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<channel>
	<title>Vandalog - A Street Art Blog &#187; Featured Posts</title>
	<atom:link href="http://blog.vandalog.com/category/featured/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://blog.vandalog.com</link>
	<description>Just another street art blog</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:41:28 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Jaz speaks about his art</title>
		<link>http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/02/jaz-speaks-about-his-art/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=jaz-speaks-about-his-art</link>
		<comments>http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/02/jaz-speaks-about-his-art/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:08:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>RJ</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured Posts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Videos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jaz]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.vandalog.com/?p=21656</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In this video of Jaz working in Mexico last December, Jaz shares some insights into his thoughts on graffiti, his art and why he works outdoors. JAZ EN MÉXICO from Filmaciones de la Ciudad on Vimeo. Photo courtesy of Brooklynite Gallery RJ Rushmore for Vandalog &#124; Permalink &#124; No comments <a href="http://engine.influads.com/click/4f339643353b271d3a000009"><img hspace="8" vspace="8" align="right" src="http://engine.influads.com/image/4f339643353b271d3a000009"/></a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="post-refEl-21656"><p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/brooklynitegallery/6544486241/"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21657"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/6544486241_ca8c93223a_z.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="402" /></a></p>
<p>In this video of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/franco-jaz-fasoli/">Jaz</a> working in Mexico last December, Jaz shares some insights into his thoughts on graffiti, his art and why he works outdoors.</p>
<p><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/36157490" frameborder="0" width="640" height="360"></iframe></p>
<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/36157490">JAZ EN MÉXICO</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/filmdelaciudad">Filmaciones de la Ciudad</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
<p><em>Photo courtesy of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/brooklynitegallery/">Brooklynite Gallery</a></em></p>
<hr />
<p><small>RJ Rushmore for <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com">Vandalog</a> |
<a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/02/jaz-speaks-about-his-art/">Permalink</a> |
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		<title>Leon Reid IV&#8217;s latest Kickstarter campaign</title>
		<link>http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/02/leon-reid-ivs-latest-kickstarter-campaign/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=leon-reid-ivs-latest-kickstarter-campaign</link>
		<comments>http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/02/leon-reid-ivs-latest-kickstarter-campaign/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 03 Feb 2012 04:30:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>RJ</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured Posts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Random]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[leon reid iv]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.vandalog.com/?p=21637</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Leon Reid IV and Julia Marchesi have teamed up for Reid&#8217;s latest project: The Hundred Story House. It&#8217;s a sculpture designed to house free books at a park in Brooklyn&#8217;s Cobble Hill Park. The idea is that the sculpture will function as free library on an honor-system. People can take books or leave them, and [...] <a href="http://engine.influads.com/click/4f33961de1f1dfd41200000f"><img hspace="8" vspace="8" align="right" src="http://engine.influads.com/image/4f33961de1f1dfd41200000f"/></a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="post-refEl-21637"><p><a href="http://www.leonthe4th.com/">Leon Reid IV</a> and Julia Marchesi have teamed up for Reid&#8217;s latest project: <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/193679801/the-hundred-story-house">The Hundred Story House</a>. It&#8217;s a sculpture designed to house free books at a park in Brooklyn&#8217;s Cobble Hill Park. The idea is that the sculpture will function as free library on an honor-system. People can take books or leave them, and the sculpture could be a place where people know they can find great books to read for free. But Leon and Julia need $13,000 to make their vision happen, so they have gone <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/193679801/the-hundred-story-house">to Kickstarter</a> in the hope of raising that money. Here&#8217;s their pitch:</p>
<p><iframe src="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/193679801/the-hundred-story-house/widget/video.html" frameborder="0" width="480px" height="360px"></iframe></p>
<p>So far, they&#8217;ve raised about 13% of their goal, and they have 28 days to go. To support The Hundred Story House or learn more, check out <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/193679801/the-hundred-story-house">the Kickstarter page</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p><small>RJ Rushmore for <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com">Vandalog</a> |
<a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/02/leon-reid-ivs-latest-kickstarter-campaign/">Permalink</a> |
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		<title>LNY, Gaia and ND&#8217;A up in Philly</title>
		<link>http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/02/lny-gaia-and-nda-up-in-philly/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=lny-gaia-and-nda-up-in-philly</link>
		<comments>http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/02/lny-gaia-and-nda-up-in-philly/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:32:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>RJ</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured Posts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Photos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gaia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lny]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nda]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.vandalog.com/?p=21579</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Three of the finest up-and-coming street artists around just came through Philadelphia. Streets Dept. has some great shots of two spots by Gaia, so I&#8217;m going to focus on ND&#8217;A and LNY&#8216;s work. There are detailed shots of LNY&#8217;s wheatpastes and some spraypainted works by LNY after the jump&#8230; Any here&#8217;s a bonus piece from [...] <a href="http://engine.influads.com/click/4f33961de1f1df851100000f"><img hspace="8" vspace="8" align="right" src="http://engine.influads.com/image/4f33961de1f1df851100000f"/></a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="post-refEl-21579"><div id="attachment_21583" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21583"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/6791002011_ccaa1854b5_z.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="480" /><p class="wp-caption-text">ND&#39;A. Photo by ND&#39;A</p></div>
<p>Three of the finest up-and-coming street artists around just came through Philadelphia. <a href="http://streetsdept.com/2012/01/31/new-gaia-wheat-pastes-in-south-philly/">Streets Dept. has some great shots</a> of two spots by <a href="http://www.gaiastreetart.com/">Gaia</a>, so I&#8217;m going to focus on <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/52714236@N02/">ND&#8217;A</a> and <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lnylnylny/">LNY</a>&#8216;s work.</p>
<div id="attachment_21586" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21586"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/6796979907_f84c9b5f2a_z.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427" /><p class="wp-caption-text">LNY. Photo by LNY</p></div>
<div id="attachment_21584" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21584"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/6797448743_deffdb5e5c_z.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="480" /><p class="wp-caption-text">ND&#39;A. Photo by ND&#39;A</p></div>
<div id="attachment_21582" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21582"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/6790861819_2df186a893_z.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427" /><p class="wp-caption-text">LNY. Photo by LNY</p></div>
<p>There are detailed shots of LNY&#8217;s wheatpastes and some spraypainted works by LNY after the jump&#8230;<span id="more-21579"></span></p>
<div id="attachment_21587" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21587"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/6796979091_be7136b930_b.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="960" /><p class="wp-caption-text">LNY. Photo by LNY</p></div>
<div id="attachment_21581" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21581"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/6790865323_0495fc5e85_b.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="960" /><p class="wp-caption-text">LNY. Photo by LNY</p></div>
<div id="attachment_21590" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21590"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/6804351371_05cc8f73fe_z.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427" /><p class="wp-caption-text">LNY. Photo by RJ Rushmore</p></div>
<div id="attachment_21591" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21591"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/6804349587_4d988ef76d_b.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="708" /><p class="wp-caption-text">LNY. Photo by RJ Rushmore</p></div>
<p>Any here&#8217;s a bonus piece from ND&#8217;A not in Philadelphia just because I like it&#8230;</p>
<div id="attachment_21585" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class=" wp-image-21585"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/6756773331_1b700c45f8_z.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="480" /><p class="wp-caption-text">ND&#39;A. Photo by ND&#39;A</p></div>
<p><em>Photo by ND&#8217;A,</em></p>
<hr />
<p><small>RJ Rushmore for <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com">Vandalog</a> |
<a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/02/lny-gaia-and-nda-up-in-philly/">Permalink</a> |
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		<title>Street art for the internet</title>
		<link>http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/01/street-art-for-the-internet/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=street-art-for-the-internet</link>
		<comments>http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/01/street-art-for-the-internet/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 31 Jan 2012 01:18:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>RJ</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured Posts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Photos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Random]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dr. d]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[elfo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lush]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobstr]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.vandalog.com/?p=21545</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Street art is moving online. If you&#8217;re a regular reader, you&#8217;ve probably noticed that street artists are making art on the street for the purpose of photographing it and sharing the images online (and maybe you remember these posts). I think it is too early to say for sure whether this transition is a good [...] <a href="http://engine.influads.com/click/4f339644353b27ba36000012"><img hspace="8" vspace="8" align="right" src="http://engine.influads.com/image/4f339644353b27ba36000012"/></a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="post-refEl-21545"><p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mobstr/6731818859/"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21546"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/6731818859_b108a4238f_z1.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="428" /></a></p>
