Do you like taking pics of bitchin' street art? Or people? Or anything that fancies your eye? Then, please, join Flickr and a group of local photos for the Mission Street Art Photowalk this Saturday. You don't have to be a professional or even a noted dabbler in the photographic arts. Hell, you can you your cellphone's camera for all they care. They're just that cool. They've even organized speakers along the walk to talk about the history of street art in the area. Best of all, at the end of the walk, you will head to a bar "where photojojo has sponsored an awesome photo competition where you can win some great photo gear." more ›

Love it or hate it — pst, we love it — the new playground in Dolores Park got a wee bit of a makeover with some fun street art. Jeremy Novy painted some of his famous koi on the rubber matting. You like? He also drew some clouds and a line of ants, both of which are sure to delight the thong of kids playing in the park again. Mission Mission has more images for your enjoyment or disapproval, depending on which side of the street-art fence you sit. more ›

A prolific, yet apparently nameless, graffiti artist behind one of the few tags we actually kind of liked was busted doing his best Banksy-esque work recently. According to the folks at Uptown Almanac, the artist (or tagger, if you prefer) has been "terrorizing" a couple blocks around 19th and Guerrero for the past few months before a neighbor with a camera spotted him practicing his craft in broad daylight at a construction site near Dolores Park. more ›

Created by Gothamist cofounder and noted street art aficionado Jake Dobkin, GrafRank shows which graffiti artists are going up in San Francisco and Oakland, and which areas are popular for their work. The chart, complete with links to Flickr searches showcasing vandals cum artists, have rankings for... more ›

Ah, yes. Now, this is the kinda of graffiti we like: bold with a dash of guilt and a hint of self-awareness. Friend of SFist Pete Cat came across this gem while lollygagging in the city's Mission District Friday night. Some rapscallion wrote on a brick wall (a canvas notoriously difficult for building owners to erase), but left such a cheeky (and French, if we may say) spray of graffiti that one can't get that mad at it. Adorable, really. Adorable. more ›

When Facebook stock publicly trades later this year, scads of people will turn into billionaires and millionaires seemingly overnight. One person who stands to gain an estimated $200 million is graffiti artist David Choe, who, in lieu of payment, was given shares of Facebook after his work adorned the walls at the first Facebook headquarters back in 2005. According to Fast Company, "In 2005 Sean Parker commissioned Choe to paint more provocative art, in the form of graphic sexually-themed murals on the walls of Facebook's early Silicon Valley HQ, and in 2008 Mark Zuckerberg asked him to paint more restrained ones on the new HQ's walls." more ›

Over at Oakland's groundbreaking weed university, Brooklyn based artists R.B. Morris III & Munir Munir have replaced the building's faux-collegiate logo with a (ahem) dope new 725-foot mural overlooking Broadway and 17th. Smart move, ditching the pretentious air of academia and going straight for an urban vibe. Just look - it's got all the landmarks: a BART train, the Tribune building, a piano, some old guy reading a book. Oakland Living covered the installation progress and the East Bay Express says it's nominated for an Oakland Indie Award. more ›

This morning the repeatedly painted frontage of the Harding Theater on Divisadero near SFist's Western Branch office saw some much-needed white washing. You might remember the space, which has been tagged over three or four times since we last mentioned it, as the former home of such well-loved murals as "Kittenzilla", "Unfinished Gaia Piece with the Two Calves" or a slew of unintelligible scribblings legible only to the connoisseurs. more ›

Ivan and Elizabeth, two long-distance lovers living in Amsterdam and San Francisco, respectively, came up with a public way of showing their love for each other. "San Francisco\Amsterdam," billed as "a collaborative poster project between lovers separated by circumstance," is like one of those broken heart necklace pairs but done with two posters. more ›

After our Laser Kitten Vandalized! post went up yesterday, we received a landslide of comments, many of them rightly questioning what makes one piece of artwork more valid than another. A few others tucked in there also described a "misunderstanding" with what we now know was a legal, approved mural space for both the original three artists (named in the post) and the newest artist. After following up on a few of the comments and Internet leads, we got in contact with Gaia, who had been in the process of creating the second-layer painting. In a phone call earlier this afternoon, we discussed the bulls (calves, actually - more on that in a second), the kittens and the mural space in general. more ›

Well, now this is just disappointing. Barely a month since the Laser Kitten Mural, a.k.a. "Kittenzilla" on Divisadero first delighted us by livening up a long-shuttered movie theater with some playful artwork, local miscreants have already defaced the work. more ›

Get your Sharpie's and spray cans ready, the San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) and the Department of Public Works (DPW) have joined forces to launch a Mobile Free Wall Activity pilot program, which debuts this Sunday at Sunday Streets in the Western Addition at the intersection of Fillmore and Turk streets. more ›

Are we bored with Banksy yet? You tell us.

• Last week, the Chinatown building owners were documented tending to Banksy's doctor.
• Earlier this week, Blek le Banksy's rat showed up on an historic wall in Alactraz, which was promptly removed by the National Park Service.
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The Banksy pieces scattered throughout the city have been continually altered by other graffiti artists and taggers during the past week. more ›

UPDATE: The artist is Hugh Leeman, and he'll be showing his work at White Walls on August 8th. more ›

Pacific Heights can make any kind of graffiti look opulent and exclusive. more ›

by Lisa Hix more ›

Oh, crap.

Kind've like a demonic mirror of Shepard Fairey's iconic Obama HOPE / PROGRESS / CHANGE images, Frightening Prospect's eeevil Sarah Palin poster is popping up around the city! more ›

Image credit: Nature abhors a vacuum more ›

-- The 2007 'Stache Bash: The regular world now knows what bears have known for a long time: mustaches are kinda cool. This even will show you just how cool they, in fact, are. Burlesque troupe Kitty Kitty Bang Bang and DJ Ross Hogg's hip hop, dancehall, roots reggae, and dub sounds intertwine with a night of 'stache championing. Tonight's bash will feature a mustache pageant, a beer foam retention test, a mustache haiku competition, and much more. Also, some of the proceeds go to charity. The hairy festivities start tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Rickshaw Stop; $10 (sliding scale). more ›

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week. more ›

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You think Gavin Newsom'll shave off all his hair next, just like rehabbing Britney Spears? more ›

As the world holds it's breath, teetering precariously on the cusp of the Superbowl (well, at least in America), the wheels of the -ists keep on turning. more ›

We were playing around in our contribute section when we stumbled upon somebody who sent in a link to this video. It's so good we thought we'd give it the full SFist treatment. The YouTube clip is a great video montage featuring all the cool street art and graffiti one can find in the city, set to music. Check it out. more ›