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

Dan Witz

On Every Street is a show opening this Thursday at Samuel Owen Gallery in Greenwich, CT. Curated by Michael de Feo, it features the work of dozens of street artists. On Every Street includes a diverse of street artists both in style and (from Hargo to Tony Curanaj) and when they were active outdoors (from Richard Hambleton to Gaia).

Here’s the full line up: Above, Aiko, Michael Anderson, Banksy, Jean-Michel Basquiat, C215, Tony Curanaj, Michael De Feo, D*Face, Ellis Gallagher, Keith Haring, Ron English, Blek le rat, Faile, Shepard Fairey, John Fekner, JMR, Gaia, Richard Hambleton, Hargo, Maya Hayuk, Don Leicht, Tom Otterness, Lady Pink, Lister, Ripo, Mike Sajnoski, Jeff Soto, Chris Stain, Swoon, Thundercut, Dan Witz.

Images courtesy of Michael de Feo

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 Study In Fecundity" by Elbowtoe

I’m baking alive here in Atlanta for Living Walls, but damn things are coming along nicely. Nanook and Gaia have finished a couple of walls, including this one. But Living Walls is a busy event, so I’ve been missing out on a lot this week, including some big news from Banksy. Check all that out here…

• The schedule for Living Walls is up and finalized. Festivities start tonight. If you’re in Atlanta, I hope to see you there.
• El Mac’s painting of a cockroach is pretty crazy.
• Channel4 in the UK has two films of note being shown this weekend: Banksy’s tv special Antics Roadshow (it’s about people behaving badly in public) and Graffiti Wars, which is that Robbo (get well soon man) documentary that people have been talking about for a while.
• Art in the Streets had over 200,000 visitors.
• Fine Art Views has an interview with Blek le Rat.
• Retna, Kenny Scharf and Shepard Fairey painted the outside of a parking garage in West Hollywood.
• New work from Phil Frost.
• Nelio is quite cool.
• Did you know that Futura made a rap with The Clash?
• To coincide with Living Walls, the All City street art and graffiti mapping app is available for free all weekend.

Photo by Elbowtoe

A note from RJ: This is Luke’s first guest post on Vandalog. He will be helping us cover street art and graffiti in Melbourne, Australia.

This is an amazing little alleyway in Melbourne. Check out some of the local and international talent. (There’s so much goodness down there so apologies to anyone that I’ve missed.. Next time..)

Whilst it’s not as famous as some other Melbourne streets, it’s by far my favourite. No surprise why this is, this alley is the entrance to the famous ‘Blender Studios‘ http://www.theblenderstudios.com/ (Have a read on their site, Blender is an instrumental part of the history of Melbourne’s vibrant street art scene).

Ok, Here we go:

Vexta

Ghostpatrol

Reka (Everfresh)

Sync, Phibs (Everfresh), HAHA & more

Read the rest of this entry »

Rich Simmons "Homeless Superman"

I normally am not this much of an ass, but this was too good to pass up and not post. I have heard about this show at Opera Gallery for awhile now, as I am sure most of you have as well. I may have been able to overlook the ridiculous name of the show, The Street Art Show, because of the incredible line-up: Keith Haring, Jean-Michael Basquiat, Banksy, Blek Le Rat, Seen, Ron English, Logan Hicks, Crash, The London Police, Nick Walker, How & Nosm, Saber, ROA, D*Face, Sweet Toof, Mr. Jago, b., Swoon, Kid Zoom, ALEXONE, Anthony Lister, Alexandrous Vasmoulakis and Rich Simmons, but then I remembered that this is still a show put on by Opera Gallery, the home of the beloved Mr. Brainwash. They do put on good show as well as some really shit ones, and I really do want this to be good, but that association still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Plus I cannot help, but feel a bit suspicious since the show is launching on the heels of Art in the Streets.

The Street Art Show seems to be more for the collectors’ benefit who are still salivating over the interest in the LAMOCA show and want to buy more/start buying some pieces for their own collections. Well, at least Mr. Brainwash isn’t an option this time around, although i am sure he will be again soon enough.

The show opens June 17th at Opera Gallery in London.

Photo courtesy of Opera Gallery

Roa in Mexico City

White Walls Gallery and 941 Geary, sister galleries in San Fransisco, have two interesting shows opening in April.

Starting on Friday, 941 Geary will open an “indoor mural” installation, aka lots of artists painting the walls inside the gallery. Eine, Roa, Chor Boogie, APEX, Casey Gray, D Young V, Skinner, Hush and Blek le Rat have contributed or will contribute to the project as it continues to evolve over the course of a few weeks. So that could either be really cool or a complete mess. We’ll see. Here’s to hoping it works well.

Over at White Walls, Roa is installing a solo show. That show opens on April 9th. Roa’s recent installations in London got glowing reviews almost across the board, so this large solo installation will be one not to miss.

Photo by Roa

A lot of people were first introduced to street art through Banksy and his rats. Then, you learn that Blek le Rat was painting stencils of rats back in the 1980′s. What people don’t often realize that one of street art’s early pioneers beat both of those artists to stenciled black rats. The Rat Patrol project by Christy Rupp, from 1979, consisted of wheatpasting images of rats all around New York City. Street Art, a book from 1985, is the invaluable resource that first introduced me to Rupp’s artwork, but since then, I don’t think she has been acknowledged for her work as one of the first street artists, and possibly the first street artist to use rats extensively, a character that has become iconic within the movement.