<p>Street art is moving online. If you&#8217;re a regular reader, you&#8217;ve probably noticed that street artists are making art on the street for the purpose of photographing it and sharing the images online (and maybe you remember <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/2011/06/a-sign-of-the-times/">these</a> <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/2010/10/21st-century-graffiti/">posts</a>). I think it is too early to say for sure whether this transition is a good thing, a bad thing or just change, but it has gotten so pervasive that street art that comments on street art now often focuses on pointing out this transition from in-the-flesh street art to art that was intended to be shared digitally. Here are a few recent examples&#8230;</p>
<p>1. <em>Reblog This</em> by <a href="http://www.mobstr.org/">mobstr</a> (shown above). This piece was painted in Shoreditch, a spot where it would have been seen by countless street art photographers, but it only lasted 7 hours before getting buffed. No matter. Mobstr got a great photo of it and put that photo online. Now it&#8217;s all ready to be reblogged on tumblr.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mercyfulfate/6491133087/"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21548"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/lush.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="420" /></a></p>
<p>2. <em>What ever happened to street art on the street?</em> by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mercyfulfate/">Lush</a>. Both a comment on the proliferation of street art online and the commercialization of the movement. This image is available as <a href="http://backwoodsgallery.bigcartel.com/product/what-ever-happened-giclee-print-by-lush">a print at Backwoods Gallery</a>. Lush has also made <a href="http://vandalog.tumblr.com/post/15464413220/lush-fighting-lush">animated gifs</a> of his work, something else that can only be viewed digitally but is created on the street.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/elfostreetart/6770300041/"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21549"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/6770300041_2686db6d1a_z.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427" /></a></p>
<p>3. <em>Fine </em>by Elfo. The text is in Italian and references <a href="http://www.musemagazine.it/it/blog/art/l-arte-e-finita-smettiamo-tutti-insieme-by-giuseppe-chiari-1974-artissima-18-turin.html">this work by Giuseppe Chiari</a>. It translates to &#8220;Street art is finished, stop all together.&#8221; Rather than painting this in a busy city center, Elfo put it on an abandoned building in what looks like the countryside. The audience for the work is (primarily) the audience that will see this photo online and Elfo is well aware of that. Does this mean the death of street art though? Of course not. Chiari continued making art after his declaration, and Elfo has already made more street art. It&#8217;s just that Elfo&#8217;s public is primarily a digital one, either seeking his work out or coming across it randomly on a site like tumblr, but either way viewing it for free.</p>
<p>For more about this shift towards a digital street and a digital public, here are <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/2011/06/a-sign-of-the-times/">two</a> <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/2010/10/21st-century-graffiti/">posts</a> I wrote a while ago.</p>
<p><em>Photos by <a href="http://www.mobstr.org/">mobstr</a>, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mercyfulfate/">Lush</a> and <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/elfostreetart/">Elfo</a></em></p>
<hr />
<p><small>RJ Rushmore for <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com">Vandalog</a> |
<a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/01/street-art-for-the-internet/">Permalink</a> |
<a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/01/street-art-for-the-internet/#comments">3 comments</a></div> <a href="http://engine.influads.com/click/4f339644353b278b3700000e"><img hspace="8" vspace="8" align="right" src="http://engine.influads.com/image/4f339644353b278b3700000e"/></a>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Skewville&#8217;s Playground Tactics</title>
		<link>http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/01/skewvilles-playground-tactics/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=skewvilles-playground-tactics</link>
		<comments>http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/01/skewvilles-playground-tactics/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 28 Jan 2012 15:49:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>RJ</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured Posts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gallery/Museum Shows]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[skewville]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[white walls]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.vandalog.com/?p=21456</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As expected, Skewville&#8216;s latest show looks like it kicks ass. Playground Tactics is on now through February 4th at White Walls Gallery in San Fransisco and the Skewville twins have once again put together a perfect combination of smaller drawings, paintings, sculptures and large installation work. It&#8217;s playful, but what better way to do art [...] <a href="http://engine.influads.com/click/4f339645353b279f3600000f"><img hspace="8" vspace="8" align="right" src="http://engine.influads.com/image/4f339645353b279f3600000f"/></a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="post-refEl-21456"><p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21460"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/skewville-3.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="330" /></p>
<p>As expected, <a href="http://www.skewville.org/">Skewville</a>&#8216;s latest show looks like it kicks ass. <em>Playground Tactics</em> is on now through February 4th at <a href="http://www.whitewallssf.com/">White Walls Gallery</a> in San Fransisco and the Skewville twins have once again put together a perfect combination of smaller drawings, paintings, sculptures and large installation work. It&#8217;s playful, but what better way to do art about a playground? <a href="http://www.curbsandstoops.com/hostage-skewvilles-playground-tactics/">Curbs and Stoops have pics of the installation</a>, and here are some of the paintings, drawings and smaller sculptures&#8230;</p>
<p>Also, <a href="http://factoryfresh.net/factoryfreshshows_skewvilleretro.html">Factory Fresh in Bushwick is hosting a retrospective of Skewville&#8217;s work</a> next month. <em>Skewville&#8217;s 80th Birthday: A Retro Retrospective</em> opens on February 3rd and runs through March 11th.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21464"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/skewville-16a.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="601" /></p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21462"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/playground_lowres.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="444" /></p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21459"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/skewville-15.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="347" /><span id="more-21456"></span></p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21463"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/skewville-5a.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="718" /></p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21461"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/skewville-6.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="450" /></p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21458"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/skewville-14c.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="585" /></p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21457"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/skew.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="625" /></p>
<p><em>Photos courtesy of White Walls Gallery</em></p>
<hr />
<p><small>RJ Rushmore for <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com">Vandalog</a> |
<a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/01/skewvilles-playground-tactics/">Permalink</a> |
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		<title>Martha Cooper interview</title>
		<link>http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/01/martha-cooper-interview/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=martha-cooper-interview</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:13:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>caroline</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Events]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured Posts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Interview]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[db burkeman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Matha Cooper]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[maxwell colette]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stickers]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[It almost goes without saying that Martha Cooper has been one of the most important documentarians of graffiti culture for the last few decades. Her urban and hip hop culture photography is iconic. More recently, Martha Cooper has expanded her graffiti documentation to the photography and collection of stickers. Her two latest books, Going Postal and Name Tagging, [...] <a href="http://engine.influads.com/click/4f33961fe1f1df851200000d"><img hspace="8" vspace="8" align="right" src="http://engine.influads.com/image/4f33961fe1f1df851200000d"/></a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="post-refEl-21342"><div id="attachment_21360" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/paris_sous_les_sticks/3359765018/"><img class="size-full wp-image-21360"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/3359765018_a23ece4958_z.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="480" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Various artists. Photo by Paris sous les sticks</p></div>
<p>It almost goes without saying that <a href="http://www.12ozprophet.com/index.php/martha_cooper/">Martha Cooper</a> has been one of the most important documentarians of graffiti culture for the last few decades. Her urban and hip hop culture photography is iconic. More recently, Martha Cooper has expanded her graffiti documentation to the photography and collection of stickers. Her two latest books, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Going-Postal-Martha-Cooper/dp/0979966655"><em>Going Postal</em></a> and <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Name-Tagging-Martha-Cooper/dp/0981960065">Name Tagging</a>,</em> spotlight sticker art made with postal labels and Hello My Name Is stickers.</p>
<p>On Saturday from 1-3pm, Martha will join sticker fanatic and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Stickers-Stuck-Up-Piece-Crap-Contemporary/dp/0789320819">author of one of my favorite books</a>, <a href="http://www.djdb.com/">DB Burkeman</a>, for a book signing at a sticker exhibition curated by DB. The show, <em><a href="http://www.maxwellcolette.com/artist/stuck_up/50382/a_selected_history_of_alternative_and_pop_culture_told_through_stickers/">STUCK-UP: A Selected History of Alternative &amp; Pop Culture Told Through Stickers</a>,</em> is at Chicago&#8217;s <a href="http://www.maxwellcolette.com/">Maxwell Colette Gallery</a> and features stickers from a top-notch roster of artists.</p>
