July is a technically competent artist, creating stencils using 2 to 4 colors that generally include some sort of social or political commentary. For the same reason people are amused by Dolk, Icy & Sot, Blek le Rat and so on and so forth, people might have similar reactions to July as they do with those other artists. For more works by Banksy July check out their facebook page. For some more direct similarities to other artists, see here and here.

Wouldn’t it be great if artists moved beyond being technically competent and actually came up with interesting ideas too?

Photos by July

Niels “Shoe” Meulman paints a mural within sight of a former bank. Photo by Ian Cox.

In part 4 of my series of posts about this year’s Nuart Festival (here are parts one, two, and three), I’ve finally gotten to the murals and more traditional street work of this year’s festival. This year, Nuart is responsible for new murals in Stavanger by Niels “Shoe” Meulman, Ron English, Dolk, How&Nosm, Mobstr and Eine.

Ron English. Photo by Ian Cox.

Mobstr. Photo by Ian Cox.

More after the jump… Read the rest of this article »

Skewville at Nuart 2009

This year’s Nuart Festival takes place later this month in Stavanger, Norway, and I’ll be there along with a really amazing group of artists and speakers. This year’s artist lineup is Aakash Nihalani, Dolk, Eine, Ron English, Saber, How and Nosm, mobstr, Niels “Shoe” Meulman, Jordan Seiler, The Wa and Sickboy. I’m excited to see the “mostly legal” work that those artists get up to.

I’ll be participating in three events at Nuart Plus, a 3-day international summit on street art taking place during the festival. Evan Pricco, Tristan Manco, Carlo McCormick and others will be speaking there too. Here’s what I’m involved in: On the 27th, Jordan Seiler and I will be giving a tour of some of the art (and ads) in Stavanger; On the 28th, Carlo McCormick and I will be at Martinique, a cafe and pub, to debate about whether or not one can truly appreciate street art on the internet; On the 29th, Evan Pricco, Tristan Manco and I will be on a panel about street art and the internet moderated by Eirik Sjåholm Knudsen. Sorry if I’m focusing a bit too much on my own stuff, but I’m really excited to be going to Nuart, especially since I’ll be speaking alongside so many of my friends and idols.

There will of course also be an indoor art component to the festival.

Nuart’s street work begins September 20th, the indoor show opens on the 29th at Tuo Scene and the panels and talks will take place on the 27th-29th.

Photo by RJ Rushmore

Specter

The week isn’t over yet, but this week’s news is going to be old if I don’t mention it soon. Here’s some of what I missed this week:

• The D*Face Smirnoff collaboration was anything but normal.
• Ian Stevenson’s show at Lzarides’ Newcastle space looks good.
• This is a one of Dal’s most complex walls yet.
• Vhils has a show opening this week in Paris as well as some new walls there.
• The new issue of Very Nearly Almost features Anthony Lister on the cover and will be launched on June 28th.
• Shok1 painted a great tribute to StayHigh149.
• Pixel Pancho, Never2501, GGT, Moneyless and Martina Merlini all collaborated on this wall in Milan.
• I really like this new print about to be released by Dolk.
• If you like UFO’s work in 2-demensions, you’ll love it in 3! Actually that isn’t the only sculpture he has made, but it is the newest.

Photo by SMKjr

Brad Downey

Martyn Reed, the man behind Nuart, is finally opening up a gallery space. Reed Projects, like Nuart, will be based in Stavanger, Norway and draw in contemporary artists from the world of street art and beyond. The Re-Jects will be the first show at Reed Project and it features a sampling of artists from past editions of Nuart: Vhils, Dolk, Escif, Evol, Brad Downey, Dan Witz and Roa. Nuart has never come across to me as something done half-assed, so I’m sure Reed Projects will be no different and I can’t wait to see how it develops. The Re-Jects opens this Thursday (7-10pm) and runs through June 22nd.

Photo by Tod Seelie

LA 11

I discovered the East Village’s Dorian Grey Gallery last spring when it exhibited a wonderfully diverse selection of LA 11’s artwork. LA 11 is just one of many artists in Dorian Grey’s current exhibit, GroupeGRAFF, featuring work by an eclectic array of artists who have impacted — or certainly reflect — much of what has been happening on the streets during the past 30 years.  Here are a few images from the exhibit:

Grafter

Richard Hambleton

Crash

Dolk

See One

Included too are works by: Aiko, ERO, Keith Haring, Jeff Henriquez, Mau Mau and others. Distinct pieces by Banksy and Swoon are also featured. A particular favorite — as it’s literally a piece of graffiti history — is a segment of a door from the legendary Mudd Club tagged by the likes of Keith Haring & Fab 5 Freddy:

Tagged fragment of door at the legendary Mudd Club

An opening reception will be held tomorrow evening, April 28th, 5-8 pm.  The exhibit continues through May 16th at 437 East 9th Street near Avenue A in Manhattan’s East Village.

