The ever-active, longtime street artist Ron English has just released the politically fueled new music video for "The Obama Song" by his rock side project the Electric Illuminati from their recently released Songs In English album. The video (above), which pays homage to a famous Dylan clip, showcases the "popaganda" artist's work - most notably his famous Abraham Obama piece which melded the two presidents images into one. Previous Amoeblogs on the artist and his guerrilla art style include Ron English's Brand New Homo Hunk Art Celebrates End of US Military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy (Sept 2011), and Ron English's Pop Art  (Nov 2007). For more visit his website/blog The Art and Crimes of Ron English

Last Friday, April 1st, guerrilla street artist Ron English was down in Texas, where he spent the early afternoon posting his art on both sides of the US/Mexican border (McAllen, TX & Reynosa, Mexico) as part of his grand scale and very risky (even by his illegal art standards) April Fool's Day on the Border art project. Since the 1980's Ron English has been risking getting arrested (many times actually getting arrested and jailed) for sniping his large scale, anti-corporate & anti-estabishment faux-advertising street art on roadside billboards, bus stop ad spaces, & various other highly visible public spaces.

Ron claims he is the first street artist to ever do something like this on the wall separating the US/Mexico. The Popaganda artist risked not only getting arrested but also the wrath of the notoriously vigilant US border patrol & Homeland Security forces. And on top of all that, the veteran street artist literally risked his own life by entering the territory of trigger happy Mexican drug thugs.

"Very close to where we were at on the Mexican side doing the billboard [was where] all those people got shot. It was scary," said English, referring to the six latest casualties in Mexico's bloody drug war who got gunned down & killed just the day before he crossed the border for his April Fool's Day on the Border stunt.

Released only last Tuesday on DVD, the Banksy film Exit Through the Gift Shop has been flying out the door at the Hollywood Amoeba store, where it has already become one of the top selling titles of 2010. "Yeah, it's been selling like crazy," confirmed Jackie in the DVD section of the Los Angeles Amoeba Music by phone yesterday. "At the rate it's selling it's probably going to be one of the number one selling DVDs of the year. It's hilarious and you don't even have to be a fan of this art form to enjoy this documentary." In agreement is pioneering street artist & culture jammer Ron English, who appears briefly in the film and who along with Banksy and Swoon put his art on the Palestinian separation wall in the West Bank in 2007.

"Banksy really made a great movie. He's a great storyteller as you can see from this documentary," said English, explaining the film's premise as, "About this French guy in LA who followed Shephard Fairey around filming him for five years but then he wouldn't give him the footage. And Shephard was like, 'You got the best stuff I've ever done, so let's make the movie,' but the guy Thierry [Guetta] wouldn't give him the footage so he was suing Thierry. And then Thierry turned out to be, like, crazy. And then he did the same thing to Banksy. He shot Banksy for all these years but then he wouldn't give Banksy the footage.

          

Aritst Ron English, recently interviewed here on the Amoeblog about his new books and interviewed again here for this report, has just returned to the US after a most interesting visit immediately before Christmas to Palestine where he was a part of the unique Santa's Ghetto Bethlehem 2007 art project. He joined several other "street artists" from around the world, including renowned British artist Banksy (the project's mastermind).

While in Bethlehem Ron posted his art on the controversial Palestine wall and fence as well as in places nearby the wall. The unique ongoing annual art exhibition was held in Bethlehem this year by Banksy reportedly in the hope that it would focus attention on the poverty of the West Bank and draw tourists back to the traditional birthplace of Christianity.

To the left and down below are some of the pieces by Banksy. Immediately above and below are two of the pieces by Ron English.  All of these pieces along with many others were posted on the website SantasGhetto which, note, in the days before posting this  blog, had just been been "closed" but may be open again. Meantime, check out both Ron English's Popaganda site where on the first page is a segment titled "This Christmas in Bethlehem" and also Banksy's main website.

Banksy created the Santa's Ghetto project six years ago when he felt that the spirit of Christmas was being lost. "It was becoming increasingly uncommercialized and more and more to do with religion, so we decided to open our own shop and sell pointless stuff you didn't need," said the artist in a statement at the time.