<p>I would gladly hop on the next plane and see this exhibit in person, but that was not an option so instead I asked Martha Cooper a few questions.</p>
<p><em>Caroline: In your book </em>Name Tagging,<em> you explain how you began appreciating stickers after you bought your first digital camera. What was it about the digital medium that initiated this interest in stickers?</em></p>
<p>Martha Cooper: Pre-digital, I rarely took my heavy, bulky Nikon out unless I was headed for something specific to shoot.  It cost about 50 cents for film and processing every time I clicked the shutter. So although I had noticed stickers for years, I hadn&#8217;t looked at them closely and hadn&#8217;t bothered to shoot many.</p>
<p>My first digital camera was a little Olympus that I could easily carry around with me all the time.  It had a very good close-up lens and performed well under low light. Once I had the camera, it didn&#8217;t cost any more to keep shooting so I was free to take as many photos as I wanted. Transitioning from analog to digital was a challenge. Shooting stickers was an unstressful way to practice new technology with interesting subject matter.</p>
<p><em>C: What led to you removing and collecting stickers off the street, rather than just photographing them?</em></p>
<p>MC: I&#8217;ve always been a collector. I like to look at different examples of things. At first after shooting a nice sticker, I printed it and saved it in an album. That began to feel unsatisfactory&#8211;I wanted the original. I only shoot and collect hand drawn stickers and this is pretty much the only form of graffiti and street art that can actually be removed from the street. Of course writers have criticized me for this and I know this is a dubious defense, but someday I hope to have a museum sticker exhibit.</p>
<div id="attachment_21346" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21346" src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/martha-by-louis.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="640" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Various artists. Photos by Lois Stavsky</p></div>
<p><em><span id="more-21342"></span>C: You have a very unique perspective as a female authority figure in this male dominated field. As a documentarian of an illegal subculture, where you are the age of many of these boys&#8217; mothers, have you ever experienced any sort of conflict in your various roles?</em></p>
<p>MC: I&#8217;m not really an authority figure. I try to be non-judgmental. My approach is more like an anthropologist: participant observation.</p>
<p><em>C: You tend to document what is on the fringe of popularity, bringing the unknown or overlooked into the public eye. Your last two books have been about stickers. Why are you drawn to documenting subcultures? Or in the case of stickers, subcultures within subcultures?</em></p>
<p>MC: The fun is trying to figure out what is going on and how best to represent it. I like documenting things that aren&#8217;t over exposed and are a little hard to find out about. I&#8217;m interested in all kinds of art in everyday life and a still camera is a good way to record and preserve.</p>
<div id="attachment_21352" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 510px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21352" src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/marthaPhoto-by-Louis-In-Wonderland.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="500" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Photo by Lois Stavsky</p></div>
<p><em>C: Most of your photography presents subjects within their greater context, but your photos of stickers are tightly cropped and don&#8217;t include their setting. Why?</em></p>
<p>MC: Whenever possible I shot stickers showing their wider context. However they are small so the details of the art would not have been visible in the layouts in the little sticker books so I had to crop out the background in many cases.</p>
<p><em>C: How do you choose what artists you profile in your books?</em></p>
<p>MC: I chose artists whose work I liked and had good photos of and with whom I had already established some kind of a connection. In <em>Going Postal</em>, I especially wanted to feature some artists from Philly because they have such a strong hand drawn sticker culture. In <em>Name Tagging</em>, I wanted to have a range of artists of different ages.</p>
<div id="attachment_21366" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/damonabnormal/5497003052/"><img class="size-full wp-image-21366"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/5497003052_512cd07498_z.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="428" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Various Philly stickers. Photo by Damonabnormal</p></div>
<p><em>C: On surfaces covered in stickers, what will make a certain sticker stand out to you?</em></p>
<p>MC: Hand drawn stickers are hard to find so those are the ones that stand out the most. After that, bold graphics or unique handstyles catch my eye. I&#8217;m a fan of both graffiti and street art.</p>
<p><em>C: In the 80s and 90s there was very little documentation of graffiti and hip hop culture. The select images from these eras have become iconic. Do you think the ubiquity of digital photography has led to an overload of documentation?</em></p>
<p>MC: In terms of publishing and making a profit, there&#8217;s probably an overload. But in terms of seeing and sharing public art on the street, there can never be too much.</p>
<div id="attachment_21367" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21367"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/4857965390_6cc2e1ba0d_z.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="425" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Cash4. Photo by RJ Rushmore</p></div>
<p><em>C: Hundreds of photos of stickers, graffiti, and street art are uploaded to flickr daily. Why should people buy graffiti art books in an age where similar information is online, free, and en masse?</em></p>
<p>MC: I ask myself that question all the time. I&#8217;m a book lover but I&#8217;m a dinosaur. I would like to think that the edited and organized selection of art, the quality of the photos and the informative texts in books would make them valuable&#8211;but maybe not.</p>
<p><em>C: How do you think shows like DB&#8217;s can change the public&#8217;s perception of graffiti stickers?</em></p>
<p>MC: DB has put together  an amazing collection of not just graffiti, but all kinds of artist stickers. Most people walk by stickers on the street without seeing them. db&#8217;s shows should open their eyes to what they&#8217;re missing.</p>
<p><em>C: Goals or plans for 2012?</em></p>
<p>MC: Since 2006 I&#8217;ve been documenting a neighborhood in Southwest Baltimore called SoWeBo. I&#8217;m hoping to put those photos together for a book&#8211;before books become obsolete.</p>
<p><em>Photos by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/loisstavsky/">Lois Stavsky</a>, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/paris_sous_les_sticks/">Paris sous les sticks</a>, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/damonabnormal/">Damonabnormal</a> and <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/vandalog/">RJ Rushmore</a></em></p>
<hr />
<p><small>Caroline Caldwell for <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com">Vandalog</a> |
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		<title>Interview with DB Burkeman</title>
		<link>http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/01/interview-with-db-burkeman/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=interview-with-db-burkeman</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Jan 2012 05:53:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>RJ</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured Posts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Interview]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[db burkeman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[martha cooper]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[maxwell colette]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.vandalog.com/?p=21314</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In 2010, Rizzoli published the definitive book on stickers and sticker art. That book is Stickers: Stuck-Up Piece of Crap: From Punk Rock to Contemporary Art by DB Burkeman and Monica LoCascio. DB seems to be the ultimate sticker fanatic, and his book tells the history of stickers in a way that only someone completely obsessed could [...] <a href="http://engine.influads.com/click/4f339646353b27d63c000000"><img hspace="8" vspace="8" align="right" src="http://engine.influads.com/image/4f339646353b27d63c000000"/></a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="post-refEl-21314"><div id="attachment_21333" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21333"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/6183580160_614f30bc99_z.jpeg" alt="" width="640" height="390" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Shepard Fairey. Photo by RJ Rushmore</p></div>
<p>In 2010, Rizzoli published the definitive book on stickers and sticker art. That book is <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Stickers-Stuck-Up-Piece-Crap-Contemporary/dp/0789320819">Stickers: Stuck-Up Piece of Crap: From Punk Rock to Contemporary Art</a></em> by <a href="http://www.djdb.com/">DB Burkeman</a> and Monica LoCascio. DB seems to be the ultimate sticker fanatic, and his book tells the history of stickers in a way that only someone completely obsessed could possibly pull off. If you don&#8217;t know anything about stickers, you can skim through and get an introduction. If you&#8217;re already interested, <em>Stuck-Up Piece of Crap</em> gives a behind-the-scenes look at everything from early graffiti stickers to stickers in the music world to the homes and minds of sticker collectors. Of course, DB has quite a sticker collection himself. A small chunk of DB&#8217;s collection will be on display <a href="http://www.maxwellcolette.com/artist/stuck_up/50382/a_selected_history_of_alternative_and_pop_culture_told_through_stickers/">starting tomorrow at Maxwell Colette Gallery in Chicago</a>, alongside a few other sticker-related events (and he and Martha Cooper will be signing books at the gallery on Saturday from 1-3pm). I spoke with DB last week&#8230;</p>
<p><em>RJ: Why do you think you are drawn to stickers?</em></p>
<p>DB Burkeman: It&#8217;s changed over the years for me, but now the simple answer is they are simply tiny portable works of art. That may have a different answer for each person.</p>
<p><em>RJ: In your collecting habits, do you differentiate between &#8220;art stickers&#8221; or &#8220;graffiti stickers&#8221; and stickers intended as advertisements?</em></p>
<p>DB: Never really thought about that, but I&#8217;m less drawn to stickers that are obviously advertisements. I&#8217;ve also become more picky since overdoing on the damn things : )</p>
<div id="attachment_21334" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21334"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/5492905068_d96bdb94bb_z.jpeg" alt="" width="640" height="480" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Poke and Gee. Photo by RJ Rushmore</p></div>
<p><em>RJ: How many stickers do you have in your collection?</em></p>
<p>DB: Somewhere between 4000-6000 &amp; growing, much to my family &amp; friends annoyance. It can take a long time to get down the street with me, I keep stopping to check out lampposts etc.<span id="more-21314"></span></p>
<p><em>RJ: Have you ever ruined any particularly good stickers while trying to take them off the street for you collection?</em></p>