Photos by Lois Stavsky

Vhils for Nuart 2010

With fall approaching (hopefully quickly after all the time I’ve been spending in 100 degree weather), another edition of Stavanger, Norway’s Nuart festival is just around the corner. This year, Nuart will break away from the murals that its become known for in favor of an event more like The Underbelly Project or Hell’s Half Acre: While there will still be some walls painted around the city, most of the festival will be indoors where artists will focus on painting directly on the walls of “seven abandoned 17x5x5 meter tunnels [and] a 50meter long access tunnel with an entrance hall equal in size to the cities largest gallery.”

And here’s this year’s artist line up… Dan Witz, David Choe, Herakut, Herbert Baglione, Escif, Hyuro, Tellas, Lucy McLauchlan, Dolk, Phlegm and Vhils.

Photo by kalevkevad

This piece by Paul Richard next to a large Dolk mural in NYC is awesome. Paul is one of NYC’s underrated street artists. And check back tomorrow for a story that makes the sign pretty timely (if you can’t wait that long, it starts here).

Photo by Becki_Fuller

Detail of a painting by Bast

I’m guessing that with college only getting busier (although, as Stickboy pointed out on Twitter, freshman year isn’t exactly the busiest), I think I’ll finally have to resort to a semi-weekly link post. So Things to look at this weekend… will probably become a weekly feature on Vandalog (but maybe with more exciting name). So here’s what I’ve been reading recently:

• Street Art: Contemporary Prints from the V&A is pretty much what the surprising title says. Turns out, the V&A museum has a pretty solid collection of urban art prints by artists like Swoon, D*Face and Blek le Rat. This show opens at a museum in Coventry, England on October 9th and UK Street Art has more info.
• Tristan Manco‘s latest book, Street Sketchbook: Journeys, will be released at the end of September. Tristan is one of the people that I most respect in the street art community. Besides curating Cans Festival, he has been writing quality street art books for about a decade. He probably knows more about the artists he is writing about than just about anyone else, but he keeps everything accessible to a mass audience. Originally, I was skeptical of the concept of this book, but I’ve since been convinced that it will be at least worth checking out, and will probably be the best street art book of the year in terms of mass appeal (although other books will likely top it for street art fanatics). For me, the most exciting part of this book is going to be the exhibition that Tristan is curating at Pictures on Walls for next month. You’ll probably hear more about it on Vandalog in the coming weeks, but basically all the artists from his new book will be in the show. WallKandy has more info.
• Bast has a solo show at Lazarides’ Rathbone Place. Most day’s I’m pretty indifferent to Bast indoors (credit to him for always getting up though), but I’m liking some of this work, and the Bast fans I’ve spoken with think this is some of his best work yet. Arrested Motion has photos.
• Eelus has a solo show at Brooklynite Gallery in NY. The show runs through October 2nd. Hi-Fructose has some great photos.
• It’s not a new idea and this video has been appearing all across the web, but if you haven’t checked out this “birds as CCTVs” project yet, it’s about time you do. I ignored it at first because I thought the idea was tired, but this version brings the idea to new levels and the video is very well-made.
• One of my favorite art blogs is Street Art is Dead. If you haven’t read it before, it’s basically a no-holds-barred street art blog. Basically, I guess the writer of the blog is anonymous or just really doesn’t care what people think, so he/she really says it like it is and reveals juicy tidbits of gossip before anybody else. Today I want to link to two recent posts from Street Art is Dead. This one , on a topic that will not be discussed on Vandalog because I don’t want to play into the hype-machine, and this 100%-spot-on post about the latest Dolk prints and SPQR’s upcoming show at Signal Gallery. SAiD took the words right out of my mouth about SPQR and Dolk before I could post that here.
• Old-school street artist Richard Hambleton has a solo show which just opened this week in Moscow. It looks pretty damn good. Of course, Arrested Motion has photos and all the info you need.

Dolk is in New York for his two person show that opened at Brooklynite with M City entitled Eurotrash. Of course, like an good street artist, Dolk has crowned the visit with some fantastic pieces. I’ve been scheming on that spot on Graham Avenue for almost a year now but never followed through. Glad he rocked the spot so well.