Snyder in Beijing

While I spend my day at my other job explaining to people how a skee-ball tournament is art (seriously), I hope you’ll enjoy these newsbites from the past two weeks:

• Almost everything I’ve seen of this show looks absolutely amazing: Saner’s solo in SF opening today.
• You can listen to this conversation between Retna and his friend Med if you want a bit of insight into the Bowery/Houston mural, although it may just confuse things further in a good way.
• Escif has been doing some really cool work lately and I’ve been neglecting to post it, but here’s one of my favorites.
• Steve Powers and Faile designed potential covers for New York Magazine. Powers’ was used, but I’m a sucker for anything Faile so I definitely would have gone that route.
• I meant to put this piece by Marco Sueño as the image for last week’s link-o-rama, but then my hostel didn’t have wifi so there was no link-o-rama.
• Jaz took it up a notch with this mural in Lima.
• S.Butterfly’s photos of the DMV crew show in Australia are finally online and the show looks great.
• Eine painted the outside of Village Underground in London to raise awareness of the Homes for London campaign.
• GrafRank is an attempt to graph the popularity of street artists and graffiti writers online using data from flickr. Interesting idea, but they need your feedback to make sure they are getting things right.
• Juxtapoz is turning 18 and they are celebrating with a show later this month in Santa Monica. Artists include Retna, Shepard Fairey and Neckface.

Photo by Snyder

White Kiss

Escif has been keeping busy as ever recently. Here are just of few of his latest walls. Read the rest of this article »

Sam3. Photo by E. Murcia Artengo

We’ve been posting images here and there from the Bien Urbain mural festival that took place in Besançon, France, but now photos of all the works are on flickr. These are a few of my favorite images (from Sam3, Hyuro, Moneyless, TBLR-ONE, Escif, Quillograma, Nelio, ), but definitely take the time to check out this Bien Urbain flickr set to see everything from the festival.

Hyuro. Photo by E. Murcia Artengo

Hyuro (detail). Photo by E. Murcia Artengo

Moneyless. Photo by D. Demougeot

OX. Photo by OX

TBLR-ONE. Photo by E. Murcia Artengo

Escif. Photo by E. Murcia Artengo

Quillograma and Nelio. Photo by Nelio

Photos by Nelio, E. Murcia Artengo, OX and D. Demougeot via Bien Urbain

Escif has been painting in France recently. This wall in in Besançon, the hometown of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon who was the first person to call himself an anarchist. Escif also painted at The 4th Wall festival in Niort, France.

Photos by Escif

David Choe and DVS-1

This year, Vandalog hasn’t been covering the Nuart festival in Norway nearly as closely as we should. Some great work has gone up by a bunch of artists over the last few weeks. Between Nuart’s flickr page and the coverage at Arrested Motion though, the festival has been covered extensively elsewhere. Check out Arrested Motion for Nuart contributions by Lucy McLauchlan, Dan Witz, Phlegm, Herakut, Vhils (including what may be my new favorite piece by him), Escif, David Choe and DVS-1 and Nuart’s flickr set for even more images.

Photo by CF Salicath

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

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

As Gaia mentioned, a bunch of artists were painting murals last week in Atlanta for the Atlanta leg of the Living Walls Conference. My personal favorite of the walls I’ve seen so far (I was there, but a few walls were still unfinished when I left town) is this one by Escif.

Photos by RJ Rushmore

Macarena by Escif. Click the print to see a larger sized image

San and Escif have each just release two prints through Upperplayground to coincide with their show at Fifty24SF. I know it’s not the most complex artwork every made, but I can’t help but laugh my ass off when I look at Escif’s Macarena print. Well done. You can view/buy the two San prints here and here, and the Escif prints here and here. They are all screenprints, editions of 50, 18 x 24 inches and priced at $175.

Image courtesy of Fifty24SF

Abstract Graffiti by Cedar Lewisohn. Photo by KR, Berlin, 2010.

Often I find myself asking why certain artists have not been included in a book, but when it comes to Abstract Graffiti by Cedar Lewisohn, the spotlight is not on who should have been showcased but who has been and what they offer.

This insightful, thought provoking, and perhaps most importantly, interesting book, focuses on the increasing abstract nature of both graffiti and street art. Covering topics as diverse as knit graffiti and street training, alongside more conventional sprayology and pop influenced chapters, Abstract Graffiti immerses the reader in a world of vibrant colours, political statements and folk inspired characters.

Beginning with a fantastic introduction and conversation with Patricia Ellis, the book’s main basis is a series of interviews with both established graffiti artists and new practitioners of art based avant-garde practises. Each interview covers a different topic, my personal favourites being with Barbara Kruger, Futura, and the interviews on law with the Honourable Judge Hardy, Sweet Toof and Tek33. Juxtaposed alongside some great photos, the book not only provides an extensive review of graffiti and street art, but raises questions about how you yourself view the highly controversial art forms and their impacts on public space.

Sweet Toof's studio, London, 2008. Photo by Cedar Lewisohn (page 11).

For me, the only negative is that despite Cedar stating that he does not aim to outline a new form of art, at times I feel it does portray it as exactly that. However, I do say that with reservation, it’s more of a slight downside rather than any issue or problem. And this negative is completely forgotten when you start reading the final chapter – a conversation with Les Back, a professor of sociology at Goldsmiths in London. Not defined directly as a conclusion, the conversation provides a perfect ending to the book and rightly so. Les’s clear passion for graffiti and street art comes to the fore whilst you read questions and answers on society, race, and London’s over jealous planning authorities.  Often these topics are not usually raised, or in fact covered, in the usual run of the mill street art book, but this book is not run of the mill, it’s a fantastically written and completely absorbing.

In short, I think everyone interested in art should pick up a copy and get reading. It’s thoroughly enjoyable and I highly recommend it.

Escif - Insiders, Valencia 2010. Photo by Escif (page 158).

More information can be found here on the Merrell Publishers website.

Photos courtesy of Merrell Publishers. By KR, Cedar Lewisohn, and Escif.