<p>DB: I dont think so. If it looks like a sticker may tear while taking off something, I make do with a photo of it &amp; leave it in place. I only became became a collector of street stickers about 5 years ago when starting to work on the book. There was a postal NeckFace that I tried to remove &amp; I could see it would tear, so I just shot it, called Martha &amp; she ran downtown with her magic spray &amp; got it for her collection.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve had one or two haters get at me for &#8220;stealing&#8221; stickers from the streets. But I&#8217;ve always believed that creators would probable be cool with me talking them, if they knew they would be included in the book, or exhibition. And we have always said, we will return any sticker peeled from the street, if asked. Shepard Fairey defended me to a hater, saying I was documenting history &amp; important. That really made me feel good about it.</p>
<div id="attachment_21335" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21335"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/5755184110_b3239999c5_z.jpeg" alt="" width="640" height="478" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Neckface. Photo by RJ Rushmore</p></div>
<p><em>RJ: How did you decide what to include in the Stuck Up show?</em></p>
<p>DB: It&#8217;s been very hard to pick actually. I wish we had unlimited space &amp; budget to show it all. The current exhibition is a very tightly curated collection. It&#8217;s dope. My hope is that as the exhibition goes around the county, museums will learn of it &amp; we might one get to show it all.</p>
<div id="attachment_21336" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21336"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/6163529384_bf53abae31_b.jpeg" alt="" width="640" height="728" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Aiko, Faust and others. Photo by Caroline Caldwell</p></div>
<p><em>RJ: What is Slap Happy and how can people support the project?</em></p>
<p>DB: <a href="http://slaphappystickers.blogspot.com">Slap Happy</a> debuted in Dec in Miami at the Wynwood Walls during Art Basel. It is a charity sticker invitational curated by Paul Weston and myself. The project includes designs from 75 of our visual communicators from around the globe who have each created an intimate, same size, black and white sticker. We still have a few of the sets &amp; black books for the show on Friday. Proceeds from the project will go to Acceptance House, a drug rehab facility in Miami.</p>
<p>Just a few of the really great contributors are Aiko, Bigfoot, Dave Denis, Stanley Donwood, Shepard Fairey, Grotesk, Cody Hudson, Paul Insect, Jo Jackson, Chris Johanson, Mel Kadel, Anthony Lister, Travis Millard, Kenzo Minami, Kenny Scharf, Stikman, Shane Swank, The Designers Republic, The London Police, James Victore, Tim Noble / Sue Webster, Paul Weston,  Wolfy and Zevs.</p>
<p><em>RJ: What was the most surprising thing you came across while researching for Stuck Up Piece of Crap?</em></p>
<p>DB: The most surprising thing, was definitely how many incredible famous people, just said &#8220;Yes&#8221; when I got to the to ask if I could include them.</p>
<div id="attachment_21339" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21339"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/4857970144_71448632c4_z.jpeg" alt="" width="640" height="425" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Swampy, Bird or Prey, Skate-Core.com and other. Photo by RJ Rushmore</p></div>
<p><em>RJ: Why do you think people are driven put up stickers for other people or brands?</em></p>
<p>DB: I think its a just way of showing love or support for a band, brand or artist. Unless of course, they are putting them up as a paid street team.</p>
<p><em>RJ: What makes a successful sticker or stickering campaign?</em></p>
<p>DB: I like the ones where I cant tell what the hell it means : )</p>
<div id="attachment_21337" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21337"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/5972096576_cf4d92c21e_b.jpeg" alt="" width="640" height="698" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Shepard Fairey. Photo by RJ Rushmore</p></div>
<p><em>RJ: What&#8217;s the best placement of a sticker that you have seen?</em></p>
<p>DB: My friend Romeo Alaeff just had one of his slapped up in front of a kind of famous house. The other has to be mine, put up on a tank turret by a fan who was soldier in Afghanistan.</p>
<div id="attachment_21317" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21317"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/402765_10150455173096707_644546706_8864586_705993292_n.jpeg" alt="" width="640" height="482" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Romeo Alaeff. Photo courtesy of DB Burkeman</p></div>
<div id="attachment_21318" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 610px"><a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/l.jpeg"><img class="size-full wp-image-21318"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/l.jpeg" alt="" width="600" height="450" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">DB Burkeman. Photo courtesy of DB Burkeman</p></div>
<p><em>RJ: Do you have any tips for young sticker artists?</em></p>
<p>DB: Be creative, give them away &amp; get up!</p>
<div id="attachment_21338" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21338"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/6183058165_7c79467932_z.jpeg" alt="" width="640" height="360" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Artist unknown. Photo by RJ Rushmore</p></div>
<p><em>DB Burkeman&#8217;s show, &#8220;Stuck-Up: A Selected History of Alternative and Popular Culture Told Though Stickers&#8221; opens on Friday at Maxwell Colette Gallery in Chicago and runs through March 3rd.</em></p>
<p><em>Photos by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/vandalog/">RJ Rushmore</a> and <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolinecaldwell/">Caroline Caldwell</a> and courtesy of <a href="http://www.djdb.com/">DB Burkeman</a></em></p>
<hr />
<p><small>RJ Rushmore for <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com">Vandalog</a> |
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		<title>Interview with Chris Stain</title>
		<link>http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/01/interview-with-chris-stain/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=interview-with-chris-stain</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:39:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>caroline</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.vandalog.com/?p=21104</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If Chris Stain isn&#8217;t already in your street artist repertoire, this is someone you need to know. Baltimore bred and current New Yorker, Stain transitioned from graffiti writing in his early days to the stencil portraits and paste-ups that have made him known around the world today. The beauty in Stain&#8217;s work comes from his ability to capture [...] <a href="http://engine.influads.com/click/4f339620e1f1dfa31100000f"><img hspace="8" vspace="8" align="right" src="http://engine.influads.com/image/4f339620e1f1dfa31100000f"/></a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="post-refEl-21104"><div id="attachment_21141" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lunapark/2458465683/in/pool-1033846@N20"><img class="size-full wp-image-21141" src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/stain-winter-in-america.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="480" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Photo by Luna Park</p></div>
<p>If <a href="http://chrisstain.com/">Chris Stain</a> isn&#8217;t already in your street artist repertoire, this is someone you need to know. Baltimore bred and current New Yorker, Stain transitioned from graffiti writing in his early days to the stencil portraits and paste-ups that have made him known around the world today. The beauty in Stain&#8217;s work comes from his ability to capture the soul and often overlooked tenderness of the urban world.</p>
<p><em>1.<strong> Describe one of your first experiences with graffiti.</strong></em></p>
<p>I got into graffiti after seeing the movie <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_Street">Beat Street</a></em> in 1984. The only type of paint my friends and I had was Testors model car paint. The cans were small and you couldn&#8217;t get far with them but it was easily concealable.</p>
<p>We all lived in rowhomes in Balitmore so our main targets were houses on the end of the block because they had the biggest open wall space and traffic on the main streets could see our work. We also wrote in the alleys behind the houses as well, decorating the backs of peoples cinderblock fences. Once the neighbors caught on to who was writing all over the neighborhood we moved on. We really had no idea what we were doing. We mostly just wrote our new chosen aliases in a form of cursive and printing that we combined. Like the beginning of anything new it was incredibly exciting.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21105" src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/stain1.jpg" alt="" width="576" height="360" /><span id="more-21104"></span></p>
<p><em>2. <strong>You&#8217;re an art teacher. Do you know if you&#8217;ve [accidentally] influenced any students into doing outdoor/illegal work?</strong></em></p>
<p>I don&#8217;t think so. Any of the students who have shown a strong interest in graffiti or stenciling I have tried to get them involved with some of my legal murals. I knew a few who work on wood and cardboard outside using spraypaint. But I&#8217;m sure it&#8217;s very tempting to cross the line. I have explained to them the implications of arrest and how much of a waste of time it is being locked up. Unfortunately there are some aspects of society that glorify jail time which make the whole criminal lifestyle seem desirable and acceptable. If that lifestyle is all you have that&#8217;s one thing but if you have a choice it&#8217;s better not to blow it.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21106" src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/stain2.png" alt="" width="533" height="460" /></p>
<p><em>3. <strong>In reverse, has teaching influenced your own artwork?</strong></em></p>
<p>The students have influenced my work a great deal. They bring so much to the table as far as their personalities and backgrounds and the cultures they grew up within. Since my main subject matter is people I just drink in everything the kids have to offer. We do a self portrait project in class where I photograph the students and they trace a line drawing from it. The line drawing is used to produce a film for screen printing. Some of the photographs come out so well that I use them in my own projects. When I took this photograph of Willem I knew I wanted to use it right away. He had so much character and pride of where he was from I just had to use it. The tattoo on his hand read&#8217;s &#8220;90&#8242;z&#8221; which is the area he lives in in East New York. For me the photo sparked a whole new set of ideas that I incorporated in a large stencil that I painted in NYC and Miami.</p>
<div id="attachment_21116" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21116"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/stain31.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="465" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Willem</p></div>
<div id="attachment_21119" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/stain3b1.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-21119"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/stain3b1.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="662" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Willem (rubylith)</p></div>
<div id="attachment_21182" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21182"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Willem2.jpeg" alt="" width="640" height="801" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Willem (mural)</p></div>
<p><em>4. <strong>What inspired the last thing you made?</strong></em></p>
