Roa is the first artist to produce a series of skate decks with TheSK8room, an online shop featuring a bunch of artist-designed skate decks and classic decks produced for other brands. The Roa decks are a series of three images of a decaying rat. 20% of the proceeds from the sale of these decks goes to Skateistan. The decks are each printed in an edition of 150 plus 15 APs, with 25 of each of those decks being available signed by Roa. The pieces are available now at 450€ for unsigned decks and 950€ for signed decks.
Here’s a video of Roa visiting a Skateistan project in Cambodia:
For the last week or so until today, we’ve been in the process changing Vandalog’s web hosts. No need to get into the technical details, but now the site should run more smoothly and with less downtime. Unfortunately it means that we haven’t been able to write anything new on the site since that process began (everything that’s gone online was pre-scheduled). So this is a mega-link-o-rama combining the usual weekend link-o-rama content with stuff that I could have written about last week even if I’d had the time.
Martha Cooper turned 70 this weekend, and the graffiti community came together at Bowery and Houston to give her a giant surprise birthday present (pictured above). How and Nosm told Cooper that they were planning to repaint their piece at Bowery and Houston and told her to come by at noon on Saturday, but they didn’t tell her how they were going to have to piece repainted. They brought together a bunch of new and old graffiti legends and painted a giant blockbuster tribute to Cooper. BSA has plenty more great photos of the piece in progress and a perfect shot of Cooper reacting to seeing the mural.
WK Interact’s pop-up show in NYC is absolutely fantastic, a must-see show. Think it this way: This show, as I understand it, is a retrospective but it’s made up of the work that WK had in his studio, not work borrowed or on the secondary market from collectors, so this is a lot of unsold work. And yet, the show is still one of the strongest I’ve seen from any artist in quite a while, and the work holds up just fine next to anything else by WK. Even the work that has been sitting in the WK’s studio for a few years is just masterpiece after masterpiece. Good stuff.
Mr. Brainwash has lost another lawsuit by a photographer upset with MBW’s appropriation. Basically, it boils down to MBW’s work being too similar to the original photograph, with no original contributions to the work by MBW.
It appears that Phil Frost hit a massive billboard in LA, and then the billboard was stolen. But the whole thing seems like a shady PR scam for Ace Gallery. Melrose&Fairfax has the full story, but one point they don’t make is that Ace Gallery has a history of controversy, so that makes me even more doubtful that this billboard and its theft are real. Also, let’s face it, there’s a good chance that the billboard is illegal anyway since this was in LA, so who cares if the ad was stolen off of the billboard?
It seems that Hrag Vartanian was not a big fan of Les Ballets De Faile, Faile’s project with the New York City Ballet. Personally, I really liked to the project. Yes, Hrag is right in pointing out that people were expecting more (like Faile having involvement with set design and costumes), but what Faile did do was, I think, a major success. Nine artists out of ten would have seriously messed up this sort of collaboration by not striking the right balance between completely ignoring the setting and embracing it too much. Ignore the setting, and the work could just have been shown anywhere and would have looked out of place. Go too far in trying to bend the work to the situation, and the artists’ essence is lost and the whole thing comes off as a cheesy joke. Faile struck just the right balance. There was a lot of classic Faile, mixed in with some new ballet-inspired imagery, but the ballet-inspired imagery didn’t look out of place at all. Faile’s work has always had a mix of grit and classical beauty, that ballet with their spin fit perfectly into that. I’ve got to disagree with Hrag on another point and say that I thought the work looked like it fit in just as well as anything else in the theater, particularly the massive “Tower of Faile” piece.
Thoughts on Crummy Gummy? I’m not sure what I think. Another Mr. Brainwash-inspired derivative artist who never needs to be mentioned again, or actually kinda funny?
