Earlier this month the DMV (Da Mental Vaporz) Crew collaborated on this amazing wall for Crimes of Minds in Brest, France. The whole process was caught on camera and Awouell has just published this great ‘making of’ video…
1010 and Other aka Troy Lovegates
Had about 4 days away from a computer and it’s taken me nearly as long to catch up on emails. This post should help to finish that task. Here’s what I missed while I was away:
Photo by Other
Dran DMV
As we mentioned the other day, Roa and the French Da Mental Vaporz crew (Blo, Bom.k, Brusk, Dran, Gris, Jaw, Kan, Sowat), as well as others, were recently in Copenhagen painting for the Galore Festival. Here are some photos of the festival by S.Butterfly, mostly of DMV’s wall. You can find more pictures from her on flickr or her blog.
First though, this is a video by S.Butterfly of DMV working on their mural…
Da Mental Vaporz at Galore DK from Butterfly on Vimeo.
There’s actually an interesting story behind the mural. S.Butterfly explains, “The mural is a satyrical reference to unscrupulous people who are willing to deface street art walls for profit. The DMV also incorporated a tribute to Kase 2 (RIP), as well as Copenhagen landmarks, including the infamous Christiania market, where you can find anything.” So the crew painted segments of the mural on removable panels, which they then moved to the end of wall and hung next to the “street art shop” (pictured above and below). In place of those panels, they painted windows to other places, as if the wall itself had actually been removed.
Dran
Jaw at work
Bom.k
Blo
Brusk at work
And the entire mural is huge and super wide, so the best way to view large it is by clicking here.
Roa
Photos by S.Butterfly
Monotremu
So I’m about to get on a flight to Philadelphia, which means that there could be power outages as soon as tomorrow night and I’ll be offline for a few days. So if Vandalog doesn’t update, that’s why. This week has been all about good walls for me, and so that’s what almost this entire link-o-rama is about as well:
Photo by Monotremu
Bast
You know what’s weird? Hanging out with all your friends from high school and then actually seeing current high school students from your school. Those kids are so young! While I was freaking out about no longer being a teenager and enjoying the beautiful London weather (I’m serious about this one), here’s what I almost missed this week:
Photo by Luna Park
Here are some behind the scenes photos that Butterfly took in France this week of the Da Mental Vaporz crew transforming the GHP Gallery that Vandalog covered earlier this week. I really can’t wait for pictures from the show to surface. It comes as no surprise that we are fans of DMV at Vandalog and is not confirmed whether or not I am a bit of a fangirl when it comes to dran‘s work.
Photo by Lord Jim
So with the Oscars less than a week away and an Oscar nomination under his belt, of course Banksy has hit up LA with some new work. Some of it’s good, some of it is barely worth a mention and all of it is getting lots of attention.
My personal favorite from this series of hits is the above billboard, the aftermath of which can be seen in this video. Expect it to show up on eBay any day now.
The other piece I really like is this Charlie Brown on a burnt out building:
Photo by Lord Jim
Hieronymus spotted the Charlie Brown piece getting covered by the property management company. His thoughts on the subject as well as on the general way that Banksy’s outdoor work has such a strange life these days are worth checking out. I would pretty much echo his sentiments. There’s also this video of the piece getting covered, but not much is clear except that the building owners want the work covered for now.
I think with either of those two pieces, they’d be worth mentioning even if they weren’t by Banksy, and that should be the measure by which his work is judged. Unfortunately, that’s not the case, and massive amounts of attention have also been paid to every new Banksy in LA, even the two mediocre ones. First, there’s Dog Wizz, which is kinda funny I guess but definitely not top-notch Banksy work:
Photo by Hieronymus
And then there’s this piece which looks to me like something Mr. Brainwash would dream up after looking at Banksy and Dran’s stuff for a bit too long:
Photo by Lord Jim
Besides being a really weak concept compared to the rest of Banksy’s work with kids drawing, there are a few crazy things about this crayon-gun stencil: It was first “discovered” by Lauren Conrad from The Hills and she posted a photo on her twitter. As Hrag speculates, this was pretty clearly staged for maximum publicity for both Lauren and Banksy. Additionally, there’s this painting by Nils Westergard from about a year ago that is pretty similar, so if you like this Banksy but can’t afford to hire somebody to chop a wall out for you, you can always buy the Westergard version on canvas for $500. I’m not saying that Banksy ripped off Westergard, just trying to point out how simple the concept of a crayon-gun is (then again, you could argue that the simple concepts are what makes some of Banksy’s art so good). Finally, I think it’s pretty hilarious to see Banksy fans loving this piece when the first thing it made me think of is that infamous Mr. Brainwash image of Elvis holding a toy gun instead of a guitar. Honestly, the concept of this piece seems so MBW-esque to me, even though the style is obviously Banksy’s. Oh, and it looks like somebody trashed this wall already.
So that’s Banksy’s most recent LA advertising campaign. Some good art and lots of hype. Hopefully it all works in his favor, because I’d still love to see him win that Oscar on Sunday. I just re-watched Exit Through The Gift Shop last week for the first time since the premiere, and I liked it more the second time around. It’s not a bad film.
