Erica il Cane

Henrik Haven visited FAME Festival in Grottaglie, Italy for the festival’s opening events last month. Naturally, he took plenty of stunning shots of the new work there. In a two-part series, we’ve selected some of our favorite pieces from FAME 2012. In part one here, we’ve got walls by Erica il Cane, Conor Harrington, Interesni Kazki, Vhils, Moneyless, Brad Downey, Akay and Cyop & Kaf.

Cyop and Kaf

Vhils

Brad Downey and Akay

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Ron English working on his mural at Nuart

For most of last week, I was in Stavanger, Norway for the 2012 Nuart Festival. Naturally, even though I was there in part as press, I spent very little time on my computer and didn’t do any blogging. So, expect a full post or two about Nuart later this week, but for now here’s what I missed writing about while I was away:

• SheOne always does beautiful work.
• Reed Space has an official Stay High 149 tee.
• Here’s a video with the anonymous man behind some of the best and most talked about ad disruptions of the year.
• Daniel Feral has updated his Feral Diagram of graffiti and street art.
• Swoon’s studio recently launched an online shop for selling unique prints by Swoon.
• Fame Festival opened last week.
• Liqen has painted a mural about greenwashing and sweeping things under the rug.
• Hyuro is using rugs in her work too.
• Escif’s mural “Ne travaillez jamais” (Never Work) not only looks great/hilarious but it references Situationist graffiti, so I absolutely love it. Maybe I’ll turn it into a postcard.
• Steve Powers’ and Joey Garfield’s film A Love Letter for You is now available on iTunes. It’s an interesting film well worth checking out if you like Powers.
• Greg Lamarche aka SPOne has a show opening this week at Joshua Liner Gallery.

Photo by Ian Cox

Recently I’ve been seeing a lot of great work that loosely falls under a category of graffiti which is abstract but focused on geometry, and maybe a bit minimalist (Editor, Bino, Homer, ABCDEF). Well, it’s important to remember that of lot of these guys seem to be influenced by the great MOMO, who recently returned to Italy’s Fame Festival to paint there. Here are a few pieces from that visit.

Photos courtesy of MOMO

GoddoG

It’s time to talk about what other people have been talking about:

• Graffuturism has photos of Roid’s recent solo show, which looks great.
• SKL0 is a street artist in Singapore who may be facing up to 3 years in prison for allegedly putting up fantastic stickers and fake road signs. This petition was started to hopefully get the authorities in Singapore to lessen the charges against SKL0.
• Dran has released a new poster print of one of his paintings.
• Conor Harrington’s has made his visit to this year’s FAME Festival, with stunning results. I’m loving his new rough and half-finished looking pieces.
• Remi/Rough has a solo show opening at Unit44 in Newcastle on June 22nd.
• The opening of Flying Fortress’ first New York solo show is going on right now at Mighty Tanaka in Brooklyn.
• I always enjoy a nice piece by GATS.
• This post on Hyperallergic pretty much exactly echos my thoughts about a Kickstarter project that hopes to raise $1 million to temporarily cover New York’s water tanks in art by celebrities and celebrity artists (and a couple of cool artists too, admittedly).

Photo by GoddoG

Don't Fret

Lots of news to share this week and I’m late with this post, so let’s get on with it…

• This year’s FAME Festival lineup is online.
• Nina Pandolfo has a show coming up this week at Lazarides’ Rathbone Place location. Despite Nina’s talent, it’s unfortunately difficult to shake the knowledge that she is married to Otavio Pandolfo of Os Gemeos and make comparisons to Os Gemeos’ work.
• Some great new prints and t-shirts from Horfe.
• Stick2Target has photos of some great new walls by Vhils.
• Let’s all go make parks.
• Thinkspace Gallery currently has a charity show running to benefit Born Free USA.
• Street Art Is Dead used to be a blog that mostly complained about the bullshit involved in street art. Now there’s a newish blog with that name that indiscriminately posts photos of street art despite quality.
• James Marshall aka Dalek has brought his Space Monkey character back in his work after years of interesting artistic development.
• Animal New York’s analysis of JR’s latest mural in New York seems pretty spot on… “Let’s agree that it is not an vicious affront to the eyes, but it’s not ‘absolutely genius’ either.”
• Banksy updated his website. A couple of really nice new pieces, both indoors and outdoors.
• Carmichael Gallery have a show that just opened with Yue Minjun, Mark Jenkins and Aakash Nihalani.
• The Duke Spirit used Kid Acne’s Stabby Women film series footage and used a version reedited by Dscreet (who also directed Stabby Women initially) for their latest music.