<p>I just finished cutting a new rubylith the other day. It was a portrait of sorts of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Scott-Heron">Gil Scott Heron</a>. Until recently I have shyed away from pieces focused on famous people. This is mainly due to the fact that I didn&#8217;t want to capitalize off of their fame and try to make my work seem more attractive because of whose face was in the picture. With that said there are a few artists, writers, and musicians, who have truly inspired me that I wanted to pay some sort of homage to. I was fortunate enough to meet Gil Scot Heron after one of his performance&#8217;s in Manhattan. Of all his work the song <em>Winter In America</em> has probably struck me the hardest. I made 3 pieces based on that song. The new piece is more of a homage to Gil himself and his body of work. I appreciate most how he used his creativity to express inner city life and all that comes with it. Also if it wasn&#8217;t for the combined effort of himself and Stevie Wonder, Martin Luther King Day would not exist.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21181"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/GSH.jpeg" alt="" width="640" height="754" /></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>5. <strong>Last thing that made you laugh?</strong></em></p>
<p>The last thing that made me laugh was running into the Atlantic Ocean on January 1st with my friends Kevin, Todd, Callie, Heather and Eric. We did the Polar Bear Plunge at Coney Island then hung out for most of the day. It made me realize that it&#8217;s not all bad times, that there are good times too. Although they are both temporary the good times help you get through the bad a little easier.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21118" src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/stain51.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="452" /></p>
<p><em>6. <strong>How do you choose the people or subjects of your work? </strong></em></p>
<p>I mainly work from photographs either ones that I take or one&#8217;s that I find. What I look for is emotions in the picture that speak to me in a way I can relate to. For instance I came across a photo taken by <a href="http://artcoup.com/">Boogie</a> of a boy carrying a baseball on his shoulder. Now, It&#8217;s very possible that the kid was coming home from playing ball but for me it reminded me of what it meant to carry a baseball bat when I was a kid. It meant that you didn&#8217;t have to take crap from the older kids who felt like kicking your ass just because they could. For me it was a picture of a kid who wasn&#8217;t going to take crap from people anymore. So I re worked in a background and went for it.</p>
<div id="attachment_21112" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 347px"><img class="size-full wp-image-21112" src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/stain5a.jpg" alt="" width="337" height="326" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Photo by Boogie</p></div>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21120"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/stain6b1.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="619" /></p>
<p><em>7. <strong>Any tattoos/scars? What&#8217;s the story?</strong></em></p>
<p>I have too many tattoos with stories to mention. Instead I can tell you about my first tattoo which was done by <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdi9aI4TZRs">Sweet Chuck</a> in exchange for painting his club in Ohio. The image was drawn way back when I was in High School by my friend Flite from Philadelphia. It reads OUT TO LIVE in a graffiti style wreath. That was the name of our crew back then. I didn&#8217;t get the tattoo until 10 years after I graduated. Some scars too, both external and internal. For better or for worse they made me who I am today. I am certain there will be more tattoos and scars in the future.</p>
<p><em>8. <strong>Childhood heroes (real or fictional)?</strong></em></p>
<p>It started with The Beatles, then Kiss, Ozzy, Grandmaster Flash, Run DMC, Rock Steady Crew, Futura, Dondi, Revolt, Zephyr, Seth Tobocman, John Fekner, Kathe Kollwitz, Martha Cooper, Ezra Jack Keats&#8230; 7 Seconds, Black Flag, Minor Threat, CRASS. So many people have influenced me up through my adolescence it&#8217;s hard to list them all. But the people who have influenced me most are the people I have been closest to. People I&#8217;ve worked with, lived with and worked for. Friends.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>9. <strong>One thing you&#8217;d change about the world.</strong></em></p>
<p>I&#8217;m still working on myself. If I can change myself I might have a chance at other things.</p>
<p><em>10. <strong>Worst/strangest experience with art?</strong></em></p>
<p>In my 7th grade art class we were asked to make a calendar for the month of our birthday. As far as I can remember there weren&#8217;t any specific guidelines other than that. So I made a calendar filled with b-boy characters, graffiti, subway cars, buildings, and a big boom box with music notes floating out of it.</p>
<p>The teacher seemed to hate it. He said, &#8220;What does this have to do with anything?&#8221; I was crushed. It had everything to do with me and what I was into. From then on it&#8217;s been screw you to these &#8220;art&#8221; teachers. I make it a practice to try and not dump on people&#8217;s dreams even if it&#8217;s not my thing.</p>
<p><em>11. <strong>Best experience with art?</strong></em></p>
<p>Just painting and making new friends. I&#8217;ve been lucky to have been able to travel and see new places and experience new things. Thanks to everyone who has made that possible for me. Thierry made a little <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNn2NNEyqgg">video documenting a good time we had in Paris</a> a few years back.</p>
<p><em>12.<strong> Plans or goals for 2012?</strong></em></p>
<p>I want to try to share what I do with my kids more. They are getting old enough to start to mess around. On that last piece I just made, my son helped cut out a few parts. He came down to the basement when I was working and sat on my lap and wanted to get involved. I thought yeah, why not? Why didn&#8217;t I ask those guys if they wanted to try something sooner. I&#8217;d also like to do a few zines. Kevin, Josh, and I already have something planned called RESIDUE which will be a compilation of creative works in writing, photography and other arts by a variety of people that we are in touch with. Besides that I am continuing my studies at City College in Harlem for an Art Ed degree, teaching art part time in Brooklyn and Queens, and making new work whenever time is available. I have a few shows scheduled, and a residency coming up over the summer. My book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Long-Story-Short-Chris-Stain/dp/888849376X"><em>Long Story Shor</em>t</a> will be released in the spring through DRAGO press as well.</p>
<p><em>13. <strong>Anything you&#8217;d like the world to know about yourself?</strong></em></p>
<p>Nah, not really. I try to say it all with the work I produce, whether it&#8217;s stencils, graffiti, writing, teaching, or photography. Thanks for your interest. Thanks for your time. Cheers.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21121" src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/stain81.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="507" /></p>
<p><em>Images courtesy of <a href="http://chrisstain.com/">Chris Stain</a></em></p>
<hr />
<p><small>Caroline Caldwell for <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com">Vandalog</a> |
<a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/01/interview-with-chris-stain/">Permalink</a> |
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		<title>Jeff Soto underneath Paris</title>
		<link>http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/01/jeff-soto-underneath-paris/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=jeff-soto-underneath-paris</link>
		<comments>http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/01/jeff-soto-underneath-paris/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 09 Jan 2012 10:57:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>RJ</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured Posts]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Jeff Soto just sent over these photos over from an excursion he went on in Paris. Be sure to click on the images to see a larger version of each one. Here&#8217;s what Soto says about the work: Basically I have a friend who lives in Paris who is an urban explorer and documenter of [...] <a href="http://engine.influads.com/click/4f339647353b27ea36000014"><img hspace="8" vspace="8" align="right" src="http://engine.influads.com/image/4f339647353b27ea36000014"/></a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="post-refEl-21070"><p><a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/big2.jpeg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21075"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/jeff2.jpeg" alt="" width="640" height="427" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.jeffsoto.com/">Jeff Soto</a> just sent over these photos over from an excursion he went on in Paris. Be sure to click on the images to see a larger version of each one. Here&#8217;s what Soto says about the work:</p>
<blockquote><p>Basically I have a friend who lives in Paris who is an urban explorer and documenter of graffiti. He knew I wanted to paint something illegal and underground and he had this spot in mind. It is an exhaust vent above the Metro line. I was originally going to paint in here, but decided against it when I saw the walls. It was perfect for chalk (which I don&#8217;t get to play with much but I love). In the brief hour or two of sleep I got before our mission, I had dreams about eyes, many eyes, so I decided I had to draw eyes all over the room!</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/big3.jpeg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21078"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/jeff3.jpeg" alt="" width="640" height="427" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/big4.jpeg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21076"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/jeff4.jpeg" alt="" width="640" height="427" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/big1.jpeg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-21077"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/jeff1.jpeg" alt="" width="640" height="427" /></a></p>
<p><em>Photos by Jeff Soto</em></p>
<hr />
<p><small>RJ Rushmore for <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com">Vandalog</a> |
<a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/2012/01/jeff-soto-underneath-paris/">Permalink</a> |
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		<title>A close look at Artists 4 Israel &#8211; part two</title>
		<link>http://blog.vandalog.com/2011/12/artists-4-israel-part-two/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=artists-4-israel-part-two</link>
		<comments>http://blog.vandalog.com/2011/12/artists-4-israel-part-two/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 29 Dec 2011 10:15:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>RJ</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Art Fairs]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[artists 4 israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[defend the future]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.vandalog.com/?p=20798</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Please note: Corrections made to the article are in bold or stuck out. This is the second post in a two-part series on Artists 4 Israel and their event, the Defend The Future Tour. The first post was an effort to give an account of my personal experiences with Artists 4 Israel and was published yesterday. This post [...] <a href="http://engine.influads.com/click/4f339647353b27453900000c"><img hspace="8" vspace="8" align="right" src="http://engine.influads.com/image/4f339647353b27453900000c"/></a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="post-refEl-20798"><div id="attachment_20774" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-20774"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Haverford-e1324536793676.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="478" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Temporary mural by Jedi5, Col and Broker. Photo by Broker</p></div>
