Graffiti legend, present at Eurobest
Eurobest, celebrating 25 years this year, announced that internationally-renowned graffiti artist Niels Shoe Meulman will join the Festival in Lisbon to work on a live graffiti project in the city.
Niels Shoe Meulman, aka Shoe, is a visual artist, graffiti writer, graphic designer and art director who was born, raised and is still based in Amsterdam (Netherlands). Already a graffiti legend by the age of 18, he formed the Crime Time Kings with Bando from Paris and Mode2 from London, who together gave graffiti in Europe its own distinctive style. After apprenticing under Dutch graphic design master Anthon Beeke, he ran his own design company, Cauldfield & Tensing, and was partner at advertising agency Unruly.
He has revolutionised the art of writing with Calligraffiti, an art form that fuses calligraphy and graffiti. Launching this movement in 2007 with a successful solo exhibition in Amsterdam, his Calligraffiti pieces have since been shown in international exhibitions and are part of several museum collections.
On Eurobest’s first day (Nov. 28th), Shoe will begin work on a Lisbon city wall located in Alcântara, an area near the river Tejo. Across two days, with the city as his audience, he will create a unique piece of Calligraffiti about which Shoe says, “I’m in search of the perfect line, I’m looking to find it in Lisbon.” On the last day of the Festival, he will join Creative Social on stage for a seminar which will take the audience head on into creation and craft and explore the combination of both order and chaos in Calligraffiti.
We’re excited that we can welcome such a recognised graffiti artist as Niels Shoe Meulman to join us in Lisbon. It is testament to how much Eurobest has developed in 25 years; from an advertising awards to a celebration of European creative excellence across different communication platforms whilst offering inspiration to our industry. It’s fantastic that the city of Lisbon are offering us the space to do this and we look forward to watching the artist at work as the wall transforms into an urban piece of art
Philip Thomas
CEO of Lions Festivals.
Located at the top of Rua Cais de Alcântara, at the crossing with Avenue da Índia, Shoe will work on the wall across 28 & 29 November, at which point anyone is welcome to view the work in progress. After this, delegates can see him on stage in the Creative Social seminar taking place from 16:00-16:35hrs on Friday 30 November. Festival’s program is available, in full, here.
Launched in 1988, Eurobest is Europe’s leading annual awards competition for creative excellence in the categories of TV/Cinema, Print, Outdoor, Radio, Craft, Interactive, Media, Direct, Sales Promotion, Design, PR, Integrated, Branded Content & Entertainment, and Mobile advertising. Since 2008, the awards, which are judged by Europe’s top creatives, form part of a two-and-a-half day Festival themed to identify and engage specific topics that are relevant to the European market. The festival, attended by more than 1300 delegates in 2011, has previously been held in Stockholm, Amsterdam, Hamburg and Lisbon. Eurobest is organised by Lions Festivals.