Photo by Luna Park

For the last week or so until today, we’ve been in the process changing Vandalog’s web hosts. No need to get into the technical details, but now the site should run more smoothly and with less downtime. Unfortunately it means that we haven’t been able to write anything new on the site since that process began (everything that’s gone online was pre-scheduled). So this is a mega-link-o-rama combining the usual weekend link-o-rama content with stuff that I could have written about last week even if I’d had the time.

• Martha Cooper turned 70 this weekend, and the graffiti community came together at Bowery and Houston to give her a giant surprise birthday present (pictured above). How and Nosm told Cooper that they were planning to repaint their piece at Bowery and Houston and told her to come by at noon on Saturday, but they didn’t tell her how they were going to have to piece repainted. They brought together a bunch of new and old graffiti legends and painted a giant blockbuster tribute to Cooper. BSA has plenty more great photos of the piece in progress and a perfect shot of Cooper reacting to seeing the mural.
• WK Interact’s pop-up show in NYC is absolutely fantastic, a must-see show. Think it this way: This show, as I understand it, is a retrospective but it’s made up of the work that WK had in his studio, not work borrowed or on the secondary market from collectors, so this is a lot of unsold work. And yet, the show is still one of the strongest I’ve seen from any artist in quite a while, and the work holds up just fine next to anything else by WK. Even the work that has been sitting in the WK’s studio for a few years is just masterpiece after masterpiece. Good stuff.
• I love this t-shirt designed by Snoeman for Carnage (Snoeman is the zine’s featured artist in their latest issue).
• Sick new Dabs and Myla mural in Melbourne.
• Mr. Brainwash has lost another lawsuit by a photographer upset with MBW’s appropriation. Basically, it boils down to MBW’s work being too similar to the original photograph, with no original contributions to the work by MBW.
• Aiko’s installation at the Japan Society in NYC is beautiful. Can’t wait to see it in person.
• Sounds like Logan Hick’s show in LA was a big hit. Here are photos of the finished and installed work.
• Some crazy walls from Abik.
• This year’s OFFSET lectures in Dublin will include JR and Faile.
• NYC has some amazing graffiti on trucks.
• A quick Overunder tag.
• Os Gemeos talk about their show at the ICA Boston and their massive mural there from last summer (if you can spot me in the video, you have eagle eyes by the way).
• It appears that Phil Frost hit a massive billboard in LA, and then the billboard was stolen. But the whole thing seems like a shady PR scam for Ace Gallery. Melrose&Fairfax has the full story, but one point they don’t make is that Ace Gallery has a history of controversy, so that makes me even more doubtful that this billboard and its theft are real. Also, let’s face it, there’s a good chance that the billboard is illegal anyway since this was in LA, so who cares if the ad was stolen off of the billboard?
• Is this new David de la Mano piece a comment on the removal of Hyuro’s Atlanta mural?

Photo by Luna Park

As I tweeted the other day, my mind is kinda stuck on how much I wish the Parra show at Jonathan Levine Gallery opened today and not on Saturday so that I could go see it. So while I’ve been distracted by that point, here’s some of what I almost missed this week:

• KATSU’s April Fools prank is a bit early, but still pretty funny.
• The Outsiders / Lazarides has some really nice prints by Ron English. They are variations on his Figment image, aka Andy Warhol wig and a skull.
• Barry McGee, Chris Johanson and Laurie Reid are showing together at City College and SF starting today.
• Here’s a new piece from the always-interesting 0331c, but if you don’t know 0331c’s work, here’s an introduction.
• Nice video of Eine updating one of his walls in London from saying PRO PRO PRO to PROTAGONIST. Interesting comment about street art being a thing that “looked like it would offer what graffiti promised but didn’t deliver.”
• Nychos x Jeff Soto = Yes!
• New work from Isaac Cordal.
• Woah. Nice work from How and Nosm in San Fransisco.
• Jonathan Jones is up to his old tricks of dissing Banksy to get more hits for his column, and I’m biting. He writes, “Banksy, as an artist, stops existing when there is no news about him.” Even if that is the case, is that the end of the world? Does that relegate Banksy to “art-lite”? No. Banksy is one of the most talked-about artists in the world. I would bet that the same criticism was leveled against Warhol, who I believe Jones likes. Banksy’s manipulation of the media, playing it like a damn violin sometimes, is some of his greatest artwork of all. He manipulates the media to spread a message. The best example of this was probably him going to Bethlehem to paint on the separation wall because he knew that the media would cover it. He was able to play the media to draw attention to an issue that he felt strongly about. Banksy’s paintings are sometimes great and sometimes not. But his ability to make people fascinated with him and his paintings is just as much of an art, and that shouldn’t discredit him.