<p><strong>Please note: Corrections made to the article are in bold or stuck out.</strong></p>
<p><em>This is the second post in a two-part series on <a href="http://www.artists4israel.org/">Artists 4 Israel</a> and their event, the <a href="http://www.dtftour.org/">Defend The Future Tour</a>. <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/2011/12/artists-4-israel-part-one/">The first post</a> was an effort to give an account of my personal experiences with Artists 4 Israel and was published yesterday. This post deals more directly with criticisms of Artists 4 Israel and their response to some of those criticisms, as well as other Haverford students&#8217; reactions to the DTF Tour. I encourage you to read part one first, because, while this article is also clearly very opinionated, <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/2011/12/artists-4-israel-part-one/">the first post</a> sheds more light on my personal experiences with the group and may help to explain some of my personal biases that came up when writing this post. As is always the case on Vandalog, this post is mine and may or may not represent the views of any other Vandalog writers. &#8211; RJ Rushmore</em></p>
<p>As explained in detail in part one of this series, the Defend The Future Tour (a thinly veiled front for Artists 4 Israel so that they can appear apolitical) visited Haverford College on November 17th with the <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/advertisement.jpeg">innocuously advertised</a> aim of putting on a graffiti workshop for students. In reality, they used the creation of a mural as an excuse to pass out pro-Israel and anti-Arab propaganda masked as apolitical facts.<span id="more-20798"></span></p>
<p>After seeing what the DTF Tour painted <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/IMG_4938.jpeg">at Temple University</a> and <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/l27.jpeg">Florida</a> <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/sm24.jpeg">Atlantic</a> <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/sm25.jpeg">University</a>, students (including myself) became worried about what sort of mural would be painted at Haverford. We conveyed those concerns to the student in charge of bringing the DTF Tour to campus and he passed on those concerns to the organization. Possibly as a result of that student input, the mural at Haverford was significantly toned down compared to previous Artists 4 Israel murals at college campuses.</p>
<p>Because our concerns may not be immediately apparent, let&#8217;s look at those previous mural more closely.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/l27.jpeg">This</a> is the only mural that any Haverford student I&#8217;ve spoken with had seen from Artists 4 Israel&#8217;s stop at FAU. Some Arab students at Haverford, including Palestinian student Besan Radwan, feel that the depiction of a cross-eyed camel is racist against Arab people. Radwan&#8217;s interpretation of the camel as anti-Arab comes from the role that camels play as a symbol of Arab culture, as well as the anti-Arab ethnic slur &#8220;camel jockey.&#8221; Radwan thinks that the crossed-eyed camel in the mural represented Arab people as silly or stupid (after all, I suppose if you&#8217;re going to insult Arabs, a willingness to play up stereotypes about cross-eyed people too doesn&#8217;t seem like a giant leap).</p>
<p>As for the other FAU murals and the mural at Temple University, they are clearly one-sided even though they are addressing a larger series of conflicts between Israel and other groups. Even though the murals do call for an end to conflict, they do so solely on Israel&#8217;s terms. Of course, people and groups have a right to express one-sided opinions, but the issue is that the DTF Tour&#8217;s mission statement advocates an end to partisanship. It&#8217;s misleading to imply that the DTF Tour was not a partisan event. If Artists 4 Israel had come to Haverford under that name and said &#8220;we are going to follow Artists 4 Israel&#8217;s mission and paint something pro-Israel,&#8221; this would be very different situation and probably less controversial. How can a mural that says &#8220;Pro-peace&#8221; and &#8220;Pro-Israel&#8221; but not mention any other people involved in conflicts with Israel not be partisan? I&#8217;m not saying that the mural has to say &#8220;Pro-Hezbollah&#8221; or &#8220;Pro-Hamas&#8221; to counteract &#8220;Pro-Israel,&#8221; but something like &#8220;Pro-Palestine&#8221; &#8220;Pro-Arab people&#8221; seems reasonable. While the group J Street uses the phrase &#8220;Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace,&#8221; they are quick to clarify that their position includes a two-state solution and respect for the Palestinian people. The DTF Tour, on the other hand, specifically stays away from mentioning the path the peace that they would advocate, hence any mention of Palestine in this context is absent. Painting a mural about conflicts between Israel and other countries or groups that says &#8220;Pro-Israel&#8221; and &#8220;Pro-peace&#8221; without any mention of something along the lines of &#8220;Pro-Palestine&#8221; or &#8220;Pro-Arab&#8221; is partisan and there&#8217;s no way around that, just as a lie of omission is still a lie.</p>
<p>When I asked Craig Dershowitz, the founder of Artists 4 Israel, about the murals at Temple and FAU, he gave some surprising responses.</p>
<p>First, he clarified that <a href="http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-09-21/news/fl-jjps-artists-0921-20110921_1_israel-jewish-state-graffiti-wall">the article</a> some Haverford students saw calling the Artists 4 Israel event at FAU part of the DTF Tour was incorrect. In fact, the FAU stop was an Artists 4 Israel event, but not technically part of the DTF Tour, although Dershowitz said &#8220;it&#8217;s not worth parsing which is which&#8221; when trying to separate events at colleges by Artists 4 Israel from events at colleges by the DTF Tour. This seems strange, given how the mission statements of Artists 4 Israel and the DTF Tour are so different. This again leads to the conclusion that the DTF Tour mission statement was misleading and perhaps intentionally so. In another, later, interview, Dershowitz clarified that &#8220;The DTF Tour was supposed to be a separate entity from Artists 4 Israel intended to stimulate discussion and promote our generation’s agenda of art and dialogue over war and fighting.&#8221; So maybe the DTF Tour was meant to be distinct from Artists 4 Israel, or maybe it was not.</p>
<p>Seth Kennedy, the Haverford student who organized bringing the DTF Tour to Haverford, rightly points out that the DTF Tour has a separate mission statement from Artists 4 Israel and that the DTF Tour is just one aspect of the group.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, Dershowitz defended the cross-eyed camel character. He said &#8220;It says a lot about conflicts over land if some group, and I won&#8217;t call names, is going to all of a sudden claim an animal as uniquely their own&#8230; If the camel looks bad, why does that have to be some sort of negative statement on one group of people? &#8216;Camel&#8217; is something that everyone visiting Israel comes away with, pictures and ideas, so basically then the Arab population would seem to be equally racist against Israel.&#8221; I brought up the fact that some people call Arabs camel jockeys, and Dershowitz&#8217;s response was &#8220;I would never say that regardless&#8221; and that the logical extension of my argument would be that Artists 4 Israel could not include images sand in their murals because of other unspecified anti-Arab slurs. As for the specific portrayal of the camel in the mural as cross-eyed, Dershowitz pointed out that the camel was part of a composition that referenced the cartoonish elements of 1970&#8242;s/1980&#8242;s subway graffiti. Personally, I think his last point is a legitimate one, but for a man who claims to be promoting peace and a dialogue between various groups, I find it extremely disappointing that Dershowitz would not at least apologize for unintentionally offending people. Instead, he decided to turn the accusation around and assert that those who are offended by the camel seem to be the racist ones.</p>
<p>Despite the worries from some Haverford students, nobody attempted to keep the DTF Tour from coming to Haverford. Nobody I&#8217;ve spoken with wanted to limit the speech of a group that had been invited to campus by another Haverford student.</p>
<p>One thing that may have happened due to student concerns was that the concept for Haverford&#8217;s mural was a bit more considered than other murals organized by Artists 4 Israel. Kennedy was the main point of contact between Haverford students and the DTF Tour. Even before the artists arrived on campus, Kennedy conveyed concerns of mine and the concerns of other students about the possible content of the mural to Seth Wolfson, the <del>chief visionary officier</del> <strong>Vice President</strong> of Artists 4 Israel and Artists 4 Israel&#8217;s representative at Haverford that day. According to Kennedy, the final idea for the wall was to spread a message of breaking stereotypes, as it says on the mural. The artists planned to paint what might be considered a stereotypical Hassidic Jewish man and a stereotypical Arab man. Kennedy suggested that they modify their initial stereotypical Arab character, as Kennedy described the character that the artists&#8217; first showed him as &#8220;more Indian or Turkish looking. Picture The Sultan in Aladdin.&#8221; The artists agreed with Kennedy&#8217;s suggestion and changed the character, but they, completely by accident, painted a man with a red and white keffiyeh, traditionally the color-scheme for Saudis and members of Hamas. Although the artists considered changing the colors of the keffiyeh, it was too late in the day to change anything by the time Kennedy realized and pointed out this potential point of controversy.</p>
<p>Despite some potential problems and perhaps thanks to the artists&#8217; willingness to change their ideas on the spot and react to their environment, few Haverford students had any issue with the mural itself. When students did take issue with the mural, it was mostly related to points addressed in <a href="http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/print_article/the_writing_on_the_other_side_of_the_wall/">this article</a> about how Artists 4 Israel uses a traditionally anti-authoritarian artform or about how a cool mural was being used to mask the group&#8217;s true intentions. On the whole, even students who took serious issue with other aspects of the DTF Tour liked the mural that Col, Jedi5 and Broker painted, if taken on its own. When Radwan and I heard about the concept for the mural, we got behind the idea and back off from our plan to hold an alternative event next to the DTF Tour&#8217;s mural. The mural was pretty much exactly what we had hoped to create: An example of how an artwork could be pro-peace, pro-Israel and pro-Arab all at once.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the mural can not be considered on its own. While on the front side of the mural three talented artists painted a positive message and on the back side of the mural Haverford students had the chance to write whatever they wanted (there was even a pro-Israel slogan next to a pro-Palestine slogan, both written in Arabic), the mural was only part of the message that the DTF Tour was spreading. They also put out some flyers on a table near the mural. Here is what the flyers looked like:</p>
<div id="attachment_20773" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-20773"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/handout-front.jpeg" alt="" width="640" height="419" /><p class="wp-caption-text">The front side of the flyer has the DTF Tour mission statement</p></div>
