey paper
• Limited run of 250 – individually numbered and embossed by the artist.
Includes:
• 600 word artist’s summary
• Set of 8 full-colour postcards, gloss laminated