Photo by Luna Park

How and Nosm have a show opening this week with Jonathan Levine Gallery in NYC, but not at the gallery’s usual location. The duo’s Late Confessions show opens this Friday evening (7-9pm) at 557 W 23rd Street in Chelsea. Caroline and I stopped by the show over the weekend for a preview and were both very impressed. I’ll have to go back at some point to look at everything properly, but it seems to be some of the best work I’ve seen from How and Nosm to date.

Sometimes the extreme detail and intricate layering of complex visuals in How and Nosm’s artwork is a bit too much for me. I just can’t follow everything. In those cases, I feel like I’m seeing too much at once, and my brain just shuts down to the point where I see and understand nothing rather than at least part of the whole. I know that many people get a very different experience, and the qualities that I’m describing are exactly why they love How and Nosm’s work so much. Those fans need not worry. There’s plenty for them at Late Confessions. But for people like me who can reach a point of sensory overload with the complex pieces and long for something easier to follow, How and Nosm also have a good number of simpler-to-read works in the show. The artists took a risk with that decision. The simple works could have fallen flat and exposed a hollowness masked by the more complex works, but instead, I think the simpler works are some of the best paintings at Late Confessions. They are visually engaging on their own, and in a wider context, they helped me to better-understand the worlds that How and Nosm develop in their more chaotic paintings.

Late Confessions opens on February 1st from 7-9pm and runs through February 23rd at 557 W 23rd Street, New York City.

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Levine Gallery

From the great minds of The Heavy Projects and Public Ad Campaign, Re+Public has emerged as the collaborative effort to revision and “democratize” public space through the use of their Augmented Reality app. Two new videos have recently been released which show this technology in full effect: (above) the app reacts to preexisting murals by How & Nosm, Aiko, Retna, and Ryan McGinness at Miami’s Wynwood Walls by turning the murals into giant 3D animations, and (below) the app unveils the timeline of New York City’s Bowery and Houston wall, including the work of Keith Haring, Faile, Barry McGee, Aiko and others who have historically left their mark on the wall.

You can sign up to download the beta version of Re+Public’s Augmented Reality app on their website. Follow them on Facebook for updates.

Keith Haring’s wall depicted in place of How and Nosm’s wall at Houston and Bowery

How and Nosm

MOMO

Photos courtesy of Public Ad Campaign

Jade

It’s the weekend…

• This is not your average train-bombing video.
• Lois Stavsky interviews Stikman.
• Dennis McNett has an open studio this weekend, with some prints available at 25% off.
• Troy Lovegates has a new limited edition book available.
• Aiko, Ron English, Swoon, How & Nosm, Logan Hicks, Kenny Scharf, and Futura are showing work indoors at Wynwood Walls this week in Miami.
• Speaking of Miami, Brooklyn Street Art have a round up of great things to do and see in Miami this week.
• This work from Aakash Nihalani was done during Nuart earlier this fall, and I love it. It’s simple and site specific. Remember, always practice good placement. If you do that, you don’t have to paint 7 stories tall just to catch people’s attention.
• What Are You Doing To Participate looks like a great show of zines opening this week in LA with work from Mel Kadel, Matt Leines, Pez, and many more.
• Sickboy and Word To Mother have a show together in London next Thursday for one-night only.
• In Syria, street art and graffiti can get you killed.

Photo by Jade

Had a fantastic time in New York last weekend finishing up The Art of Comedy, but that meant missing out on a lot of news, so some of this week’s link-o-rama is a bit more dated than usual:

• The Wall Therapy mural project in Rochester, NY is working on a short documentary about this year’s event, and they’ve recently released a trailer for that film.
• Station 16 recently released Hanksy’s latest print.
• I absolutely love this collaboration in London between Stinkfish, Cranio, Aeon Fly, and Dscreet.
• Vitche’s latest mural in Sao Paulo has some interesting elements that pop off the wall a bit.
• If you’re a fan of Horfe, you’ve got to check out this video of the Peace And Love crew, of which Horfe is a member.
• How and Nosm are the latest artists to paint the wall at Bowery and Houston.
• KAWS has work on the outside of a NYC subway car, but not in the way you might be hoping, just the way you’d expect.
• Erica il Cane and Blu have collaborated once again, this time on a mural in Bari, Italy.
• Hell yes: Two trucks painted by Aryz.
• A zoo in Turin, Italy closed down. This is what happened when artists were given access.