Shepard Fairey released some prints using diamond dust, which is quite interesting. As the press release says, “Perhaps most famously used by Andy Warhol, who understood perfectly how to convey a message, Diamond Dust was used to add glamour, transforming ordinary images into coveted objects. The material aligns with Shepard’s work and interest in the seduction of advertising and consumerism. Diamond Dust, literally and metaphorically is superficial, applied to the surface of the print, the luminous effect is both beautiful and alluring.” But it’s one of those things that just gets me thinking about how the art world, much like capitalism, seems so good at absorbing critique and spitting at back out as product. People love the meaningless OBEY icon, so Shepard sells it. Shepard needs to make more product to continue selling to this market he has created, so he takes an old design (or a slight variant, I’m not positive), and adds meaningless diamond dust to it and sells it as something new. The best critiques participate in the system which they critique, but that’s a risky game to play. Of course, I say all this with a print by Shepard hanging on my wall.
OldWalls is a project where the photographer took photos of graffiti in the early 1990’s and recently returned to those spots to take the exact same shots, and then each matching photo is displayed next to its counterpart.
Kathy Grayson defends Jeffrey Deitch, and Shepard Fairey backs her up. I’ve got to agree. He’s been getting a lot of shit for what he’s been up to as the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, and I’m sure Kathy’s right that he’s not always the easiest guy to get along with, she’s also entirely right that he’s also put on good shows at MOCA and attendance has gone up because Deitch isn’t willing to be as elitist about as others in the art community would like him to be.
This weekend I’ve been without solid internet access, and Caroline and I have both been knee-deep in exams and final essays for the last week, so here’s a belated link-o-rama…
The New York Times has a story on Living Walls, centering on the removal of Hyuro’s mural a few months ago and now the removal of Roti’s mural. I hope that this does not dissuade artists or the amazing people behind Living Walls from doing more of the amazing work that they have become known for over the last three and a half years.
It’s D*Face and it’s limited edition – neither of those things mean cheap. But also, this is wearable art which your friends almost definitely won’t have because there are only 50. Get “Buffed Dog” from the Rebels Alliance online shop.
It’s almost December, and this December I’m going to be taking a bit of a holiday. For most of the month, Caroline Caldwell is going to be doing most of the writing for Vandalog, while I focus on another project. But, of course, the more important thing about it being almost December is that it means Basel Miami craziness is about to be upon us. Some artists are already in Miami (specifically Wynwood) and painting their murals. Not to piss all over that parade, but I’d like to quote Workhorse of The Underbelly Project. He once said to me, “It’s sorta sad that an entire district of 7-story-tall murals is becoming blasé, but it is.”
Essam Attia, allegedly the artist behind the NYPD drone ad disruptions of earlier this year (interviewed here) was arrested recently and charged with over 50 charges. I guess the NYPD didn’t take too kindly to a friendly critique. Well, you know… Hopefully Attia gets off without too much trouble.
I know it’s not Cyber Monday yet, but today we’ve got a special Black Friday announcement: Vandalog has teamed up with Lush on The Vandalog Shop‘s first poster release.
Lush’s poster was inspired by the United States Postal Services’ Label 228 Priority Mail postal label that so many sticker artists swipe from post offices around the USA by the hundreds, and Lush has blown up that label nearly to nearly 30x its standard size. In addition to the posters, each buyer will receive a special bonus item of original work by Lush, from an actual tagged postal label 228 to a tagged poster. The posters are available now for $15 plus shipping and handling through The Vandalog Shop. Pick one up by clicking here.
Even toys like me can enjoy Lush’s poster
When I first saw Lush’s work, I wasn’t sure what to think of it. In fact, I’m still not sure. Lush is either the great jester of graffiti or the absurd conclusion of graffiti culture. He is either the most important or least important graffiti artist working today. Is he offensive for the sake of being offensive, or for the sake of art? It’s impossible to say. All that I’m sure of is that he won’t appreciate me calling what he does “art.” I approached Lush about working with us because The Vandalog Shop is a serious project, but it’s never safe to take yourself too seriously. I just want something on my wall to make me smile, and Lush has delivered on that front with this poster.
We have a handful of these to pop into the tubes as a special bonus when you order a poster. Every purchase will include a bonus item of either a tagged poster or a handmade sticker by Lush.Some of the handmade stickers set to go out with posters