Here’s how Rupp describes the project:

Life size image of a rat placed amongst accumulated garbage. I started pasting these up during the 3 week garbage strike in May of 1979. Never intending to defend rats, I wanted to point out how we had created a habitat for them, and they would naturally occupy it. The city has it’s own ecosystem with a delicate balance. Rats were very visible in those days where I lived in the Wall St. area. Especially around dusk when the human traffic would abruptly taper off leaving all the days harvest for the first rats to discover. During this time I studied rat behavior and found them to be similar to people in many ways, not least of which was the ability to work together as a community, making them possibly better suited to living in NYC at times. Also it has been said that rats possess a culture- if you define culture as the ability to pass information through generations without direct experience- such as a fear of predators and pesticides. Humans are the only other species that can do that.

Also, there were even Rubble Rats, which took the form of sculptures:

Rupp’s artwork is a piece of street art history that should be longer be ignored. Certainly something that should be kept in mind with LA MOCA‘s upcoming street art show.

On her website, you can purchase a print of the 2nd photo in this post.

Also, I was looking around the rest of Rupp’s website and there are a number of other cool artworks worth checking out.

Photos by Christy Rupp

Work in Guatemala by STRANGER

Well I’ve been back in London for about a week now, and I am beginning to understand why people think it’s so grey. When you live here, you get used to it, but wow I’ve only been away for a few months and already I think the constant greyness is annoying. Still, it’s good to be home. Here’s what the world has been up to while I’ve been watching it rain.

• A group of artists protested the removal of Blu’s mural outside of MOCA this week by projecting images onto the buffed wall. Here’s a news story and a video.
• José Parlá has a new book coming out and a solo show in New York next month. Arrested Motion has more info on both those things and the book is currently available online.
• Dimitris Taxis does some great wheatpastes.
• King Adz has put together a show opening this weekend in Ireland with Blek le Rat, Asbestos, Laser 3.14 and others.
• Kyle Chayka went on a bit of a rant about Banksy’s possible Oscar nomination, but he makes some good points.
• Also on the topic of Exit Through The Gift Shop, the NYTimes is reporting that a man who has come forward as an original editor of Mr. Brainwash’s film Life Remote Control wants some credit for making the film that eventually sort of morphed into Exit.
• Carolina A. Miranda wrote the latest cover article for the magazine ARTnews about the future of street art and it moving away from figurative work. You can read the entire article online. On the one hand, a move away from pop-art and figurative art seems to be counter-productive to the “art for the people” ethos at the core of so much street art, but it’s also certainly easier to turn a pop-art image into a marketing campaign while an abstract painting may do a better job of brightening up a grey wall without the artist and the viewer immediately thinking of dollar signs. I think street artists will just have to be careful to not become so conceptual that the possibility for people to understand or appreciate the art on some level without an artist’s statement is lost.
• Some graffiti writers are tagging up ancient rock art sites in Nevada.
• Mat Gleason named Banksy and Shepard Fairey among the top overrated artists of the decade. Check out this video for why Gleason thinks that Shepard isn’t an artist!
• A mural by Shepard Fairey was partially painted over in LA by some other artists/writers. No big deal right? Happens all the time, right? Wrong, apparently. The mural was painted over by another artist showing at a gallery nearby. According to JetSetGraffiti, the artist has since apologized and will be paying for Shepard to repair the wall with a new mural. Okay, so should that mural still be there untouched? Maybe. Sounds like the local neighborhood liked it. Can it suck when things get dissed or buffed or written over accidentally or whatever else? Yeah. Should the artist have to pay for damages? Hell no! That’s the sort of thing that happens when you get arrested by the police for graffiti or street art, not something that art lovers should impose upon each other. The mural didn’t last forever. That’s the nature of street art. It sucks sometimes and there are ways to deal with it, but don’t make the vandal pay for damages!
• NBC has done a really disturbing promotion in NYC’s parks for their new superhero show. Publicadcampaign explains.

Photo by Not Another Street Artist

I have to say that I really appreciate galleries that continue to do shows during the Holiday season. While most just shut down because “everyone else does” I find it admirable when a curator puts together a show, and a decent group show at that.

Martha Cooper Happy Holidays

Opening December 11 at Subliminal Projects is Wreck the Walls, a group exhibition of over 30 artists combining rebellious urban artists, street pioneers and young emerging fine artists.

The show includes the likes of some heavy hitters like McGinnes and Cooper and some of my favorite new names like Greg LeMarche and Kelly Berg. The full list includes: Alan Shaffer, Alejandro Gehry, Andy Moses, Bertil Petersson, Billy Al Bengston, Blek Le Rat, Craig Stecyk, Curtis Kulig, David Ellis, David Yow, Ed Moses, Ellwood T. Risk, Erik Foss, Eric Schwartz, Eric White, Evan Hecox, Greg Lamarche, Jason Alper, John Van Hamersveld, Laddie John Dill, Larry Bell, Martha Cooper, Monica Canilao, Retna, Robbie Conal, Ryan McGinness, Ryan Travis Christian, Skullphone, Swoon, Tim Biskup, Vanessa Prager, Kelly Berg.

Photo by Martha Cooper via Subliminal Projects