Photos by Lord Jim and Hieronymus
I Love My World is the new book from Dran. It just came out on Edition Populaire over the weekend. One of Dran’s old books, Television, is one of my favorite art books from an individual artist, and from the previews, I’m hopeful that Love My World will on par with that one. Here are a few images from the new book:
And an animated video:
I Love My World is available online for 15 euros.
Photos courtesy of Edition Populaire
More Dran news, because I personally cannot get enough of the artist’s work. Thursday night was the private opening of Dran’s solo show, “I Have Chalks,” in conjunction with Pictures on Walls. The artist took 100 of his screen prints and drew on each to personalize them. The theme is a fantastic idea because the individuality of such a talented artist is endlessly displayed in each. Plus, buyers only paid a bit more above the usual asking price for one of his prints and take home an original piece.
Unfortunately, I was not in town to see the show, but Mark over at Hooked Blog took some great photos from the opening. Enjoy!
Last night, Pictures on Walls opened their holiday show, Marks & Stencils, starring Banksy and Dran. For those of you who read Vandalog daily, you know that I am a MASSIVE Dran fan. When I first lived in London two years ago, I interned for Pure Evil Gallery and the first show I worked on was Je t’aime, an exhibit featuring members of the DMV crew. When I first saw Dran’s work then, I could see this guy was going to be a big deal, and judging by the likes of last night’s crowd- I was right.
In true, POW style, the pop-up exhibit took out all the stops. The space on the Berwick Street in Soho was completely transformed to exhibit as much work as possible. One of the issues that a lot of people debate now is how to exhibit street art on white walls and whether the meaning of the work changes or if it is even street art anymore, albeit done by “street artists.” POW somehow found a solution, albeit temporary, to this raging debate by making the space look like a messy artist’s studio fused with the outdoor components like traffic cones, gray cracked walls and exposed brick.
The space is broken in two levels, with the top styled more like a thrown together group show and the bottom floor transformed into My Everyday Life, a solo show of Dran’s work. The theme the exhibit is Scribouille (featured above) a character of Dran’s imagination who constantly makes art all of the time. The idea was taken literally with areas created to show a workshop, artist’s table and tools, a shopping cart full of cardboard (a material of choice for Dran) and the creation of one of my favorite works by Dran- a cardboard box opened up with eyes cut out and chalk drawings of child-like flowers. The walls were scattered with unframed canvases of Dran’s witty illustrative social commentary addressing everything from the British obsession with football and shortsighted scientists to men’s fascination with porn and a women’s need to control their partners. I laughed out loud most of the time, and I don’t think the absinthe being served was helping my uncontrollable laughter either.
On the end of the space, Dran uses cardboard boxes from around the world to explore socio-political notions relevant to each country. The series is not only innovative, but displays a tension between the light-hearted nature of the drawings and the heavy themes Dran is actually drawing upon. He just goes to show you that simplicity can pack the same thematic punch as heavy convoluted abstracts that attempt to comment on similar ideas.
Upstairs, the art work includes more pieces from Dran, as well as Zevs, Sickboy and of course, Banksy. All grouped together, it was difficult at times to guess which work was by which artist which was annoying at times, but the free show catalog was pretty good about explaining what was what. Sorry guys, I’m not RJ. I don’t know everything that was there. Actually though, if someone know who the Scrabble “Snuff Film” piece was by, drop me a line. It was underneath a ZEVS but I have no idea if it was his. I would assume though.
Anyways, POW put on a great display of graffiti/art that they cited as the work of “drunks and idiots.” All pictures in ornate frames, the photographs are were a clever way to show off work that have not really been seen, but are definitely a crowd favorite.
And of course, to talk about Banksy’s work in the show… Well for starters, there was not that much of it. I was a bit disappointed in the fact that what was displayed were an array of pieces that have similar brethren in an outdoor capacity (like the door, 3D rat or the “Boring” works). What I found more interesting, however, is the close artistic relationship that has seemed to form between Dran and Bansky. I couldn’t peel my eyes off of Dran’s “Mona Lisa” because of how much it resembles Bansky’s painting attack works from a few years ago. I am not saying they are similar styles, their aesthetics are as different as can be, but their mainstream simplistic way of conveying their own social commentary are extremely similar. They both use ideas of art history, children, apes, war and starvation in their pieces as symbols of current situations. It makes me wonder if Dran is just incredibly inspired by Bansky, or if Banksy is actually mentoring the young French artist. One day, hopefully there will be an outdoor collaboration of their work, but seeing two of my favorite artists of today showing side by side is enough for me right now.
Also, for all you Banksy fans who cannot get enough of the show’s curator, the artist’s new print is shown below. Taken from his recent outdoor homage to Keith haring, the print will be on sale in December through Pictures on Walls. “Choose Your Weapon” is a five colour screen print priced at 450 pounds.
All photos by Steph Keller. See the full set on flickr
