Secret Wars

At Festibelly this weekend was my first encounter with Secret Wars, a live art/performance art, where two urban artists battle it out in the form of a tag-team competition in front of an audience. I found it fascinating watching an artist at work and i feel it makes art alot more enjoyable/accessible. It definitely makes normal confined exhibition art, more here and now in the form of a show. This experience gives the crowd a slight insight and understanding to the mind of the artist and is exciting and very-watchable! Below are the two examples from Festibelly, the first was the winning piece:

After the weekend I wanted to find out more about Secret Wars, so decided to research it further. The title was inspired by the Marvel comic – where many characters were summoned to a planet in a duel to the death. It is the World’s first live art battle, which works in a similar way to Fight Club - Battles are set up and promoted in and around the country and all over the world through word of mouth.

No pencils or sketches are allowed! The artists are simply placed infront of a 90ft white wall and given black paint to apply their individual creative flair, all in a time restriction of 90 minutes. No themes or directions are given but artists are encouraged to woo the crowds and intimidate their opponents. They are being hosted in basements of bars across London to abandoned meat factory's in Sweden. The Secret Wars network is continually growing, with more battles constantly happening in different locations, with new emerging talented artists.

Rules of the Secret Wars Battle:

- 90 MINS ON THE CLOCK

- BLACK PAINT ONLY – ON WHITE WALLS!
- NO SKETCHES / NO PENCILS
- INVISIBLE MIDDLE LINE WITH AN ARTIST EITHER SIDE

JUDGED USING A 3 POINT SYSTEM – 2 GUEST JUDGES AND A CROWD VOTE
(USING A DECIBEL READER)

Not only does Secret wars provide an high energy, visual entertaining night, but also gives artists the confidence and platform to raise their profile infront of 100's of people. A spokesman from Secret was said: "Artists can be anyone from a fine artist from Central Saint Martins to street artists and graffiti artists; it's a platform for any artist to come and perform freestyle. There's enough talent out there and they need a place to show.".

Secret Wars live art battles (www.secretwars.co.uk)