Photo by Luna Park

Nychos

A very late link-o-rama, but hey, Sunday is still the weekend.

• Stained glass street art? It’s a thing now.
• Rowdy has a show coming up in a few days in Newcastle, UK.
• How and Nosm are the latest artists to paint at Bowery and Houston, and they have a new print out at Papermonster.
• Eyebeam and F.A.T. Lab are two awesome organizations combining art and technology, and now F.A.T. Lab have a show about to open at Eyebeam. One more reason I am excited to go to NYC this coming weekend. This show was postponed due to the Hurricane.
• You can see the full results of Bonham’s LA urban art auction here, but two highlights were this REVS/COST piece going for over $30,000 and Chaz Bojórquez’ classic Señor Suerte painting selling for $50,000.
• Bumblebee & Zio Ziegler painted this beautiful collaboration in LA. Kind of reminds me of Stinkfish.
• Horfe’s show in Paris looks top notch.
• There’s a huge (271 meters long) wall in Copenhagen available to paint. Submit a proposal here.
•  Interesni Kazki and Liqen are collaborating in Ukraine.
• Check out Lex and Sten’s recent solo show in Paris.
• Raisin is painting some really cool abstract and geometric pieces around France.
• Askew, Deus, and Ryze painted some steps in New Zealand. Great to see steps being used for art rather than ads.

Photo by Nychos

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.

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Ron English

In my second post about Nuart 2012 (part one here) I’ve finally got some finished pieces to show. While Nuart is known for the outdoor work that they organized, the artists probably spend just as much time, some of them more, on the indoor installation component of the festival. This year, work was installed in a series of old beer halls at Tou Scene, a venue in Stavanger that Nuart has used a few times. These aren’t all the installations that Nuart had this year, but here we have the finished installations by Eine, Jordan Seiler, Saber, Ron English, Aakash Nihalani, How and Nosm, and Sickboy. Thanks to Ian Cox for all of the great photos coming out of Nuart.

How and Nosm

Aakash Nihalani

Sickboy

Ben Eine and Jordan Seiler

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How or Nosm

Last week, I was in Stavanger, Norway for this year’s Nuart Festival. It was a blast, but I’ve been really slow about posting about it. I was at Nuart as part of the Nuart Plus conference, the lecture and panel discussion side of Nuart. Some of the other speakers included Tristan Manco, Carlo McCormick, Ron English and Evan Pricco. Hopefully soon, the video from Nuart Plus will be online, but in the mean time, I’m going to have to focus on the main part of the festival: The art.

Niels “Shoe” Meulman

Nuart is one of my favorite mural festivals, along with Living Walls and FAME, because they have consistently and for many years brought together the street art community to improve a city otherwise would not have all that much street art or graffiti (there are a handful of local writers and and street artists who should not be discredited, but Nuart’s work certainly dominates the city). The argument can be made that the annual street art invasion might be insensitive to local residents, but I’m a big fan of turning cities into temporary playgrounds when art gets left behind.

Aakash Nihalani

In this first of probably 3-4 posts about this year’s Nuart, there are just images of the set up and the work in progress. While Nuart leaves Stavanger with great new murals and installations every year, one of the great things about Nuart (and many mural festivals) is what happens between the artists and the festival staff behind the scenes. Every evening, there were group dinners at Food Story, and usually some light drinking followed. In this way, Nuart ends up facilitating conversations and friendships that go beyond the festival and may carry over into future work.

Ron English

There are two components to the art production side of Nuart: Indoor installations and outdoor installations (mostly, but not entirely, murals). This year’s Nuart artists were: The Wa, Aakash Nihilani, Eine, How and Nosm, Ron English, Mobstr, Niels “Shoe” Meulman, Saber, Dolk, Jordan Seiler, and Sickboy. A very solid line up with a few heavy hitters and a few talented but underrated guys.

The indoor installations were in the old beer halls of Tou Scene, a venue that Nuart has used a few times before. Tou Scene is a great space for Nuart’s installations, because the beer halls are basically these big beautiful archways like the arches that the London galleries Black Rat Projects and Arch 402 are in. The outdoor installations take place all across the city.

There was some amazing work made this year, with highlights being a murals by Ron English and Shoe, and the indoor installation by How and Nosm. Expect many more photos over the next week or two.

Sickboy

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