Photo by Don’t Fret

Os Gemeos and Koyo in Italy

Happy almost new year to everyone. It’s been quite a year, but I’m on vacation, so there’s no end-of-year round up from Vandalog. Instead, just the usually weekly round up (which includes some end-of-year round ups of course). Also, thank you to everyone who read the 7000+ words this week about Artists 4 Israel. I know politics is not the usual topic of this blog, but I think those posts are among the most important items on Vandalog all year, as are the founder of Artist 4 Israel’s comments on each post. Anyway, here’s what’s up recently:

• Looks like the Season Ticket fair in London was a hit. Sweet Toof even painted people’s nails. One fan sent over these results of Sweet Toof’s efforts.
• Futura has been working on some new pieces for a show in Paris.
• The lead photo this week is from this series of photos that Luna Park took in Grottaglie, where FAME Festival is held.
• The Atlantic has some insight into how Vhils goes about making a mural.
• HowAboutNo! has collected his favorite photos of the year into this post.
• How can you not like Tryone’s “Drive By Shooting” piece? Definitely similar to work by Brad Downey and Akay, but cool nonetheless.
• The LA Weekly has a list of their top 10 street art stories of the year. It’s not bad. Obviously LA-centric, but who can blame them?

Photo by Luna Park

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

Snyder, a tribute to Kase2 (RIP) by Krush, Dame and Evol and other pieces

You know what’s really nice? Sleep. Hence, this weekend is a blessing. For now, life is school school school and more school. Hopefully there’s still a trip to NYC in my near future though… Here’s what has been going on around the internet and on the street:

• OverUnder and Chris Stain have gotten things started at Living Walls Albany. OverUnder’s portrait looks kinda like an Ethos piece, but it still looks cool. And Chris’ tribute to the 9/11 first responders was painted on wood and has just been moved to the New York State Museum.
• WK Interact collaborated with NY firefighters on a mural in Brooklyn.
• This 9/11 related piece by Zevs has caused a bit of a stir. Definitely one of most controversial 9/11 related artworks I’ve seen.
• JR’s Inside Out project has made it to Israel and Palestine.
• Some promising new for Leon Reid IV‘s latest project.
• Amanda Marie, the latest artist to show at Andenken in Amsterdam, isn’t a street artist, but she does stencils that I’m loving. (heads up, the link is a pdf)
• Ema has a solo show that opened tonight at Glasgow’s Redcoat Gallery.
• Banksy has donated a sculpture to The Bristol Museum.
• A few years ago, there was a castled painted in Scotland by some of Brazil’s best street artists: Nina, Nunca and Os Gêmeos. It was supposed to be temporary, but the owners of the castle want to keep it.
• Maybe my favorite thing I’ve ever seen from Jaybo.
• Risk and Retna painted a mural in Santa Monica, CA, but now the city wants to fine the building owners $5,000 a day until the mural is removed.
• Brad Downey and Akay collaborate at FAME Festival.
• Jim Carrey and Shia LaBeouf are both trying to do some street art. Yep, the guy from Ace Ventura and a Disney Channel star are now technically street artists. Melrse&Fairfax says, “Interesting how street art seems to be more and more an exciting ‘escape’ for celebrities.” I’d like to replace interesting with some other word or words…

Photo by Snyder

Swoon in New York City

A day late, but here’s the link-o-rama. Let’s just say it feels like I’ve been competing, exactly one year on, with Ben Eine for the title of having had the strangest week. Here’s what I’ve missed:

• The NYTimes has an article about Taki183, an update of sorts on their article from that original article from 40 years ago I guess.
• A video and images from that show of graffuturism in Glasgow.
• Kid Acne’s museum show in Sheffield has opened and Arrested Motion interviewed the artist.
• Don’t Panic interviewed Pablo Delgado.
• Insa’s just done a new Gif-itti animation.
• Lots of updates from FAME Festival: Boris Hoppek, Erica Il Cane, Blu and Aryz.
• And if you need more Italian political street art, you can check out the latest short film from Six Oranges.
• Shok-1 painted a mural in China, but now the government wants it removed.
• Vhils is getting up in LA.
• A politician in Bristol wants to find a way to protect (extremely valuable) street art. I’m not saying I oppose the idea, but the article does read exactly what something I’d expect to find in The Onion.

Photo by Sabeth718

Madre from Andrew Telling on Vimeo.

Sorry for all of the videos today guys, but at least they are something to watch during downtime at work. The latest features Word to Mother during his time at Fame Festival in Italy last year. Created by Andrew Telling, the video also has some guest appearances by Lucy Mclauchlan and Cypo & Kaf. Enjoy.