Leon Reid IV and Julia Marchesi have teamed up for Reid’s latest project: The Hundred Story House. It’s a sculpture designed to house free books at a park in Brooklyn’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 to Kickstarter in the hope of raising that money. Here’s their pitch:

So far, they’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 the Kickstarter page.

Street art is moving online. If you’re a regular reader, you’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 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…

1. Reblog This by mobstr (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’s all ready to be reblogged on tumblr.

2. What ever happened to street art on the street? by Lush. Both a comment on the proliferation of street art online and the commercialization of the movement. This image is available as a print at Backwoods Gallery. Lush has also made animated gifs of his work, something else that can only be viewed digitally but is created on the street.

3. Fine by Elfo. The text is in Italian and references this work by Giuseppe Chiari. It translates to “Street art is finished, stop all together.” 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’s just that Elfo’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.

For more about this shift towards a digital street and a digital public, here are two posts I wrote a while ago.

Photos by mobstr, Lush and Elfo

Stikman in DC. Photo by Lois Stavsky

Stikman has sent over some calendars to give away to Vandalog readers. The calendars feature a classic pin-up girl next to a Stikman character. I’ve got one on my wall right now, but Stikman sent 6 more for me to give away. If you’d like a calendar, just leave a comment on this post with the reason you’d like a Stikman calendar (and be sure to leave your email in the box where it asks for that info). I’ll choose the 6 winning responses on Friday, January 27th.

Photo courtesy of Stikman

Photos by Lois Stavsky and courtesy of Stikman

Bananananas by Dal

Well, the internet went a bit crazy this week, but it looks like we’re winning. Thank you to anyone who noticed that Vandalog was offline on Wednesday in protest of SOPA and PIPA and took the time to contact their representatives to voice objections to the bills. But enough about politics. This is an art blog.

• This Mark Jenkins exhibition in Berlin looks awesome. The show has new sculptures, but it is also the launch of his monograph with Gestalten.
• In a subway station a bit like the site of The Underbelly Project, a number of Russian street artists painted this installation.
• Here’s a beautiful new piece from Phlegm.
• Above has a bunch of new photos on his website.
• The Toasters’ film launches in London on Tuesday.
• Barry McGee will have a show this year at UC Berkeley’s art museum. The show is made possible by a $100,000 grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation.
• Leon Reid IV‘s latest project is pretty different from what we’ve come to expect from Reid. It’s a series of posters depicting recent world events. Hrag Vartanian spoke with Reid about the series.
• Looking for something great to do on Saturday night in LA? Try this – New Image Art and The Hole have teamed up for a party with some DJs and musicians plus installations by Retna, Anthony Lister and Drugs Crew.

Photo by Dal

Mecro freight in Philadelphia

It’s another slow week, but things should start to get going again soon. The holidays can’t last forever. Here are bits of news from around the web that didn’t make it into their own post here this week:

• I wrote a list (with some help from Caroline Caldwell) for Complex.com of 10 street artists to watch in 2012. Let me know what you think in comments on this post or over on Complex.com.
• Adam Void aka Avoid pi is in an upcoming group show at Mighty Tanaka (and they have a new space).
• This Cash4 interview is good for a laugh.
• Blank has designed some posters that he would like to send out to all the Occupy protests, but he needs funding.
• But this might be my favorite Occupy-related art so far (site is NSFW).
• If you’re in Atlanta, do not miss this talk with Brad Downey.
• Or if you’re in NYC, there’s this evening with Ron English at MoMA.
• Fans of Os Gemeos should check out this photo album of their work in Brazil.

Photo by Damonabnormal

Os Gemeos and Koyo in Italy

Happy almost new year to everyone. It’s been quite a year, but I’m on vacation, so there’s no end-of-year round up from Vandalog. Instead, just the usually weekly round up (which includes some end-of-year round ups of course). Also, thank you to everyone who read the 7000+ words this week about Artists 4 Israel. I know politics is not the usual topic of this blog, but I think those posts are among the most important items on Vandalog all year, as are the founder of Artist 4 Israel’s comments on each post. Anyway, here’s what’s up recently:

• Looks like the Season Ticket fair in London was a hit. Sweet Toof even painted people’s nails. One fan sent over these results of Sweet Toof’s efforts.
• Futura has been working on some new pieces for a show in Paris.
• The lead photo this week is from this series of photos that Luna Park took in Grottaglie, where FAME Festival is held.
• The Atlantic has some insight into how Vhils goes about making a mural.
• HowAboutNo! has collected his favorite photos of the year into this post.
• How can you not like Tryone’s “Drive By Shooting” piece? Definitely similar to work by Brad Downey and Akay, but cool nonetheless.
• The LA Weekly has a list of their top 10 street art stories of the year. It’s not bad. Obviously LA-centric, but who can blame them?

Photo by Luna Park

Temporary mural by Jedi5, Col and Broker. Photo by Broker

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 deals more directly with criticisms of Artists 4 Israel and their response to some of those criticisms, as well as other Haverford students’ reactions to the DTF Tour. I encourage you to read part one first, because, while this article is also clearly very opinionated, the first post 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. – RJ Rushmore

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 innocuously advertised 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. Read the rest of this entry »

Temporary mural at Haverford College by Jedi5, Col and Broker. Photo by Broker

Update: Part 2 of this series is now online.