<div id="attachment_20775" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 650px"><img class="size-full wp-image-20775"  src="http://blog.vandalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/handout-back.jpeg" alt="" width="640" height="421" /><p class="wp-caption-text">The back side of the flyer seems to be where the true colors of the event are revealed</p></div>
<p>This flyer is primarily what ignited controversy at Haverford. Kennedy was in charge of making sure that there were flyers available for students to take, but said that as soon as I brought the content of the flyer to his attention, he &#8220;made the conscious decision: No more of these are going out.&#8221; Kennedy was not upset about factual inaccuracies, but he said &#8220;there was nothing on the flyer that is factually wrong. It&#8217;s that the wording was incredibly blunt and inflammatory&#8230; I think that they raised valid points, they just didn&#8217;t do it in an appropriate way.&#8221; Kennedy saw the purpose of the flyer as to provoke and promote dialogue, but thinks that the way it was worded is &#8220;counter-productive.&#8221; While some students such as Barak Bacharach expressed similar sentiments such as that the flyer included statements that he agreed with but would have phrased differently, other students were greatly upset about the flyer.</p>
<p>The students upset about the flyer had a number of reasons for their anger. At the very least, the back side of the flyer completely rejects the DTF Tour&#8217;s mission statement (which is stated on the front side of the flyer). Rather than defend the world against racism, partisan politics and censorship, the flyer shows how Artists 4 Israel embraced these values and tactics for the DTF Tour. For some students, that hypocrisy was the issue, along with the way that they felt the event was misleadingly advertised as being primarily about graffiti and music. The one-sided and insulting content itself was also an issue for some students. Radwan took particular offense to the &#8220;Down to Fuck&#8221; section. While women&#8217;s rights are certainly lack throughout much of the Arab world, the flyer seems to be reenforcing stereotypes to suggest that in some countries &#8220;women are forced to cover their faces and cannot leave their homes without their husbands&#8221; without naming those countries specifically.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m no expert on Israel so I do expect and hope to be corrected on any inaccuracies here and throughout this post, but I will try to look at objections to each section of the flyer one by one:</p>
<ul>
<li>Demand the Facts: Yes, people could be better educated on their history, but the same could be said about the lack of knowledge about a history of regrettable actions by Israel and Israelis against Palestinians, and to not acknowledge that there are not also substantial efforts being made to promote Israel and shut up opponents of Israel seems counter-productive to ending &#8220;partisan politics and censorship&#8221; (for more information about pro-Israel PR, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Foreign_Policy">try this book</a>).</li>
<li>Defeat the Fanaticism: True, extremism threatens rational discourse. But extremism on both sides threatens rational discourse. Just as Hamas are probably not the best group for fostering peace, neither are the Israeli settlers who throw stones at Palestinians or <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apax_r3NQ4E">evict Palestinians from their homes so that Israelis can move in</a>. And just as it seems fair to ask Hamas to not send rockets into Israel, it seems fair to ask Israel to &#8220;stop blowing shit up&#8221; in Palestine, or to <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/12/20111210124123427446.html">at least try to target terrorists more accurately.</a></li>
<li>Down to Fuck: Israel is a land with more sexual liberation than Palestine, but let&#8217;s not pretend that all of Israel is LGBTQ friendly. <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/homophobia-in-israel-still-high-but-declining-slowly-says-survey-20090806-ebkb.html">Read here</a> and <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/gay-pride-returns-to-jerusalem-1.375722">here</a>. And as for the last two sentences of that section, wow! If you weren&#8217;t paying attention, a reader could easily be mistaken in thinking that this flyer is referring to Palestine, and in that case the flyer is wrong. Of course, if we do take a more educated guess and try to &#8220;figure it out,&#8221; the flyer seems to be referring to Saudi Arabia. There, woman must have the permission of a male guardian and the company of a man when they leave the house (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia#Mobility">so says Wikipedia</a>). If I&#8217;m guessing correctly, the flyer is not even 100% accurate with reference to Saudi Arabia (although I&#8217;m not saying the Saudi policies are at all respectful of women&#8217;s rights). As for how women are treated by a small segment of Israelis, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/world/middleeast/israeli-girl-at-center-of-tension-over-religious-extremism.html">things are not perfect there either</a>.</li>
<li>Diversity Triumphs Over Fear: Legally, one could argue that the first part of this is true, but the on-the-ground reality is that <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2011/1201_israel_poll_telhami.aspx">most Israelis think that Arabs are discriminated against in Israel</a>. It would be great if societies did not &#8220;promote fear of the &#8216;other,&#8217;&#8221; but unfortunately some Israeli children are often brought up to fear Arabs and some Arab children are brought up to fear Israelis. While some parts of Israel may tend to celebrate people&#8217;s differences, others places are <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhodhOiamYs">more like this</a> (thankfully even Israeli organizations are working to stop these attacks). &#8220;The enemies of Israel hate us for our freedoms&#8221; might just be the grossest oversimplification of a complex series of issues I have ever had the displeasure of reading. More on that later.</li>
</ul>
<p>Of the students upset about the DTF Tour&#8217;s flyer, Emily Mayer is the only one I know of who spoke with anyone from the tour about the flyer. She spoke with Wolfson and attempted to voice her concerns. To start with, Mayer says they disagreed on whether or not the flyer is factually accurate. Regardless, Mayer&#8217;s says she explained her main issue with the flyer to Wolfson as that &#8220;even if they are facts, you&#8217;re choosing which facts to display, and in a way that is explicitly contrary to your pro-peace agenda, or what you say is your pro-peace agenda&#8230; Don&#8217;t call yourselves &#8216;pro-peace&#8217; if you&#8217;re going to use this language.&#8221; Hela Lahar, Israel Program Director at Hillel of Greater Philadelphia, was also there and Mayer says Lahar also voiced concerns to Wolfson which Mayer described as &#8220;about how [the flyer] doesn&#8217;t allow for nuance, how the conflict is so complicated and how [its depiction on the flyer] in these very black and white terms is perpetuating people&#8217;s ignorance about [the conflict].&#8221; Specifically, Mayer addressed the &#8220;Down to Fuck&#8221; section of the flyer, saying that she told Wolfson &#8220;You paint Israel as this super-sexually liberated, gender equal place, but if I walk down the street in <del>Nes Harim, [a religious neighborhood outside of Jerusalem]</del><strong>Mea Shearim [a religious neighborhood in Jerusalem]</strong>, wearing what I&#8217;m wearing, I would be stoned.&#8221;</p>
<p>Mayer says Wolfson agreed that this was a valid point and that there are nuances to the issues in the flyer. According to Mayer, Wolfson went on though to say that while groups like Artists 4 Israel could speak about the nuances of issues when at liberal arts schools like Haverford and that he would put the flyers away while he was at Haverford, students at schools like Temple University are &#8220;stupider&#8221; than Haverford students, so the DTF Tour&#8217;s issues had to be put in black and white terms for them to understand. Mayer says she questioned Wolfson about calling Temple students &#8220;stupider&#8221; so that she could confirm he meant to say that, and Wolfson told her &#8220;Yeah, I do mean to say that.&#8221; Mayer remembers Lahar backing her up and telling Wolfson that what he was doing was just perpetuating people&#8217;s ignorance about issues by continuing to paint them in one-sided or black and white terms, and Wolfson&#8217;s response then was to acknowledge that he was working on behalf of an advocacy organization with a specific viewpoint that they were trying to spread.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Dershowitz was of course unable to comment on the accuracy of Mayer&#8217;s version of the conversation and Wolfson declined to comment (his excuse being that the questions I asked him were some of the same as ones that I had asked Dershowitz). If Mayer remembers things correctly, Wolfson called Temple University students &#8220;stupider&#8221; than Haverford students and acknowledged that the DTF Tour was really just a front for pro-Israel advocacy that targeted those that he believes are not smart enough to pick up on the nuances of political issues. Hopefully some Temple students will read to post and disagree with Wolfson&#8217;s assessment of the school. For my part, the Temple University graduates and students that I&#8217;ve met have generally seemed like pretty smart people.</p>
<p>Luckily, Dershowitz was very willing to speak with me about Artists 4 Israel, the DTF Tour and the flyer. Numerous times throughout our interviews, Dershowitz insisted that the DTF Tour was about promoting dialogue (one time even asserting that since I was interviewing him and Haverford students were discussing the events of the DTF Tour, the tour had been successful in promoting dialogue). Dershowitz also defended promoting dialogue through promoting a pro-Israel viewpoint on the basis that &#8220;in order to reach what&#8217;s hopefully a middle point, a point of compromise and consensus, there needs to be someone representing the pro-Israel viewpoint,&#8221; adding &#8220;You can&#8217;t reach a compromise when one side is pushing for a pro-Palestinian agenda and the other side is pushing for a pro-Palestinian agenda for a desire to be fair. Nobody is holding the anti-Israel groups to ask for their lies, for their manipulations, for their thrown-around words like &#8216;racism.&#8217;&#8221; Again, Dershowitz seems to be saying that the DTF Tour was a partisan event regardless of the mission statement for the tour and the way it was presented to Kennedy and other Haverford students.</p>
<p>Ironically, Dershowitz then insinuated that his critics might be racist (insinuations rather than statements are an ass-covering technique that I&#8217;ve noticed with Artists 4 Israel, the DTF Tour and Dershowitz). This new accusation of racism occurred when I tried to explain to Dershowitz the concerns of Haverford students who thought that the DTF Tour had attempted to manipulate them with a partisan message wrapped in a seemingly non-political event. <strong>While I did not mention racism in this question, I did mention the flyers and had mentioned to Craig earlier in the interview that some people I had spoken with thought the flyers were, at worst, racist</strong>. Here is his full reaction to that:</p>
