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

Sticker wall organized by DB Burkeman for Wynwood Walls 2010

Chicago’s Maxwell Colette Gallery is kicking off the new year with STUCK UP: A Selected History of Alternative & Pop Culture Told Through Stickers, January 20th from 6-10pm. The show is curated by DB Burkeman, author of the ultimate book on stickers, and is a chance to see some of the best stickers from DB’s collection, including stickers by Barry McGee, Jenny Holzer, Banksy and Kaws. On January 21st from 1-3pm, the gallery will host a book signing with DB and seminal graffiti photographer Martha Cooper, who has had two books of her photos of stickers published.

In addition to Stuck Up, there will be work at the gallery by Chris Mendoza and a version of the Slap Happy charity project that DB and Paul Weston curated for SCOPE Miami last year.

Photo by Lulu Vision

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

Anonymous Gallery is launching their permanent space in Mexico City with Fresh Kills, a group show opening this weekend. The artists in this show are purported to, in an effort for renewal, reuse materials that most would consider trash, so the name Fresh Kills comes from Freshkills Park, an upcoming park project in New York to redevelop a site that used to be a landfill. As usual, Anonymous Gallery have put together an impressive group of artists for this show: Aaron Young, Agathe Snow, Barry McGee, David Ellis, Greg Lamarche, Hanna Liden, Richard Prince, Swoon and Tom Sachs. Fresh Kills opens on the 17th, this Thursday and runs through January 15th.

Jaz and Laguna in Madrid (click to view large)

This week just keeps getting better. Looks like we’ve got a bit of NYC coming to Philadelphia with a show curated by Matt Siren. Here’s what I meant to blog about this week:

• Faith47 and DAL collaborated on this wall.
• If you’re a big fan of ABOVE, you need to see the special edition of his new book.
• Here’s a number of photos from Os Gêmeos’ latest museum show.
• Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel’s billboard takeovers from the 1970′s and 1980′s are great.
• Boe is doing something a bit different with his graffiti.
• Barry McGee has found new gallery representation in NYC.
• Blek le Rat, Aiko, Sickboy, Faile and Swoon give props to their favorite living street artists.
• Graffuturism are curating some walls in Miami next month and the line up is solid as can be.

Photo by Jaz

Life-side wheatpasted photograph by Erik Berglin

Expect next week’s link-o-rama to be a big one. It’s mid-term week at school. Speaking of school, I’m organizing an artist residency for young artists at my college. If you are between 18 and 24 and could use $350 to do something creative, I hope you’ll consider applying for the Haverford College Undergraduate Artist Residency. Here’s what has been going on this week off Vandalog:

• The Wall Street Journal followed Jeffrey Deitch around during the final day of Art in the Streets, so now you can see what a day in the life of Jeffrey Deitch is like.
• Adam Neate has a show of new work opening next week at Elms Lesters in London.
• Also in London next week is the rescheduled Meeting of Styles, organized by End of the Line.
• Great photos of great walls in Paris.
• e1000ink has some nice minimal geometric street art.
• Maybe the coolest and best piece from Living Walls Albany is this tile mosaic mural by Overunder.
• Brad Downey and Akay are at it again in Vienna.
• Some nice murals at the Galeria Urban Forms festival in Poland.
• Remember that beautiful Barry McGee piece in Sydney that we mentioned two weeks ago? That wall of tags? Turns out he wasn’t supposed to paint that, so it’s getting removed. He was meant to, and did, paint another wall, but not the wall that he tagged. Officially, this was an honest mistake and an unfortunate case of confusion on McGee’s part, but if you had a cherry picker or a scissor lift and some extra paint, how would you spend your nights?

Photo by Erik Berglin

Charming Baker "Panda Boy remix" (2007) (£6,000 - £8,000)

This week sees the opening of Autumn’s most high profile street art “exhibit” at The Cumberland Hotel in Marble Arch. I say exhibit loosely since Urban Contemporary is a ten day show culminating in the 150 works being auctioned off by Dreweatt’s on October 10. As usual, there is a mix of crap and some rare works that haven’t been seen in a while. The two that stood out for me is JR’s Adama, Montfermeil, Portrait d’une generation (2006) and the Charming Baker Panda Boy Remix (2007). Not only is the piece an early Baker, but this is also the first time (I cannot find evidence to say otherwise) one of his works has cropped up in the secondary market. Other artists in the show include D*Face, Barry McGee, Shepard Fairey, Banksy, Blek le Rat and Eine.

The show opens September 30th at The Cumberland Hotel in Marble Arch.

D*Face "Pop Tart" (2007) (£4,000 - £6,000)

Shepard Fairey "Johnny Ramone" (2008) (£6,000-£8,000)

All Images courtesy of Dreweatt’s Bloomsbury

A freight train in Atlanta

This week has been a lot of trying to get ahead on my work, because on Saturday evening I’m headed to New York City for the night. I’ll be checking out Flash at the Wooster Street Social Club. Here’s some stuff I missed covering over the last few days:

• Bast has a show opening this weekend at Lazarides’ Newcastle location. Most of the work is in a completely (almost unrecognizably) new style.
• Swoon’s installation at the ICA Boston is now on view.
• Some big walls are being painted at the CityLeaks festival in Germany.
• But none of those murals are quite as cool as Liqen’s latest.
• 555 Gallery in Detroit has finally settled their lawsuit and can display the Banksy that they stole off the streets, completely ruining the meaning of the piece.
• Escif was at Fame Festival.
• Kaws has a solo show open now in LA.
• Fab5Freddy, Lee and Futura are together in a show at Subliminal Projects this weekend.
• Ludo’s show in London is open now.
• Twist aka Barry McGee and his partner Amaze get up big in Sydney.

Photo by RJ Rushmore

On July 21, Moniker will be opening a show at Blackhall Studios in Shoreditch entitled Gossip Well Told. Featuring the likes of artists Swoon, Eine, Dabs and Myla, Case and Herakut. There will also be some great street art photos from Cheryl Dunn that I am really looking forward to seeing as well. Below is one of her photos from the Twist/Barry McGee mural on Houston Street in New York City.

Photo by Cheryl Dunn and courtesy of Moniker

Barry McGee’s latest show, simply titled New Work, opened this week at Stuart Shave/Modern Art in London. While not the craziest show Barry McGee has ever done, pretty much everyone I spoke with came away thinking this show is one of the best things they’ve seen recently (except for maybe the Miro show at Tate Modern, apparently that’s going to be a difficult one to top). As usual, McGee straddled the worlds of graffiti and fine art, high-brow and low-brow, concept and aesthetics.

This is a close-up of a table full of zines and sketches by McGee

A number of pepole I spoke with said this was their favorite piece

But this was my favorite

New Work is on now at Modern Art through August 13th. For more photos, check these photo sets.

Photos by RJ Rushmore