This is the first post in a two-part series on Artists 4 Israel and a series of events they put together, the Defend The Future Tour. This first post is an attempt at giving an account of my personal experiences with Artists 4 Israel and the DTF Tour. There are two primary reasons for this post: A. To give a firsthand account of what it is like to be subject to attempts of manipulation by Artists 4 Israel and B. To acknowledge some of the personal experiences and biases that I am bringing to the table when I write about Artists 4 Israel. This is done in an effort to be honest with Vandalog’s readers. Part 2 of this series, dealing with Artists 4 Israel in a wider context than myself and giving the organization’s take on the DTF Tour, will be published tomorrow. As is always the case on Vandalog, this post is mine and may or may not represent the views of any other Vandalog writers. - RJ Rushmore

On November 17th, the Defend The Future Tour came to Haverford College, spray cans in hand, in what now seems to me to have been an attempt to manipulate students into having a greater hate and fear of the Arab world and a greater love for Israel. This would have been fine, except for the manipulation. I go to Haverford College, so I experienced the DTF Tour myself. Read the rest of this entry »

Unknown artist

Well, while I had myself more or less locked in a library underground for the better part of last week, the art world did not stand still. And so we have this special Tuesday edition of the typically friday event – the link-o-rama:

• Olek is facing charges in London (not related to her street art), and needs your help. Hyperallergic has more info.
• Banksy has loaned a sculpture to a museum in Liverpool. Meh. Another artwork that just as easily could have been seen at any urban art group show, but it’s by Banksy so the BBC and the rest of us should apparently care. What is this? It’s not just with Banksy. Bloggers in particular, we seem to have this urge to always be the first to say “Yeah, I saw that girl’s work first and said she was cool” and a fear of being caught in a situation where everyone except us thinks that some artist or artwork is great. And now I’m rambling…
• Blu just painted two walls in Buenos Aires. Here’s the first and here’s the second.
• I’m loving this new sculpture from Leon Reid IV about the financial crisis.
• Todd James also has a new sculpture in both bronze and porcelain. It’s for sale at Toykyo.
• Mode2′s new work (NSFW) might be the best I’ve ever seen from him. Amazing stuff.
• KAWS has a show on now at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
• Knock Knock is a new online magazine with a lot about street art and graffiti in Australia.
• Kunle Martins aka Earsnot aka the founder of the infamous IRAK crew participated in Wynwood Walls this year alongside Jesse Geller aka Nemel. Martha Cooper has shots of what they got up to and then the Wynwood Walls video series has a great episode on them. For some people, it may be hard to avoid comparisons to this wall by Barry McGee. 12ozProphet says “The building painted by IRAK for Wynwood Walls is inspired by Barry McGee’s tag-filled murals… Earsnot and Nemel build on Barry McGee’s tag wall concept by filling the wall with a variety of monochromatic shades of overlapping tags creating the illusion of depth.”

Photo by Damonabnormal

At Vandalog, we try not to post every single Banksy piece that pops up. The reason for that is that not every Banksy piece is a work of genius or a complete flop. Some are just forgettable. Unfortunately, because Banksy is Banksy, his forgettable works get blown out of proportion and become tourist attractions. With one of his new pieces though, Banksy has used his fame and the addition of a small stencil to change something worth noticing but generally forgettable into something noticeable and memorable. The above photo is of Banksy’s latest work in Liverpool (and there was a similar piece in London, but it’s now buffed). Painting a heart with a fire extinguisher is something that anybody can do if they have the right materials, and it’s something that people might appreciate, if they notice it. But that heart alone could go unnoticed or a more callous person might view it as petty vandalism and quickly have it painted over (as the London piece was). With the addition of that airplane stencil and the claim that it was made by a famous artist, the heart becomes a landmark. In all likelihood, the work won’t be buffed and it will become a tourist attraction just like so many other Banksy’s pieces. And yes, it’s still pretty silly that people might drive for hours just to see this in the flesh, but the other consequence of the wall staying up is that now a simple positive message will be on that wall rather than nothing but a lot of greyness. Sometimes the Banksy pieces that get protected are little more than twice-told jokes, but this wall is actually sending out a positive message to thousands of people every day, so that seems worth protecting to me. Is it the greatest piece of street art ever? Hell no. Primarily, it’s just glorifying the sort of heartfelt and fun but poorly executed drunken amateur vandalism that bored teenagers get up to. But I do appreciate that Banksy has used his fame put up a positive, simple and imitable piece that would have probably been buffed if it were by any other artist or did not have the addition of a stencil at the end to turn it from “vandalism” into “street art.” For all the crap that street art gets, and often deserves, sometimes the public bias in favor of it can lead to good things. Or maybe Banksy is just being lazy and he couldn’t think of anything particularly complex to do.

PS, after I wrote this whole thing but before it was posted, Banksy updated his website. So I’m gonna contradict a bit of what I’ve just written and point out this update. There’s some new stuff including some outdoor pieces that are boring and some that are actually pretty good, plus an FAQ section.

Photos by nolionsinengland