<blockquote><p>The DTF Tour was supposed to be a separate entity from Artists 4 Israel intended to stimulate discussion and promote our generation’s agenda of art and dialogue over war and fighting. It saddens me that against that backdrop, so many had to push and pull and try to find fault and make accusations against such an important, universal message. Artists 4 Israel is openly and proudly pro-Israel. However, we have discovered that we are part of a movement, from across the spectrum of all political, social, and other belief systems that use art and creative means to create a world where debate and disagreement goes no further than competing murals and not to the place of terrorism and violence. We attempted to lead this movement, to coalesce and define it under the banner of Defend the Future. Our flyers spoke against oppression of women, it spoke against oppression of minorities and for equal rights for all. If people have a problem with that – I would ask them to check themselves. If people believe that being anti oppression of women singles out one group of people – they should check their own racism and/or look at the actions of that group and figure out why they might be sensitive or susceptible to such criticism. Regardless of whether A4I is a pro-Israel organization, the messages of opposing violence, segregation, oppression and segregation should be supported by all! But, since it is not, we will go back to doing what we do best – supporting the beautiful, freedom-loving country of Israel and stop attempting to build bridges that others obviously do not want.</p></blockquote>
<p>On the plus side, if you get past the accusation of racism, you can see that the DTF Tour is no more.  Rather than address the flaws of his own event though, Dershowitz tries to blame others. In another beautiful reversal, he claims that &#8220;certain people&#8221; (I&#8217;m guessing he means Haverford students such as myself, Radwan and Mayer) who pointed out the DTF Tour&#8217;s one-sidedness are actually just partisan themselves and can&#8217;t stand people like him who are trying to end the partisan deadlock that the Israeli government and those who disagree with the Israeli government often seem to be stuck in:</p>
<blockquote><p>Unfortunately, Haverford has taught us that the attempt to unify peaceful, creative people is quite difficult. For certain people, so caught up in playing the blame game and imagining monsters in every flyer, there is a partisan politics that cannot be ignored. So, unfortunately for us and unfortunately for the generation of people who are tired of partisan politics creating the tension it does, A4I will be retiring DTF. Instead, we will continue to focus only on spreading a pro-Israel message, using only the support of our volunteer artists who are passionate about the cause to combat the lies spread by well-funded anti-Israel groups. It is a shame.</p></blockquote>
<p>What is a shame is that the DTF Tour got off the ground in the first place.</p>
<p>Although Wolfson acknowledged to Mayer that the flyer was presenting things in a very black and white way and advocating for a partisan perspective, Dershowitz vehemently disagrees that the flyer and <a href="http://www.dtftour.org/demand-the-facts.html">the DTF Tour website&#8217;s &#8220;Demand the Facts&#8221; page</a> are one-side. He said to me &#8220;you are making false, inflammatory statements without any proof. What makes our links &#8216;one-sided?&#8217; How can you prove or believe that? Are any of our links factually inaccurate? Absolutely not.&#8221;</p>
<p>Unfortunately for Dershowitz, it is easy to see that the DTF Tour provides one-sided links on their website. Three quick examples: 1. The first two links on the page encourage people to read a book called <em>The Arab Lobby</em> (which one of the links briefly mentions was obviously written in response to <em>The Israel Lobby</em>, although that book is not mentioned  on the DTF website at all), 2. <a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/fence.html">The single link </a>about &#8220;Israel&#8217;s Security Fence&#8221; is clearly in favor the the fence and neglects criticism such as that <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jul/10/israel3">the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion that the barrier is illegal</a> and should be torn down or that <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?Cr=middle&amp;Cr1=east&amp;NewsID=11418">the UN General Assembly voted</a> that Israel should have to obey the ICJ&#8217;s ruling, and 3. Again their &#8220;Down to Fuck&#8221; section oversimplifies things by linking to a video of a gay pride parade in Tel Aviv without mentioning the violence that has occurred against participants at gay pride parades in Jerusalem or <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/homophobia-in-israel-still-high-but-declining-slowly-says-survey-20090806-ebkb.html">polls such as this one</a>. Like the flyer, the DTF website is a one-sided pro-Israel advocacy site that ignores all nuance and misleads visitors who might think they are being exposed to the nonpartisan and diverse set of views that Dershowitz seems to want people to think can be found there. If people want to educate themselves on all sides of certain issues relating to Israel, the DTF website is a great place to start for pro-Israel information, but it is not the place to go if you are looking to find a nuanced or balanced look at those issues in one place.</p>
<p>On the other hand, once he was confronted with some of the complexities and grey-areas not addressed in the flyer, Dershowitz tries to brush off the possibility that the flyer might be one-sided or inaccurate as no big deal. He said &#8220;At no point did we say we were the experts. At no point did we say that on an 8 x 5, or whatever the dimensions of that card is, we could solve all the problems or potentially write a treatise full of facts and information. What we did was open people&#8217;s eyes and expect that [the readers] would be able to research and look into that information themselves.&#8221; That sounds to me like an acknowledgement that the DTF Tour was not even trying to tell the whole story, and it should be immediately clear to most people (as it was to Kennedy, Mayer, Bacharach, Radwan and myself) that any story they were trying to tell was a one-sided story. Additionally, Dershowitz&#8217;s assertions that the DTF Tour was meant to encourage people to look up information on their own seems contradictory to Wolfson&#8217;s strategy of targeting the flyers at students who will not take the time to understand the nuances in issues raised by the flyer. I wonder which of them is telling the truth about the strategy for the DTF Tour.</p>
<p>My final question for Dershowitz was about the end of the flyer. I asked if he disagreed that it is extremist and dangerously oversimplified to say &#8220;The enemies of Israel hate us for our freedoms?&#8221; Again, Dershowitz turned the tables and implied that those who disagree with him might just be racist:</p>
<blockquote><p>We are all human beings with many more similarities than differences. Yet, there are groups of people that hate one another. This hatred seems to come from when people are placed into (by their own choice usually) various groups (religion, nation-state, etc) that then have conflict with one another. Israel has full and complete freedoms for all its citizens be they Arab, Jewish, Russian, Ethiopian, Man, Woman and so on. The Arab nations surrounding Israel do not have this same level of freedom for its citizens. So, if all is the same between us in every other regard (and to think otherwise would be racist, would it not?) then it must be these freedoms which create the animosity. Sad, yes. Simple, no.</p></blockquote>
<p>As to be expected from Dershowitz at this point, there&#8217;s some quite twisted logic in his response that ignores so much. Freedom and race are not the only things that define people, although Dershowitz seems to think they are. But if he wants to talk about freedom, <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2011/1201_israel_poll_telhami.aspx">as pointed out earlier</a>, not even most Israelis believe that all Israeli citizens really have &#8220;full and complete freedoms&#8221; regardless of what the laws say should be the case. Another possible reason for animosity between Israel and &#8220;enemies of Israel&#8221; would be the injustices and violence committed or perceived to have been committed by Israel against whichever enemies that flyer is referring to. Just as some Israelis who have had loved ones killed by terrorists in Israel might hate the groups that committed those attacks, those who have had loved ones, innocent or guilty, killed by Israeli military attacks might hate Israel.</p>
<p>I asked Barak Mendelsohn, an assistant professor of political science at Haverford who is particularly interested in terrorism and counter-terrorism, for his thoughts on that section of the flyer and Dershowitz&#8217;s defense of it. Here is what he said:</p>
<blockquote><p>Dershowitz&#8217;s position, at least as he conveyed to you (which is not necessarily exactly what he had in mind) has logical flaws. Besides ignoring the possibility of realist variables (i.e. national interests) it is a reductionist view of the content of identity. We can argue about his claim about freedoms in Israel (yes, all enjoy more freedoms than in the Middle East&#8217;s other countries but I would be very hesitant to call it &#8220;full and complete freedoms&#8221;), but the difference in identities is not simply a matter of freedoms. Quite interestingly Dershowitz didn&#8217;t go for a more plausible, even compelling, argument about antisemitism as a possible explanation. The discourse of &#8220;hate our freedoms&#8221; came after 9/11 and I&#8217;m not a great fan of it. At the same time, I am far from certain that you can argue that the hatred to Israel is simply a matter of its policies and that it would go away once the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved.</p></blockquote>
<p>So there you have it. Sorry it took 5000 or so words, but hopefully some of you have made it through all this and also come to the conclusion that the DTF Tour came to Haverford College and several other schools with promises of working towards peace, but instead delivered materials only meant to spark hate or trick innocent students into believing what Artists 4 Israel believes.</p>
<p>It is absolutely ridiculous and downright wrong what Artists 4 Israel did with the DTF Tour. They purposefully oversimplified a complex series of issues, claimed to be attempting to build bridges across differing viewpoints and promoting dialogue, presented the tour as nonpartisan and targeted students that they anticipated would not critically engage information presented by Artists 4 Israel. Thankfully, I know enough h0nest and sincere supporters of Israel and Israelis that the DTF Tour has only tainted my view of the Artists 4 Israel organization rather than my view of people who strongly support Israel. It&#8217;s been discussions with people like Kennedy and Bacharach that have reminded me that Artists 4 Israel is not representative of most people who strongly support Israel. What worries me is that so many people may have already been and may continue to be fooled by Artists 4 Israel&#8217;s action; actions that make interacting with the pro-Israel movement much less palatable to those of us who believe that Israel (as well as those groups that Israel as fought against and continues to fight against) should be subject to some criticism as well as praise. If I were a bitter antisemite or antizionist who despised Israel, I&#8217;d probably donate to Artists 4 Israel in the hope that they continue doing projects like the DTF Tour. But I&#8217;m not, so instead I urge supports of Artists 4 Israel, including the artists, to reconsider their position if they really do want to support Israel in an honest way.</p>
<p>To end things on a positive note, it does seem like the DTF Tour has unintentionally brought Haverford students together. Less that 24 hours after the DTF Tour left Haverford, a group of us with a variety of different viewpoints met to discuss the DTF Tour, as well as how we could move past it and toward a series of events that truly builds bridges between all the sides of these issues through honest dialogue and respectful engagement.</p>
<p><em>Photo courtesy of <a href="www.flickr.com/photos/22664305@N06/">Broker</a> (Haverford mural) and <a href="http://www.artists4israel.org/">Artists 4 Israel</a> (Temple mural), scans of Artists 4 Israel/DTF Tour material by RJ Rushmore</em></p>
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<p><small>RJ Rushmore for <a href="http://blog.vandalog.com">Vandalog</a> |
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